In this time period, Mario de Marco also found himself facing a personal challenge in the form of his health.

"It came suddenly," he said, as he described how a very rare tumour in his facial nerve which he had been monitoring for several years suddenly grew from one centimetre to seven centimetres - around the size of a table tennis ball.

The tumour had spread through his ear canal and into his brain, which made surgery an immediate priority.  In the end, De Marco went under the knife in the UK for 13 hours, and surgeons had to remove his facial nerve, his ear canal, and his ear drum, and also do brain surgery and a skin graft.

It was a new reality for him after that.  He said that he had to re-learn how to walk due to losing his ear drum on one side, and the facial paralysis that resulted from his facial nerve being removed meant that he had to use tape to close his eye and tape to lift up his mouth so he could talk.

"I came back to Malta like this," he said, adding that he was meant to be resting for three months after returning, but instead opted to go straight to work.  The day after he arrived, he attended the wedding of MP Ryan Callus, and recalled the look of shock on people's faces when they saw him.

The day after that, he attended a party fundraising marathon, and recalled party media presenter Louise Tedesco "bursting into tears the moment she saw me."

"It takes a lot of adapting.  It took a lot to learn that you are going to go and face the camera or be thrown into debates not looking quite how you were looking, and knowing that people are looking at you not because you said something remarkably clever but because you look totally different to how you looked a few weeks earlier. That took getting used to," he said.

He had to have several subsequent medical procedures and surgeries, and he recalled "the beauty of being able to smile again" after one such procedure. "These small things in life: being able to smile again after a year made a remarkable difference."

There were "lighter moments", as he described them. One such moment was when he was approached by an individual who worked at the PN's HQ and who's sister was going through something similar but refused to do the surgery.

He recalled how he went to speak to the said sister: "I asked her why she didn't want to do the treatment, she was very honest and said 'I don't want to end up looking like you'," he said, laughing.

"But I somehow convinced her and she got operated, and God bless her she's in great shape," he added. 

The rest of the interview about the various stages of Mario de Marco's career can be found in links below

Mario de Marco: 23 years as an MP, health challenges and when 'nobody was a hero' in the PN

Mario de Marco (2) 2003 to 2013: A decade in government and a PM hard done by history 

Mario de Marco (3) 2013: A big defeat, a run for party leadership, and no regrets 

2014 (4): Mario de Marco's 'biggest disappointment' in politics 

Mario de Marco 2017 to 2022 (6): 'Nobody was a hero back then' 

2026 (7) Mario de Marco on how he had to be hard on himself and what's next