Some scars can’t be hidden.
It’s why Dr. Olga Denysiuk is coming to Canada from the Ukraine war zone to learn more about saving and rebuilding smashed and damaged eyes.
“I’m doing everything I can to save their eyesight, to save their face,” Denysiuk said in a recent interview from her home in Kyiv.
“You can hide the scars under clothing. You can have a prosthesis for your leg or your arm. But the face stays there, and (patients) feel very insecure about it.”
Denysiuk, 36, is an eye surgeon, working to save the lives of soldiers and civilians in Ukraine after it was invaded more than two years ago by Russia.
She regularly travels close to the front lines of the war to treat patients.
“The trauma is sometimes excruciating,” she said.
“When you’re in a surgery room and you’re doing it like a robot, and then you’re seeing those people …missing their arms and legs, it’s difficult.
“I’m fighting my war in the operating room.”
Ukraine is doubly …