Marlie Casseus was living a normal life in Haiti at age 3:
And then something went wrong. A tumor started growing on the inside of her face, and by age 14 she looked like the above.
This
Chicago Trib story explains:
Quote:
Her condition is a rare form of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, a non-hereditary genetic disease that affects every bone in her body, though not to the severity with which it disfigured her face, Gomez said.
Marlie's mother, Maleine Antoine, said her daughter never spoke clearly, but she didn't worry until Marlie was 8 and she noticed two small bumps on either side of the girl's nose. Marlie also was beginning to complain that her mouth and throat hurt when she ate.
At school, Marlie mostly learned to hide behind walls and trees to avoid other children. Bus passengers backed away from her. She retreated home for good when she was 12 and no longer could speak.
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One can only imagine what it was like for a teenager.
The International Kids Fund found her and brought her to Miami, where she is undergoing a series of surgeries to correct the situation. It takes a long time to go from a face full of 16-pound tumor, to a more normal look. But she's getting there.
After the fourth surgery.
Her mom is overjoyed. The operation not only makes her look better, but has saved her life. At her worst moments, she could barely eat or breathe, and Haitian docs didn't exactly understand the situation and had left her for dead. At lot of Haitians thought it was something satanic.
Here is her page at the International Kids Fund, and if you are sufficiently moved by the story, there is a donate link.