Lorenz: I was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in my jaw.
I remember looking in the mirror and not really recognizing the person
that was staring back at me. A cripple, a skeleton.
I lost everything.
I like to show off the fact that
I found a way to overcome it.
What's up guys, welcome back to a new video.
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Lorenz,
Happy birthday to you!
Lorenz: My name is Lorenz.
I am 32 years old as of today.
I am a full-time YouTuber
I make YouTube videos to document my journey.
But more importantly, to help and inspire others who feel like they're ugly, and not good enough
for today's society, for today's world.
Being a teenager,
of course, I struggled with my insecurities for sure.
But when it comes to my physical outlook,
I was pretty confident, pretty content.
The first symptom that really made me realize
something was wrong was
I would go jogging.
And every time I came down
on my right foot,
I would feel an aching pain in my gums.
At the age of 24,
I was diagnosed
with a malignant tumour in my jaw.
I got radiotherapy
that just feels like the inside of my mouth
was just slowly burning.
I remember me getting frustrated
with the treatment and my specialist,
getting really angry at me and saying,
"We're doing all of this because the next step is sawing off your jaw."
That left me quite shocked.
Lorenz: It was a very surreal feeling.
I remember looking in the mirror and not really
recognizing the person that was staring back at me.
I lost everything.
I went from being a very strong, ambitious,
slick-talking sales manager to
a cripple, to a skeleton.
Because of the leukaemia, my initial jaw reconstruction died off
and I had to go through chemo and receive a second jaw reconstruction.
So this is technically my third jaw.
It took me a good two years to recover.
I had a feeding tube straight to my stomach
for more than six months, at least.
Eating has been a constant struggle.
I can't do anything that requires me to,
take a bite since I have no bottom teeth.
My life was never the same.
You wouldn't believe how often people ask me,
"So you're still going to get plastic surgery, right?"
"So when are they going to fix it?"
It's always a very awkward moment when I tell them,
"No this is it."
"It's not going to get much better than this."
People are terrible, man. People are cruel.
They can make you feel like a freak.
I wanted to figure out a way how to
turn my cancer, turn my situation into a winner.
How can I make cancer
be the best thing that has ever happened to me?
By making it the main building block
of my new career?
So I say, "So I'm getting all these looks right?"
Real life views.
So why don't I start doing something with video?
I'm going to get a lot of attention off of the sheer fact of me looking freaky, looking different.
It really wasn't hard to
figure out that YouTube was the thing for me.
What's up guys, welcome back to a new video.
Fitness has helped me so much
in terms of having purpose when I was not able to do anything.
For many years,
the only goal I had in a day
was to go to the gym and work out as hard as I possibly could.
It allowed me to stay hungry and motivated
and something to look forward to the next day.
Look at my little Latina.
Katia: I met him at a bar in Barcelona.
He was celebrating his birthday.
The first thing that I noticed about Lorenz was his eyes.
The attraction from my side was instant.
It was completely instant.
I think the effects of dating someone that has scars
are like usually you attract a lot of sights from people around.
In the beginning for me, it was shocking,
because I could see that people were looking at us constantly like,
"Hey, have you seen that?"
So yeah, for sure. I've never gone through a situation like this.
It was a little bit shocking.
Lorenz: Lunchtime.
We decided to grab lunch in this amazing setting.
Lorenz: And for me, the greatest return on investment
is reading my comments.
Every day I get new comments from people telling me that
I helped them to stop feeling sorry for themselves.
I helped them find a partner.
I helped them get in shape,
I helped them to stop feeling ugly.
No amount of money comes close to the feeling that you get when,
when people tell you that you've made an active change in their life.
That's a very humbling thing.
I'm happy with my face still.
I'm different, I'm unique.
I think that for a long time
until I made it and now
I've got zero insecurities.
I've started using it as a weapon even
I walk into a room and I'm like,
"Yup, look at me."
Because I like to show off my confidence.
I like to show off the fact that I found a way to overcome it and
carry it on my sleeve like a badge of honor.