Jacqui was scheduled to start to have plastic surgery in April 2006, but her circumstances at work changed and she decided to put it on hold while she changed job.
The new date for her to begin the plastic surgery is April 2007. It will involve the insertion of two inflatable bladders that will force the skin of her forehead to expand.
In the mean time she has had a couple of laser procedures to reduce the discolouration left in the scars by her trip through the dust of the tarmac on the road. She has needed two treatments because the laser affects a small circular area which cannot be overlapped, so inevitably, there are little gaps which require the second treatment. The laser sends a powerful beam of red light into the skin, the debris, being darker, absorbs more of the beam than the surrounding tissue and explodes into extremely fine powder which the body then purges over the course of the next six weeks or so.
The treatment itself feels a bit like being pinged in the face by an elastic band. She took some paracetamol to prepare herself. An ointment, Polyfax, is applied after the treatment to aid healing and prevent the formation of scabs. The result looks dreadful and you can see why she took the next day off from work. Within a few days, the treated areas will heal up and the swelling goes away. The first treatment was quite extensive, these photos show the second session.
She didn't feel that she was very photogenic and needed some more persuading to
pose for the camera.
They prepared her face by drawing blue lines around the target areas before they
began.