Scarred

A model’s face is her fortune. So when Australian beauty Robyn Lawley suffered a horrific fall during a seizure that left her appearance permanently changed, it required a rethink of her future.

TWO MONTHS AGO, I was at my new home in upstate New York. I had been dealing with moving for the past few months, from LA back to New York, shifting furniture and unpacking, and all the exhausting fun that comes with relocating. I was overtired but happy. My personal things were scattered between the moving truck, the rental house and our new house, and in the chaos, I hadn’t realised that I had forgotten to take my medication for a few days. I was with my partner, Everest, and my three-year-old daughter, Ripley. Everest and I had scheduled our first date in what seemed like years: we were going to a music festival. We’d hired a babysitter; it was going to be perfect.

I remember the start of the staircase and then waking up to my daughter next to me on the floor. I’d had a seizure and fallen from more than seven feet onto hard tile, landing on my face.

I don’t remember falling. I do remember my partner telling me everything would be OK. I remember the stretcher and the ambulance in flashes (including the paramedics cutting my favourite Johnny Cash T-shirt off and me, hilariously, begging them not to when I was bleeding from my head and chin, and missing a tooth.) I don’t remember the initial pain. I think your body puts you into survival mode and shields your memory from pain like that. My partner and daughter had to endure more having to witness it; it must have been awful. I’m so grateful Everest was there. That would have been one hell of a situation to wake up alone to.