TERRIFIED Kellie Maloney feared her head was “going to explode” after a horrifying cosmetic surgery ordeal left her bleeding from the eyes and moments from death.
The former boxing promoter , 61, today reveals her mortifying injuries, which she says made her look “like Frankenstein’s monster” and landed her fighting for life in intensive care.
Transsexual Kellie, who had gone under the knife to make her face more feminine, said: “I was bleeding out of my eyes and I was in unimaginable pain.
“Then I just felt my head inflating like a balloon. It was getting bigger and bigger by the second, I could hardly see. I feared it was going to explode.”
The heavy internal bleeding – from a shocking reaction to the surgery at a clinic in Belgium two weeks ago – caused her head to swell to twice its size and almost stopped her breathing. Doctors spent 10 hours fighting to save her.
Kellie, who has three children, spent four days unconscious in intensive care, breathing only with the aid of specialist equipment, while medics carried out round-the-clock checks.
Speaking for the first time about the terrifying aftermath, she said: “When I looked at my face in the mirror after the surgery to save me I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I saw my reflection and I just cried my eyes out.
“I thought I would never again pass as a woman or be able to go out in public. I was grotesquely swollen. I was black and blue and had drainage tubes coming out of my head. I had become a monster like Frankenstein’s.”
In an emotional interview as she recovers at a family home in Kent, she admitted she is haunted by fears of how her face will look, after a child was left in tears at seeing her “hideous” swollen head.
Covered in bruises and still using a tube to remove excess bleeding from her brain and face, she said: “I am so angry with myself for attempting to do something as radical as I had wanted.
“But it is every transsexual’s dream to leave home one day without anyone even thinking for a second that you could have once been a man.
“The night I saw myself in the mirror after surgery was the longest of my life.
“I remember opening the window and staring down into the street, just wanting to prove to myself that I was still alive. I was devastated.”
Fighting back tears, she added: “It was as if I had gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson in his pomp and another 10 with Lennox Lewis for good measure.”
Kellie had already had hormone therapy, hair removal electrolysis, counselling and voice coaching when she went into surgery on November 4.
Doctors now believe Aspirin tablets taken to thin her blood following a previous heart attack prevented her wounds healing and triggered major complications and internal haemorrhaging.
They say she faces months of check-ups following the intense trauma and warned against further cosmetic surgery as her blood contains dangerously low levels of platelets – cells that help blood to clot.
Kellie says she scoured the world before turning to a world-renowned surgeon in Antwerp to carry out the major facial surgery. She had planned to have a long list of work on her face to give her a softer, more womanly profile.
In lengthy consultations she arranged to undergo thinning of the bone in her nose, plumping of her cheeks, a top and bottom eyelid lift and a full facial lift. She said: “I had undergone cosmetic surgery in Spain two years ago and that had been fine.
“Yet this time I wanted far more done to myself and in hindsight it was too much. But my doctor was happy so I was happy.
“We travelled to Antwerp in the car and I took my two dogs and daughter Emma with me.
“The day before the operation I had another consultation with the surgeon at his home.
“There he told me the venue for the surgery had changed. When we arrived there the next morning for the 7.30am start it was much smaller and obviously a day centre. Unlike the previous surgery I was walked into the theatre not wheeled in like the time before.
“One of the last things I remember before the general anaesthetic kicked in was seeing pictures of myself on the walls as my face was then and how it should look after the operation.”
But just hours after coming round from the seven-hour surgery, Kellie’s head ballooned. She said: “That night after the operation I spoke to my daughter Emma on the phone. She was at the apartment we were renting in Antwerp and I told her I was in an enormous amount of pain.
“She said she had called several times for updates about how the surgery had gone but that she could not get through to anyone. During the night I cried out for a drink but I only heard a voice tell me to be quiet and go to sleep.
“I thought it was a nurse, but now we think it was just staff at the day clinic and that they were not used to having people stay overnight.
“The following morning Emma came in and was in complete shock. She could not believe how I looked but assured herself it could be normal due to the amount of work I had done.”
Kellie was dismissed while still bleeding heavily from her eyes. She was handed a carrier bag of painkillers and surgical cleaning solution. Hours later she was barely able to speak or breathe.
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Distraught Kellie, who has spent nearly two years undergoing a transition to become a woman, was rushed straight to theatre by hospital medics concerned at the incredible rate of her swelling. She said: “We returned to the surgeon and he immediately said I needed to get to hospital to be drained. As they wheeled me out to the car to take me there a little boy walking down the street with his parents burst into tears at the sight of me. I was hideous and struggling more by the second.”
For nearly 10 hours specialist medics in Belgium battled to keep Kellie alive while distraught Emma feared she was about to lose her.
Kellie said: “A doctor at the hospital said they had to operate on me immediately as they feared I could have died. What they had to do was life-saving. I am eternally grateful to them for that.
“I am lucky they acted as quickly as they did – it kept me alive. It was a terrifying thing to go through.” Kellie spent the days that followed sedated in intensive care with several tubes draining excess blood and fluids from her head after enduring a string of high-risk procedures.
Finally she was allowed out of hospital, where all she had been able to eat was ice cream, and eventually able to return home to the UK.
Before coming out as transgender, Kellie – who split from ex-wife Tracey – was known as Frank Maloney, the promoter who took Lennox Lewis to become the World Heavyweight Champion.
In August she shocked the macho boxing industry by announcing in the Sunday Mirror her decision to live as a woman.
Kellie still hopes to look more feminine after the bruises heal. This week she sought advice in the UK about her face and will see experts regularly in the next few weeks.
She said: “I had serious consultations before the cosmetic surgery and had been for a full medical in Harley Street to test my blood and carry out an ECG. I was given the all clear to go ahead.
“After taking advice I used the Belgium surgeon who was highly recommended.
“I had no negative effects from the last bout of surgery and, like all transsexuals, I just so desperately want to correct what was wrong with me at birth.
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“I previously had my Adam’s apple removed and had work done on my nose. I’m guilty of vanity and searching for perfection, but I am not sure I will have more work done.
“Due to taking Aspirin, I’ve lost platelets.” She added: “More advice should be given to the transgender community about the possible dangers of cosmetic surgery as they could take off abroad to have it done where it may be cheaper, but could be more dangerous.
“I am one of the lucky ones because I have a good support network around me and enough money to check it out. Some people are not as lucky.”
Ahead of her latest surgery, Kellie told Lorraine Kelly on TV: “I was always concerned about my chin but they tell me it’s within the female parameters. The gender doctor can do the full operation, hopefully, and breasts in January.”
She added: “The operation will be the final piece of the jigsaw, then I can start living properly.”
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