I will describe this long lost news item and you, perhaps, will help me find it.

I can't think of a single keyword, but around 4 years ago there was somebody in the news who supposedly had a strange, face-altering disease that caused him to stay in seclusion for perhaps several months, and we he emerged he was quite obviously a different person. Perhaps a politician or royal, and I think European.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Viktor Yushchenko

What do you mean by a "different person"? Is it a metaphor, or did someone actually replace the original person?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_people_with_Bell%27s_Palsy ?

The story brings to mind the famous case of Martin Guerre, but obviously that's a few centuries too early.

i WAS thinking of yuschenko actually, but specifically of this news item that posited a conspiracy theory involving him being 2 different peeps

showed two pics of him that were way more o_O than the reality