'I want to fall in love - and if people don't like it, they can jog on'

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Proudly posing in a classy purple prom dress before her end-of-year sixth form ball, Lizzy Bull felt “beautiful and confident”. She spent the night sharing her hopes and dreams with her friends like any other 18-year-old girl.

But, unlike her classmates, she is blind and has endured more than 100 operations as a result of a rare and incurable genetic condition causing “droopy” tumours to grow around her body and disfigure her face. One of the tumours has recently turned cancerous.

Yet, there is no holding this remarkable young woman back. Faced with losing her long, glossy hair because of chemotherapy, she is simply excited about the “bright pink wig” she hopes to have.

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Lizzy, who lives in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, with her parents Nicola, 40, a full-time mum and Gavin, 44, a car manufacturer, and two brothers, said: “I want my own house, my own job, my own family.

“I want to fall in love. I want everything anyone else has. It seems clichéd but it’s what most of us want.”

The inspiring teenager added: “I have never looked at myself in a negative way. I have tough days, but I just put on my big girl pants and get on with it.

“This is how I am and if people don’t like it, they can jog on. I won’t change for anybody.”

A fighter from the day she was born, according to her parents, Lizzy showed this incredible spirit from the moment they first held her and realised her eyelids were turned out.

A week later, she went under the knife and was diagnosed with glaucoma – a condition where the optic nerve is damaged – while they were told she would probably end up blind, which she did before turning two.

But it was not until she was