A young woman was left with facial paralysis after surgery to remove a tumor “went wrong.”

Ella Tyman — a student from Liverpool, England — was just 18 when she woke up in March 2023 with puffy and swollen eyes. Assuming she had an infection, she visited a walk-in clinic. While being examined, a doctor noticed a lump in her neck.

“I was a bit worried about my eye infection but I left with a whole new worry about the lump,” she told Southwest News Service (SWNS) in an interview published on Wednesday, Aug. 19. “I’m lucky he noticed it though, I hadn’t.”

Tyman was immediately referred to a local hospital due to concerns about the lump. Over the next five months, she underwent two CT scans, an ultrasound, an MRI and two biopsies.

In August 2023, she received the results of her biopsy and was diagnosed with parotid gland cancer — a rare tumor that develops on the largest salivary gland located just in front of the ear.

“Looking back it was scary, but at the time I just thought, ‘It’ll be okay, they’ll sort it.’ I just planned for university and my future and then it all went wrong,” she recalled, per SWNS.

Tyman underwent surgery to remove the tumor in September 2023. The procedure was expected to take about 45 minutes and only require a short recovery time.

“Having a cancer diagnosis was scary, but we were all expecting it to be a simple procedure and about a week to recover, so I was feeling okay,” she said.

However, during the surgery doctors discovered that the tumor had doubled in size and was now wrapped around her nerves, making it more complicated to remove.

Surgeons had to cut some of her facial nerves in order to remove the cancer, and she woke up to the left side of her face paralyzed.

“It was frightening,” Tyman admitted. “When I woke up I knew straight away. I could feel that my face wasn’t working. My face felt really odd and I could see in everyone’s faces that something really bad had happened while I’d been under the anesthetic.”

“I felt like my life was over in that moment; it was heartbreaking,” she continued. “I really felt for the surgeon too; she was really upset.”

Despite daily face exercises, regular Botox treatments and more surgery, Tyman has since only been able to regain 10% of movement in her face. With her face drooping on the left side, she said it took four months before she was even able to look at herself in the mirror or put makeup on.

“I signed the form about risks, but I didn’t think much about it. I just wanted the tumor out,” she said. “I hated the way I looked, and I worried so much about what people might say to me.”

However, she said, “I’m just so happy and grateful that she got the cancer out.”

In November 2023, Tyman underwent 33 rounds of proton therapy to eliminate remaining cancer cells, and she was declared cancer-free in January 2024.

“Proton therapy made me really ill, but I was cancer-free after that,” she told the outlet. “It felt like a weight lifted, and I was able to make a fresh start and start going out again.”

While finishing up her treatment, Tyman was able to enroll in classes at the University of Salford to pursue a degree in TV and radio studies.

“It was so scary meeting everyone. I was feeling very fragile,” she said. “It was horrible, but I would have felt worse if I’d kept sitting at home doing nothing.”