Surgeons will remove Guðmundur Felix’s nose after cancer diagnosis

Guðmundur Felix Grétarsson is travelling to France for surgery to remove cancer from his nose, mbl.is reports. The operation is scheduled for tomorrow in Amiens, Normandy.

Guðmundur said in a video posted on Instagram that tests showed the cancer was confined to his nose and could be removed through surgery. However, doctors will need to remove his entire nose.

He said waiting for the results on the severity of the cancer had been among the most difficult weeks he could remember in recent years. He had feared that the cancer had spread to his brain and that he would die from it after everything he had gone through following his arm transplant and rehabilitation.

Guðmundur lost both arms in an accident in 1998. In 2021, he underwent a double arm transplant in Lyon, France. The operation was described as a milestone in medical history because two complete arms had never previously been transplanted into a patient who had none.

He said the team involved in his arm transplant had connected him with some of the world’s leading facial reconstructive surgeons. They would try to remove the cancer while leaving enough tissue to allow his nose to be reconstructed.

The reconstruction will be a complex process requiring several operations. Joking about the lengthy treatment, Guðmundur said he felt like the Sagrada Familia, with construction always under way but the building never quite finished.

At the end of the video, he expressed his gratitude and said he was fortunate to have the option of removing the cancer completely and access to the surgeons treating him.