Katie: My Beautiful Friends

22 March 2011

"I feel a lot of the time I should be at the bottom of the heap," says Adele. "I seriously hope the scars don't make a difference, but a lot of the time I think they do."

And as Katie gets to know Adele, she sees the young performer gain in confidence, winning a part in a play going to Edinburgh.

Twenty-three-year-old Chantelle was born with a rare condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which means that a group of blood vessels are growing out of control deep in her nose, leaving her disfigured and threatening her life.

Chantelle's treatment is making her look worse before plastic surgery can eventually make her look better and the situation is putting a strain on her marriage to Brett, an RAF fireman.

"Since we've found about how aggressive the AVM was I've not been able to do anything physically that will get my blood pumping."

She feels trapped in their home, but hopes that the treatment will allow her to start living life again.

"With everything that's going on with all the operations I don't have a life at all, I don't do anything, I don't leave the house," says Chantelle. "It's like a cocoon and then when everything is done I'm going to come out like a butterfly and have loads of new clothes, new shoes, new things, just a new life. Get rid of the old me and start with a new me. I want to experience things and travel the world."

Chantelle has been bullied for looking different all her life. She had a facial birthmark that spread across the centre of her face and it wasn't until she was 14 that doctors diagnosed her condition as potentially life-threatening.

"High school was an absolute nightmare," says Chantelle. "I think I'd rather die than go back. I'd stand in the corridor waiting for class and everyone would be walking past and saying things like 'Rudolf' and 'Big Nose'. I had people threatening me, groups of girls circling and saying things. I just kept my head down."

Chantelle tells Katie about how she was recently insulted and punched in the face by a girl who was drunk. The girl was arrested, but it has knocked back Chantelle's confidence even further.

Radical new surgery could save her face, but she could lose her whole nose as a result.

Meanwhile Katie is in Istanbul for the most significant surgery since her face was grafted two years ago. Mr Jawad, the plastic surgeon who treated her when she was first admitted to Chelsea and Westminster Burns Unit, has brought Katie to see Professor Erol for fat injections under her skin. They hope to replace the fat that was burned away by the acid, which will not only improve the contours of her skin but might mean she will be able to properly close her eyes for the first time since the attack.

Back in England, as the launch of her charity looms, Katie is frantically sorting out last-minute arrangements. And she receives bad news about the man who organised the attack on her: he is appealing against the life sentence he received.

Episode 1

In the first programme of the series, Katie meets two young women who have experienced very different forms of disfigurement, one through a life-threatening condition, the other through a terrible accident.

Five years ago Adele, a ballet student, suffered an epileptic fit in the shower, knocking the tap as she fell, and was left with burns across nearly half her upper body. She was found by her mum, Denise.

Rushed into a specialist burns unit in Chelmsford, she received emergency and reconstructive treatment in the intensive care unit. Now 19, Adele decided that the physical perfection demanded by the ballet world meant her dreams of dancing for a living were over.

Episode 2

In the second programme of the series Katie's charity is about to launch and Simon Cowell has agreed to be the patron. The pressure is on Katie to get the launch right.

At Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, she meets Will, who at 16 years old is struggling to come to terms with 40% burns he received after a barbecue got out of control. He was on the critical list for two weeks, has already had four skin grafts and is facing months of intensive physiotherapy to regain full use of his arm.

But he's finding it hard to cope with the way he looks and the restrictions his injuries place upon him. And he's refusing to wear the pressure suit that will help to reduce his scarring.

Will's mum, Debbie, hopes that Katie can help: "He's scaring me now because if he doesn't do what he should do - all his physio and cream - he's going to end up disabled. 

"He doesn't wear his pressure suit because it's like admitting that it's happened. I do believe Will is still in denial, he's trying to think that, if he goes back to acting how he used to be before, it'll all go away; but it won't."

They are feelings that Katie knows only too well and she hopes she can reassure him that things can get better if he sticks with it.

Katie also meets 24-year-old Emily, who got in touch from Dublin. Emily suffered 70% burns in a house fire when she was just seven and wants to warn Katie that life with scars is not as easy as she may think. 

Since graduating with a law degree she has been unable to get a job, despite hundreds of applications, and believes that people's inability to get past her disfigurement is a major issue.

Their first meeting is tough, but it proves to be the start of an important friendship.

Emily doesn't mince her words about what has happened to her and admits that she wouldn't want to live through her experiences again. She thinks that other people have the problem, not her.

"I shouldn't have to make excuses for other people," says Emily. "You have to become a tougher person - you just have to make sure it doesn't make you not a nice person - but it does totally toughen you up."

Meanwhile Katie goes on a date with a man she met on a night out. But she's worried.

"It sounds a really big-headed thing to say but it's just being truthful, if I went on dates before I would go feeling like well they're going to fancy me," she says. "So now it's such a new feeling the way I go to meet people the mixture of really excited on a high and absolute dread - I'm making a fool of myself embarrassing that I'd think he'd fancy me anyway."

And as she prepares to launch the Katie Piper Foundation, with Simon Cowell as the patron, Katie's parents are proud of what she's achieved.

"A year ago I never would have thought this possible, two years ago definitely impossible," says mum Diane. "Two years ago I thought we would have her living at home forever and she would become a recluse." 

But can Katie overcome her fears to take centre stage at the charity launch?

Episode 3

In the third programme of the series, Katie seeks out people who, unlike her, were born with their disfigurements.

Twenty one-year-old Amit was born with Neurofibromatosis, which has disfigured one side of his face, as well as giving him curvature of the spine.

Amit lives with his family in Birmingham.  It's a supportive environment where his disfigurement isn't an issue: "What's great is that everyone who surrounds me doesn't make my appearance an issue at all," says Amit.  "And because they don't make it an issue at all, they don't mention it, it's almost non-existent until I go out to a new place."

"When I'm alone and I see a group of people I feel uncomfortable, I just tend to look down," he says.  "My first concern for university is the first day, how people see me."

Katie encourages Amit to project confidence even if he's not feeling it.  The pair strike up a great friendship and, emboldened by Katie's advice, Amit throws himself into university life and finds that people are far more open and understanding than he'd feared.

"I wanted to get into teaching and I was thinking about how students would perceive me in a classroom, would they take me seriously," he says.  "And starting university and seeing people totally cool about it has made me think maybe it's not as bad as I think it is."

Amit's facing major surgery on the curvature of his spine that could leave him in a wheelchair.  It's a decision he would have discussed with his father, but is now having to face alone: "I'm really surprised I don't cry sometimes," he says.  "I ask myself ‘Why does all this happen?  Why is it always me?'"

Katie is facing more surgery too.  Ever since the acid attack burned off her eyelids, Katie has been unable to shut her eyes properly.  She has surgery to try and improve her eye function, but the post-op bandages leave her temporarily blind and vulnerable again.  With her parents' support she struggles to deal with this painful reminder of her time in intensive care.

But Katie has found meeting other disfigured people has made her more positive about her own experience:  "There is a part of me that wishes it had never happened, that I had that face back," she says.  "But I've met some really great people.  I would probably have had nothing in common with them before, whereas now that part of my life joins me to them."

Katie also meets Andrew, who inherited Treacher Collins syndrome, which leads to malformation of the facial bone structure and, in his case, deafness. Andrew tells Katie that since his school days, other people's assumptions have limited his horizons.

"A lot of the children, because I looked different, they thought I must be stupid," he says.  "They were constantly trying to find a way to make you believe that you're not as clever as you are.  Part of me decided there might be some truth in that."

Episode 4

In the final programme of the series, Katie has gained the confidence to move out of her parents' home and into her own place. It's a huge step forward: after her attack, it took Katie a year to even venture out to the corner shop. The fear of negative reactions to her disfigurement is an experience that 22-year-old Kayleigh knows only too well.

Born with Pfeiffer's syndrome, Kayleigh's bones fused as they grew and, despite surgery, the condition has affected the shape of her head and face.  Throughout her childhood Kayleigh suffered from taunts and bullying, and as a result she now hides away from other people, a virtual prisoner in her own flat.

"I had a tough childhood, putting up with people's comments: ‘You look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame', ‘Monster', ‘You're ugly' - I used to get that one a lot.  Every time someone makes a comment it chips away at my confidence.  I don't need somebody else to tell me what's wrong with me, I look in the mirror every day, I see what's wrong.

"One woman said ‘She shouldn't come out like that if she doesn't want to be stared at.  If I want to stare at her, I will'.  And I didn't want to put myself through that again," says Kayleigh.

But now, she wants life to be different, and has enlisted Katie to help her.

"It's sad because, physically, you could be living a normal life," says Katie.  "But you can't because of the way you've been made to feel.  It's your street, your park, your shops, as well as everyone else's, you should be able to walk around and do what you want."

Katie has a strategy based on her own experience. She shows Kayleigh that not only does she have the right to do what she wants, she has the strength as well.   But self-acceptance can be harder than finding the acceptance of others. 

George is a father of two who is facing a terrible dilemma. At the age of nine he was diagnosed with a hereditary condition that has left him facially disfigured. He now needs a another operation to try and cut out a cancer, but the operation that could save his life will disfigure him even further, and he's not sure he can endure any more unkind comments or stares from strangers.

"It's a tricky thing to let someone take your face off and you're not going to know what you're left with until you come round," says George.  "I'm putting my life at risk, but it's this operation, I just can't comprehend having it done.  I've had enough."

To add to his quandary, George knows what this could mean for his life because the same disease has ravaged his father's face, leaving him without a nose, lip and part of his palate.

After one year of deliberating, will George finally find the courage to consent to the operation?

Meanwhile Katie re-visits Chantelle - a young woman whose life was on hold while she waited for surgery to remove a life-threatening cluster of blood vessels in her nose. The strain of the situation caused her marriage to breakdown.

Three months after her life-saving operation, Katie returns to Rochdale to find out if surgery has transformed Chantelle's life and whether she has been able to save her marriage.

Finally, one year after she had the idea to try and build a support network for those living with disfigurement, Katie is throwing a party for all the people who've agreed to be ambassadors for her foundation. With the charity's trustees looking on, it's a momentous day for Katie and her beautiful new friends.

"It's amazing to be able to stand here today with people who feel part of something.  None of us are the odd one out in the room," says Katie.  "Disfigurement has defined me in a positive way and I'm proud to be disfigured.  Instead of breaking me it's made me everything I am and everything that makes me happy."

Katie: My Beautiful Friends. Tue 22 Mar, 9pm, Channel 4

A new four-part documentary series follows Katie Piper's progress after a horrific acid attack destroyed her face two years ago.

Millions were moved by the 2009 Cutting Edge film Katie: My Beautiful Face , which showed her extraordinary determination to overcome the physical and emotional damage wrought by the attack. Since the film was broadcast, Katie has received an incredible response from people offering their support, including many also living with disfigurement.

The series follows her over a year as, inspired on to a new phase of recovery, Katie sets up a charity to help others living with disfigurement. Meanwhile, she continues the gruelling treatment still necessary two years after the attack and, despite setbacks, puts together the building blocks of her new life.

She also wants to offer a support network to other people facing similar issues and is meeting people with a range of disfigurements, hoping to build a network of mentors to spur others on as she was a year ago.

"There are a lot of people that need a support network," says Katie. "Sometimes you can draw strength from other people - nobody can be strong all the time. It would be nice just to text somebody and tell them how you're feeling and ask them how they are."

Katie finds people walking a variety of paths, some similar to her own, some very different, but all having to deal with a world that turns away from disfigurement. With candid humour, they ask each other the difficult questions no one else can about how to get the best out of life when others can't get past how they look.

"I feel a lot of the time I should be at the bottom of the heap," says Adele. "I seriously hope the scars don't make a difference, but a lot of the time I think they do."

And as Katie gets to know Adele, she sees the young performer gain in confidence, winning a part in a play going to Edinburgh.

Twenty-three-year-old Chantelle was born with a rare condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which means that a group of blood vessels are growing out of control deep in her nose, leaving her disfigured and threatening her life.

Chantelle's treatment is making her look worse before plastic surgery can eventually make her look better and the situation is putting a strain on her marriage to Brett, an RAF fireman.

"Since we've found about how aggressive the AVM was I've not been able to do anything physically that will get my blood pumping."

She feels trapped in their home, but hopes that the treatment will allow her to start living life again.

"With everything that's going on with all the operations I don't have a life at all, I don't do anything, I don't leave the house," says Chantelle. "It's like a cocoon and then when everything is done I'm going to come out like a butterfly and have loads of new clothes, new shoes, new things, just a new life. Get rid of the old me and start with a new me. I want to experience things and travel the world."

Chantelle has been bullied for looking different all her life. She had a facial birthmark that spread across the centre of her face and it wasn't until she was 14 that doctors diagnosed her condition as potentially life-threatening.

"High school was an absolute nightmare," says Chantelle. "I think I'd rather die than go back. I'd stand in the corridor waiting for class and everyone would be walking past and saying things like 'Rudolf' and 'Big Nose'. I had people threatening me, groups of girls circling and saying things. I just kept my head down."

Chantelle tells Katie about how she was recently insulted and punched in the face by a girl who was drunk. The girl was arrested, but it has knocked back Chantelle's confidence even further.

Radical new surgery could save her face, but she could lose her whole nose as a result.

Meanwhile Katie is in Istanbul for the most significant surgery since her face was grafted two years ago. Mr Jawad, the plastic surgeon who treated her when she was first admitted to Chelsea and Westminster Burns Unit, has brought Katie to see Professor Erol for fat injections under her skin. They hope to replace the fat that was burned away by the acid, which will not only improve the contours of her skin but might mean she will be able to properly close her eyes for the first time since the attack.

Back in England, as the launch of her charity looms, Katie is frantically sorting out last-minute arrangements. And she receives bad news about the man who organised the attack on her: he is appealing against the life sentence he received.

Episode 1

In the first programme of the series, Katie meets two young women who have experienced very different forms of disfigurement, one through a life-threatening condition, the other through a terrible accident.

Five years ago Adele, a ballet student, suffered an epileptic fit in the shower, knocking the tap as she fell, and was left with burns across nearly half her upper body. She was found by her mum, Denise.

Rushed into a specialist burns unit in Chelmsford, she received emergency and reconstructive treatment in the intensive care unit. Now 19, Adele decided that the physical perfection demanded by the ballet world meant her dreams of dancing for a living were over.

Episode 2

In the second programme of the series Katie's charity is about to launch and Simon Cowell has agreed to be the patron. The pressure is on Katie to get the launch right.

At Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, she meets Will, who at 16 years old is struggling to come to terms with 40% burns he received after a barbecue got out of control. He was on the critical list for two weeks, has already had four skin grafts and is facing months of intensive physiotherapy to regain full use of his arm.

But he's finding it hard to cope with the way he looks and the restrictions his injuries place upon him. And he's refusing to wear the pressure suit that will help to reduce his scarring.

Will's mum, Debbie, hopes that Katie can help: "He's scaring me now because if he doesn't do what he should do - all his physio and cream - he's going to end up disabled. 

"He doesn't wear his pressure suit because it's like admitting that it's happened. I do believe Will is still in denial, he's trying to think that, if he goes back to acting how he used to be before, it'll all go away; but it won't."

They are feelings that Katie knows only too well and she hopes she can reassure him that things can get better if he sticks with it.

Katie also meets 24-year-old Emily, who got in touch from Dublin. Emily suffered 70% burns in a house fire when she was just seven and wants to warn Katie that life with scars is not as easy as she may think. 

Since graduating with a law degree she has been unable to get a job, despite hundreds of applications, and believes that people's inability to get past her disfigurement is a major issue.

Their first meeting is tough, but it proves to be the start of an important friendship.

Emily doesn't mince her words about what has happened to her and admits that she wouldn't want to live through her experiences again. She thinks that other people have the problem, not her.

"I shouldn't have to make excuses for other people," says Emily. "You have to become a tougher person - you just have to make sure it doesn't make you not a nice person - but it does totally toughen you up."

Meanwhile Katie goes on a date with a man she met on a night out. But she's worried.

"It sounds a really big-headed thing to say but it's just being truthful, if I went on dates before I would go feeling like well they're going to fancy me," she says. "So now it's such a new feeling the way I go to meet people the mixture of really excited on a high and absolute dread - I'm making a fool of myself embarrassing that I'd think he'd fancy me anyway."

And as she prepares to launch the Katie Piper Foundation, with Simon Cowell as the patron, Katie's parents are proud of what she's achieved.

"A year ago I never would have thought this possible, two years ago definitely impossible," says mum Diane. "Two years ago I thought we would have her living at home forever and she would become a recluse." 

But can Katie overcome her fears to take centre stage at the charity launch?

Episode 3

In the third programme of the series, Katie seeks out people who, unlike her, were born with their disfigurements.

Twenty one-year-old Amit was born with Neurofibromatosis, which has disfigured one side of his face, as well as giving him curvature of the spine.

Amit lives with his family in Birmingham.  It's a supportive environment where his disfigurement isn't an issue: "What's great is that everyone who surrounds me doesn't make my appearance an issue at all," says Amit.  "And because they don't make it an issue at all, they don't mention it, it's almost non-existent until I go out to a new place."

"When I'm alone and I see a group of people I feel uncomfortable, I just tend to look down," he says.  "My first concern for university is the first day, how people see me."

Katie encourages Amit to project confidence even if he's not feeling it.  The pair strike up a great friendship and, emboldened by Katie's advice, Amit throws himself into university life and finds that people are far more open and understanding than he'd feared.

"I wanted to get into teaching and I was thinking about how students would perceive me in a classroom, would they take me seriously," he says.  "And starting university and seeing people totally cool about it has made me think maybe it's not as bad as I think it is."

Amit's facing major surgery on the curvature of his spine that could leave him in a wheelchair.  It's a decision he would have discussed with his father, but is now having to face alone: "I'm really surprised I don't cry sometimes," he says.  "I ask myself ‘Why does all this happen?  Why is it always me?'"

Katie is facing more surgery too.  Ever since the acid attack burned off her eyelids, Katie has been unable to shut her eyes properly.  She has surgery to try and improve her eye function, but the post-op bandages leave her temporarily blind and vulnerable again.  With her parents' support she struggles to deal with this painful reminder of her time in intensive care.

But Katie has found meeting other disfigured people has made her more positive about her own experience:  "There is a part of me that wishes it had never happened, that I had that face back," she says.  "But I've met some really great people.  I would probably have had nothing in common with them before, whereas now that part of my life joins me to them."

Katie also meets Andrew, who inherited Treacher Collins syndrome, which leads to malformation of the facial bone structure and, in his case, deafness. Andrew tells Katie that since his school days, other people's assumptions have limited his horizons.

"A lot of the children, because I looked different, they thought I must be stupid," he says.  "They were constantly trying to find a way to make you believe that you're not as clever as you are.  Part of me decided there might be some truth in that."

Episode 4

In the final programme of the series, Katie has gained the confidence to move out of her parents' home and into her own place. It's a huge step forward: after her attack, it took Katie a year to even venture out to the corner shop. The fear of negative reactions to her disfigurement is an experience that 22-year-old Kayleigh knows only too well.

Born with Pfeiffer's syndrome, Kayleigh's bones fused as they grew and, despite surgery, the condition has affected the shape of her head and face.  Throughout her childhood Kayleigh suffered from taunts and bullying, and as a result she now hides away from other people, a virtual prisoner in her own flat.

"I had a tough childhood, putting up with people's comments: ‘You look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame', ‘Monster', ‘You're ugly' - I used to get that one a lot.  Every time someone makes a comment it chips away at my confidence.  I don't need somebody else to tell me what's wrong with me, I look in the mirror every day, I see what's wrong.

"One woman said ‘She shouldn't come out like that if she doesn't want to be stared at.  If I want to stare at her, I will'.  And I didn't want to put myself through that again," says Kayleigh.

But now, she wants life to be different, and has enlisted Katie to help her.

"It's sad because, physically, you could be living a normal life," says Katie.  "But you can't because of the way you've been made to feel.  It's your street, your park, your shops, as well as everyone else's, you should be able to walk around and do what you want."

Katie has a strategy based on her own experience. She shows Kayleigh that not only does she have the right to do what she wants, she has the strength as well.   But self-acceptance can be harder than finding the acceptance of others. 

George is a father of two who is facing a terrible dilemma. At the age of nine he was diagnosed with a hereditary condition that has left him facially disfigured. He now needs a another operation to try and cut out a cancer, but the operation that could save his life will disfigure him even further, and he's not sure he can endure any more unkind comments or stares from strangers.

"It's a tricky thing to let someone take your face off and you're not going to know what you're left with until you come round," says George.  "I'm putting my life at risk, but it's this operation, I just can't comprehend having it done.  I've had enough."

To add to his quandary, George knows what this could mean for his life because the same disease has ravaged his father's face, leaving him without a nose, lip and part of his palate.

After one year of deliberating, will George finally find the courage to consent to the operation?

Meanwhile Katie re-visits Chantelle - a young woman whose life was on hold while she waited for surgery to remove a life-threatening cluster of blood vessels in her nose. The strain of the situation caused her marriage to breakdown.

Three months after her life-saving operation, Katie returns to Rochdale to find out if surgery has transformed Chantelle's life and whether she has been able to save her marriage.

Finally, one year after she had the idea to try and build a support network for those living with disfigurement, Katie is throwing a party for all the people who've agreed to be ambassadors for her foundation. With the charity's trustees looking on, it's a momentous day for Katie and her beautiful new friends.

"It's amazing to be able to stand here today with people who feel part of something.  None of us are the odd one out in the room," says Katie.  "Disfigurement has defined me in a positive way and I'm proud to be disfigured.  Instead of breaking me it's made me everything I am and everything that makes me happy."

Katie: My Beautiful Friends. Tue 22 Mar, 9pm, Channel 4

A new four-part documentary series follows Katie Piper's progress after a horrific acid attack destroyed her face two years ago.

Millions were moved by the 2009 Cutting Edge film Katie: My Beautiful Face , which showed her extraordinary determination to overcome the physical and emotional damage wrought by the attack. Since the film was broadcast, Katie has received an incredible response from people offering their support, including many also living with disfigurement.

The series follows her over a year as, inspired on to a new phase of recovery, Katie sets up a charity to help others living with disfigurement. Meanwhile, she continues the gruelling treatment still necessary two years after the attack and, despite setbacks, puts together the building blocks of her new life.

She also wants to offer a support network to other people facing similar issues and is meeting people with a range of disfigurements, hoping to build a network of mentors to spur others on as she was a year ago.

"There are a lot of people that need a support network," says Katie. "Sometimes you can draw strength from other people - nobody can be strong all the time. It would be nice just to text somebody and tell them how you're feeling and ask them how they are."

Katie finds people walking a variety of paths, some similar to her own, some very different, but all having to deal with a world that turns away from disfigurement. With candid humour, they ask each other the difficult questions no one else can about how to get the best out of life when others can't get past how they look.

"I feel a lot of the time I should be at the bottom of the heap," says Adele. "I seriously hope the scars don't make a difference, but a lot of the time I think they do."

And as Katie gets to know Adele, she sees the young performer gain in confidence, winning a part in a play going to Edinburgh.

Twenty-three-year-old Chantelle was born with a rare condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which means that a group of blood vessels are growing out of control deep in her nose, leaving her disfigured and threatening her life.

Chantelle's treatment is making her look worse before plastic surgery can eventually make her look better and the situation is putting a strain on her marriage to Brett, an RAF fireman.

"Since we've found about how aggressive the AVM was I've not been able to do anything physically that will get my blood pumping."

She feels trapped in their home, but hopes that the treatment will allow her to start living life again.

"With everything that's going on with all the operations I don't have a life at all, I don't do anything, I don't leave the house," says Chantelle. "It's like a cocoon and then when everything is done I'm going to come out like a butterfly and have loads of new clothes, new shoes, new things, just a new life. Get rid of the old me and start with a new me. I want to experience things and travel the world."

Chantelle has been bullied for looking different all her life. She had a facial birthmark that spread across the centre of her face and it wasn't until she was 14 that doctors diagnosed her condition as potentially life-threatening.

"High school was an absolute nightmare," says Chantelle. "I think I'd rather die than go back. I'd stand in the corridor waiting for class and everyone would be walking past and saying things like 'Rudolf' and 'Big Nose'. I had people threatening me, groups of girls circling and saying things. I just kept my head down."

Chantelle tells Katie about how she was recently insulted and punched in the face by a girl who was drunk. The girl was arrested, but it has knocked back Chantelle's confidence even further.

Radical new surgery could save her face, but she could lose her whole nose as a result.

Meanwhile Katie is in Istanbul for the most significant surgery since her face was grafted two years ago. Mr Jawad, the plastic surgeon who treated her when she was first admitted to Chelsea and Westminster Burns Unit, has brought Katie to see Professor Erol for fat injections under her skin. They hope to replace the fat that was burned away by the acid, which will not only improve the contours of her skin but might mean she will be able to properly close her eyes for the first time since the attack.

Back in England, as the launch of her charity looms, Katie is frantically sorting out last-minute arrangements. And she receives bad news about the man who organised the attack on her: he is appealing against the life sentence he received.

Episode 1

In the first programme of the series, Katie meets two young women who have experienced very different forms of disfigurement, one through a life-threatening condition, the other through a terrible accident.

Five years ago Adele, a ballet student, suffered an epileptic fit in the shower, knocking the tap as she fell, and was left with burns across nearly half her upper body. She was found by her mum, Denise.

Rushed into a specialist burns unit in Chelmsford, she received emergency and reconstructive treatment in the intensive care unit. Now 19, Adele decided that the physical perfection demanded by the ballet world meant her dreams of dancing for a living were over.

Episode 2

In the second programme of the series Katie's charity is about to launch and Simon Cowell has agreed to be the patron. The pressure is on Katie to get the launch right.

At Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, she meets Will, who at 16 years old is struggling to come to terms with 40% burns he received after a barbecue got out of control. He was on the critical list for two weeks, has already had four skin grafts and is facing months of intensive physiotherapy to regain full use of his arm.

But he's finding it hard to cope with the way he looks and the restrictions his injuries place upon him. And he's refusing to wear the pressure suit that will help to reduce his scarring.

Will's mum, Debbie, hopes that Katie can help: "He's scaring me now because if he doesn't do what he should do - all his physio and cream - he's going to end up disabled. 

"He doesn't wear his pressure suit because it's like admitting that it's happened. I do believe Will is still in denial, he's trying to think that, if he goes back to acting how he used to be before, it'll all go away; but it won't."

They are feelings that Katie knows only too well and she hopes she can reassure him that things can get better if he sticks with it.

Katie also meets 24-year-old Emily, who got in touch from Dublin. Emily suffered 70% burns in a house fire when she was just seven and wants to warn Katie that life with scars is not as easy as she may think. 

Since graduating with a law degree she has been unable to get a job, despite hundreds of applications, and believes that people's inability to get past her disfigurement is a major issue.

Their first meeting is tough, but it proves to be the start of an important friendship.

Emily doesn't mince her words about what has happened to her and admits that she wouldn't want to live through her experiences again. She thinks that other people have the problem, not her.

"I shouldn't have to make excuses for other people," says Emily. "You have to become a tougher person - you just have to make sure it doesn't make you not a nice person - but it does totally toughen you up."

Meanwhile Katie goes on a date with a man she met on a night out. But she's worried.

"It sounds a really big-headed thing to say but it's just being truthful, if I went on dates before I would go feeling like well they're going to fancy me," she says. "So now it's such a new feeling the way I go to meet people the mixture of really excited on a high and absolute dread - I'm making a fool of myself embarrassing that I'd think he'd fancy me anyway."

And as she prepares to launch the Katie Piper Foundation, with Simon Cowell as the patron, Katie's parents are proud of what she's achieved.

"A year ago I never would have thought this possible, two years ago definitely impossible," says mum Diane. "Two years ago I thought we would have her living at home forever and she would become a recluse." 

But can Katie overcome her fears to take centre stage at the charity launch?

Episode 3

In the third programme of the series, Katie seeks out people who, unlike her, were born with their disfigurements.

Twenty one-year-old Amit was born with Neurofibromatosis, which has disfigured one side of his face, as well as giving him curvature of the spine.

Amit lives with his family in Birmingham.  It's a supportive environment where his disfigurement isn't an issue: "What's great is that everyone who surrounds me doesn't make my appearance an issue at all," says Amit.  "And because they don't make it an issue at all, they don't mention it, it's almost non-existent until I go out to a new place."

"When I'm alone and I see a group of people I feel uncomfortable, I just tend to look down," he says.  "My first concern for university is the first day, how people see me."

Katie encourages Amit to project confidence even if he's not feeling it.  The pair strike up a great friendship and, emboldened by Katie's advice, Amit throws himself into university life and finds that people are far more open and understanding than he'd feared.

"I wanted to get into teaching and I was thinking about how students would perceive me in a classroom, would they take me seriously," he says.  "And starting university and seeing people totally cool about it has made me think maybe it's not as bad as I think it is."

Amit's facing major surgery on the curvature of his spine that could leave him in a wheelchair.  It's a decision he would have discussed with his father, but is now having to face alone: "I'm really surprised I don't cry sometimes," he says.  "I ask myself ‘Why does all this happen?  Why is it always me?'"

Katie is facing more surgery too.  Ever since the acid attack burned off her eyelids, Katie has been unable to shut her eyes properly.  She has surgery to try and improve her eye function, but the post-op bandages leave her temporarily blind and vulnerable again.  With her parents' support she struggles to deal with this painful reminder of her time in intensive care.

But Katie has found meeting other disfigured people has made her more positive about her own experience:  "There is a part of me that wishes it had never happened, that I had that face back," she says.  "But I've met some really great people.  I would probably have had nothing in common with them before, whereas now that part of my life joins me to them."

Katie also meets Andrew, who inherited Treacher Collins syndrome, which leads to malformation of the facial bone structure and, in his case, deafness. Andrew tells Katie that since his school days, other people's assumptions have limited his horizons.

"A lot of the children, because I looked different, they thought I must be stupid," he says.  "They were constantly trying to find a way to make you believe that you're not as clever as you are.  Part of me decided there might be some truth in that."

Episode 4

In the final programme of the series, Katie has gained the confidence to move out of her parents' home and into her own place. It's a huge step forward: after her attack, it took Katie a year to even venture out to the corner shop. The fear of negative reactions to her disfigurement is an experience that 22-year-old Kayleigh knows only too well.

Born with Pfeiffer's syndrome, Kayleigh's bones fused as they grew and, despite surgery, the condition has affected the shape of her head and face.  Throughout her childhood Kayleigh suffered from taunts and bullying, and as a result she now hides away from other people, a virtual prisoner in her own flat.

"I had a tough childhood, putting up with people's comments: ‘You look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame', ‘Monster', ‘You're ugly' - I used to get that one a lot.  Every time someone makes a comment it chips away at my confidence.  I don't need somebody else to tell me what's wrong with me, I look in the mirror every day, I see what's wrong.

"One woman said ‘She shouldn't come out like that if she doesn't want to be stared at.  If I want to stare at her, I will'.  And I didn't want to put myself through that again," says Kayleigh.

But now, she wants life to be different, and has enlisted Katie to help her.

"It's sad because, physically, you could be living a normal life," says Katie.  "But you can't because of the way you've been made to feel.  It's your street, your park, your shops, as well as everyone else's, you should be able to walk around and do what you want."

Katie has a strategy based on her own experience. She shows Kayleigh that not only does she have the right to do what she wants, she has the strength as well.   But self-acceptance can be harder than finding the acceptance of others. 

George is a father of two who is facing a terrible dilemma. At the age of nine he was diagnosed with a hereditary condition that has left him facially disfigured. He now needs a another operation to try and cut out a cancer, but the operation that could save his life will disfigure him even further, and he's not sure he can endure any more unkind comments or stares from strangers.

"It's a tricky thing to let someone take your face off and you're not going to know what you're left with until you come round," says George.  "I'm putting my life at risk, but it's this operation, I just can't comprehend having it done.  I've had enough."

To add to his quandary, George knows what this could mean for his life because the same disease has ravaged his father's face, leaving him without a nose, lip and part of his palate.

After one year of deliberating, will George finally find the courage to consent to the operation?

Meanwhile Katie re-visits Chantelle - a young woman whose life was on hold while she waited for surgery to remove a life-threatening cluster of blood vessels in her nose. The strain of the situation caused her marriage to breakdown.

Three months after her life-saving operation, Katie returns to Rochdale to find out if surgery has transformed Chantelle's life and whether she has been able to save her marriage.

Finally, one year after she had the idea to try and build a support network for those living with disfigurement, Katie is throwing a party for all the people who've agreed to be ambassadors for her foundation. With the charity's trustees looking on, it's a momentous day for Katie and her beautiful new friends.

"It's amazing to be able to stand here today with people who feel part of something.  None of us are the odd one out in the room," says Katie.  "Disfigurement has defined me in a positive way and I'm proud to be disfigured.  Instead of breaking me it's made me everything I am and everything that makes me happy."

Katie: My Beautiful Friends. Tue 22 Mar, 9pm, Channel 4

A new four-part documentary series follows Katie Piper's progress after a horrific acid attack destroyed her face two years ago.

Millions were moved by the 2009 Cutting Edge film Katie: My Beautiful Face , which showed her extraordinary determination to overcome the physical and emotional damage wrought by the attack. Since the film was broadcast, Katie has received an incredible response from people offering their support, including many also living with disfigurement.

The series follows her over a year as, inspired on to a new phase of recovery, Katie sets up a charity to help others living with disfigurement. Meanwhile, she continues the gruelling treatment still necessary two years after the attack and, despite setbacks, puts together the building blocks of her new life.

She also wants to offer a support network to other people facing similar issues and is meeting people with a range of disfigurements, hoping to build a network of mentors to spur others on as she was a year ago.

"There are a lot of people that need a support network," says Katie. "Sometimes you can draw strength from other people - nobody can be strong all the time. It would be nice just to text somebody and tell them how you're feeling and ask them how they are."

Katie finds people walking a variety of paths, some similar to her own, some very different, but all having to deal with a world that turns away from disfigurement. With candid humour, they ask each other the difficult questions no one else can about how to get the best out of life when others can't get past how they look.