It’s been a long road to recovery for Turia Pitt, who in 2011 suffered burns to 65 percent to her body, and unfortunately for the 35-year-old, the journey isn’t over yet.
Showing her incredible optimism and courageous spirit, Turia has divulged on her “life-changing” surgery which helped her breathe more easily through her nostrils.
The accident was in 2011.
(Image: Instagram)After more than 200 medical procedures, Turia was still having trouble breathing because of the shape of her nose but she also wanted it to “look better.”
“I’m not sure whether that desire is something that I want, or if it’s something thrust onto me by society – the same desire that’s thrust on to you too, I imagine,” she said on Instagram.
“It’s frustrating because I spend most of my days teaching women how to run, and talking about running, and both of those things – talking and running – require breath.”
On her podcast, Turia Pitt’s Pep Talk she revealed: “The process of getting my nose fixed is demoralising.”
But after 12 years, Turia heard back from a surgeon based in Baltimore USA and decided to give it “one more shot.”
Turia is the mother to two beautiful boys.
(Image: Instagram)“I’m a persistent person, but this cycle of building hope, and having it smashed down over and over again, has been hard,” she said on Instagram.
The young mum revealed even talking would make her run out of breath. But after the surgery, Turia cried as she felt more “symmetrical”, could breathe through her nostrils which she believed helped her “voice quality.”
This has been a long time coming for Turia after having her second nose reconstruction back in 2018. She first had her nose rebuilt in 2015, which dramatically ended when she went into cardiac arrest.
“Just a little shout out for my nose,” she introduced the photo of herself with a patched-up nose on Instagram.
“I’m currently recovering from a surgery where doctors reconstructed this bad boy. I won’t go into too much detail, because the gore factor is high, but basically the doctors took cartilage from my ear and used it to re-shape my nose. Amazing, huh?!”
“I choose to keep having surgeries like this because I believe life is all about continual improvement. And, whatever you do in life, you can’t improve without doing the work. For me ‘doing the work’ means accepting that I’m going to be in a bit of pain, recognising that I’m not going to be able to do the things I enjoy for a while (running/surfing/being active), taking time off from work and other projects, and trusting the process,” she explained.
In 2011, Turia survived a horrific brush with death, which saw her suffer burns to 65 per cent of her body, lose several fingers and spend a gruelling five months in hospital after she was trapped in a grassfire during a 100 kilometre ultra-marathon in the Kimberleys.
Despite such adversity, the Aussie has one of the most optimistic attitudes you’ll ever come across.
At just 35 years old, Turia has ran ultramarathons, was awarded the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year in 2014, continues to raise money for burn victims in developing countries.
She has only become busier after welcoming two boys, Hakavai and Rahiti with partner Michael Hoskins.
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