06 February 2023 , 21:12
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A model who lost her top lip in a savage dog attack has shared her transformation after having six cosmetic surgeries to reconstruct her smile.
Brooklinn Khoury, 23, was making a name for herself as a model online and was booked to appear in a TV advert the day after the horrific attack took place in November 2020.
The social media star had been out with her cousin and her pitbull Diesel before returning home.
But once there her pet lunged at her and sunk his teeth into her face and was "hanging off her mouth", she claims.
Harrowing images from after the attack show her with no top lip and she claims she still finds them difficult to look at.
Girl, 4, mauled to death in dog attack pictured as neighbours hear mum's screams
In an interview with Inside Edition, she recalled: "You could see the fear in my eyes, ‘Oh my God, that’s what I look like'. How do you fix this?
Brooklinn spent a year looking for a doctor who could help her (AFF-USA/REX/Shutterstock)"How do you fix this?’ I didn’t realise he had taken off my whole lip."
It has been two years since the incident. It took over a year to find a doctor who was willing to help her.
But now Brooklinn has undergone six surgeries, some of which lasted 20 hours, to give her a new top lip.
Dr. Nicholas Do took skin and nerves from her arm, building a new fully functional upper lip but said: "In plastic surgery, we can’t exactly recreate what was missing but if we can mimic it enough, it should almost be indistinguishable to the general public."
Brooklinn pictured at a movie premiere in LA (FilmMagic)
A profile view of Brooklinn's nose and upper lip during her surgery journey (@brookhoury/Instagram)She looks unrecognisable - even to herself as she said: "Just having to look at myself in the mirror and having to tell myself and believe that what I am seeing is not the final product and loving myself regardless of how I look just from the inside out.
"I think if you were to tell me a year ago today that I would look the way that I do, I wouldn’t believe you."
However, her journey isn't over yet as she still has another surgery to undergo this month.