I CAN'T WAIT FOR SUMMER!

Annetjie's about to get effective treatment for the skin condition that has blighted her life and she's looking forward to hitting the shops and facing the world

- JACO HOUGH-COETZEE

HER high school years were nothing short of a nightmare. Kids would ask if she had leprosy, wonder why her sister had beautiful skin when she was “so hideous” and always gave her a wide berth.

The lesions on her face that had always plagued Annetjie de Wit worsened when she was a teenager and the taunting and stares made her life a misery.

“It hurt. A lot,” she says. “Children don’t have filters.”

Annetjie has a debilitating genetic skin condition called neurofibromatosis that causes non-cancerous tumours along the nerves in her skin.

As a teen, she kept to herself, her days filled with pain and loneliness.

“I didn’t really have friends,” Annetjie (59) says. “I so badly wanted someone to tell me I was beautiful. Or that they liked me. Or that there was a boy who wanted to kiss me, like the other girls. But who would want to kiss me?”

At the time doctors said her skin problems were caused by issues with her kidneys.

“I was on many different medications, but nothing helped. My mom spent a fortune on beauty products to hide the lesions, but they didn’t really help either. So I accepted it and thought there was nothing we could really do about it.”

Things haven’t been easy as an adult for her either. Strangers gawk at her and for years she avoided going out.

“I became a recluse because it wasn’t pleasant to go out, not even to the shops. Do you know how it feels when people stare at you? It’s not nice, man. Not at all.”

When YOU meets her and her sister Fransien Niemand (65), Annetjie’s face is swollen and blood red but she’s beaming broadly.

Soon, she tells us, she’ll be pretty. “Well, about 80% prettier,” Fransien teases.

Annetjie’s new look will be shared with the country as she undergoes cosmetic and dental procedures in the VIA reality series Dr. Nou!