QuoteOn a March day in 2008, 24-year-old Katie Piper opened the door of her London flat, and stepped out on to the busy street. The horrifying attack that followed would change her life forever. Her spurned ex-boyfriend, marital arts expert Daniel Lynch, now 35, had arranged for Stefan Sylvestre, now 22, to throw acid in her face.
Half-blinded, her beautiful features almost totally destroyed, it would have been easy for the bubbly model and TV presenter, now 28, to retreat from the world.
But Katie fought back. With her assailants now serving life sentences for their crime, three years and more than 100 operations have given Katie her smile back. Last year, she was one of the finalists in the Mail's Inspirational Women of the Year awards. Now, she reveals her diary of her painful road to recovery and how she's putting the past behind her.
CHRISTMAS 2007
I was 24 and enjoying fun, carefree, days with my five flatmates in Golders Green, London. Every Christmas, before we all went our separate ways to our family homes (mine was Hampshire) for Christmas, we always organised a house 'do'.
This year, I posed for pictures next to our tree, decorated with baubles from Poundland. I was making a living doing various TV presenting and modelling jobs back then. Like all young girls, my looks were important to me and I loved dressing up, looking pretty and getting compliments.
MAY 2008
Less than six months later, so much had changed. After the attack and the pioneering surgery of Mr Mohammad Jawad and his team to rebuild my face, I spent seven weeks at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital before returning to my parents' home. I didn't know then that over the next three years I'd undergo a staggering 112 surgical procedures.
My mum, dad, brother Paul and sister Suzy were my rocks, smothering me with love as they supported me each day through hours of painful physiotherapy. It was my psychologist who recommended I keep a picture diary to chart my progress through the months and years ahead. Maybe she hoped that by doing that, the improvements — however small — would spur me on.

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But in those days, all I could think was how lucky I was to even be alive. Friends and family were always reminding me it was early days, yet seeing myself in the mirror for the first time, with my nose and eyelids burned away, my chest and neck melted like candle wax, was the hardest to accept.


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