Although he was a top student armed with a written recommendation from the principal, he was rejected by 50 companies.
"The financial business is a service industry, so we can't hire a monster like you," a company recruitment official said.
The turning point in Fujii's life came when he went to a Red Cross lecture and a doctor urged him to pursue a medical career, arguing he could understand the pain and sorrow of those with serious diseases.
He underwent a 10-hour operation in April 1982 to remove the bulk of the tumor at the hospital where the doctor worked, and later started working at the computer department there.
Even the surgery left a bitter memory -- one of the doctors involved in the operation kept the removed tumor as a specimen without his consent.
That infuriated Fujii, who vowed to find out how insensitive doctors can be to patients.
He entered Chiba College of Health Science to study nursing science at the age of 28 and became a professor at Kumamoto University in 2000.
Fujii also visits schools to tell children how unfair discrimination is, letting them touch the soft, warm tumor in which his pulse can be felt.
Although he has come to think the tumor is "not so bad," Fujii admits to suffering emotional conflict with a yearning for a face free of
abnormalities.
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