November 29, 2006: Girl's face disfigured by 16 pound tumor

[Undertoad]

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:

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.

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.

[jbolty]

I think I would have gotten that looked at when it got to about 5 lbs. But that's just me.

[bbro]

Originally Posted by jbolty

I think I would have gotten that looked at when it got to about 5 lbs. But that's just me.

Haitian doctors could do nothing. With no advanced medical imaging in the impoverished Caribbean country, no one could see that the bumps weren't growing on the bone — the bumps were the bone ballooning and turning to jelly, riddled with pockets of liquid and air.

From here

You probably would have had the resources to have it checked at 5 pounds, she did not

[Elspode]

Jeez, how tragic. I do hope they can restore her face without her looking too horribly scarred.

[glatt]

Sounds like the "doctors" in Haiti didn't even consider giving her a tracheotomy to help with breathing. I know Haiti is backwards, but you'd think they could have at least done that.

Poor thing.

[maximum]

that first picture is maybe the craziest thing i have ever seen...

[CaliforniaMama]

Wow, just when we think we've made progress in educating the world, something like this comes up.

It isn't like Haiti is so far removed from modern society or anything.

I am always amazed at how deeply the superstitions still rule.

Amazing, though, that this poor girl can even be saved. I wonder what that has done to her spinal development, having all that extra weight in her head. I wonder if she misses that tumor, after all, it has been with her for a very long time.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by CaliforniaMama

It isn't like Haiti is so far removed from modern society or anything.

Actually, it is. Haiti is a third world country just off our shores. It has suffered several unstable predatory dictatorships that benefitted the Duvalliers and made a poor people poorer. They don't have a tourism industry, which could help improve conditions from the influx of nice juicy dollars and euros, but the place is so dangerous that nobody wants to go there.

I haven't been myself, but I have a friend who makes a point of going every couple of years.

[glatt]

It's the only country I know of that still practices voodoo.

[Karenv]

Originally Posted by glatt

It's the only country I know of that still practices voodoo.

Well I live in NYC and there are lots of people who practice that religion or Santeria or African or Brazilian forms of it. Vodoun exists all over.

And they don't just shake chicken bones at tumors. But show me a religion that practices surgery on osteosarcomas.

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by wolf

Actually, it is. Haiti is a third world country just off our shores. It has suffered several unstable predatory dictatorships that benefitted the Duvalliers and made a poor people poorer. They don't have a tourism industry, which could help improve conditions from the influx of nice juicy dollars and euros, but the place is so dangerous that nobody wants to go there.

True.

I was thinking more in terms of exposure to or knowledge of more developed countries rather than being in the outback or out-yonder somewhere.

She finally got the surgery by her father seeing something on TV. What surprises me is that no even thought of this before!

The faith that people have in the good God and evil Devil is not something I would dare mock. We already know we can make ourselves believe anything we want to believe, even to the point of making ourselves extremely ill or healing ourselves. Beyond that, well, I've seen enough to believe that there is more out there than we can sense -- good and evil.

Still, what must it do to this girl's mind to have lived like this for most of her life? I just can't imagine the trauma of having her life change so radically. The tumor grew on her as the rest of her body grew, so she probably just adapted, but now she is completely different. She has so much to relearn . . .

It hurts just to look at her . . .

[Tonchi]

Originally Posted by CaliforniaMama

It isn't like Haiti is so far removed from modern society or anything.

Oh yes it is, they are VERY far removed from what we take for granted. They've got it all over the worst rumor you ever heard about Arkansas. If you watch Univision's news programs, you will soon come to the conclusion that the most grotesque deformities and birth defects are right at home in Santo Domingo, which shares the island with Haiti. I can't imagine if it is the filth or whether inbreeding has caused it, but it seems there are villages full of people like these. The most tragic thing about it is the rate at which they continue to breed, sometimes creating entire families of monsters, and even the most hideously deformed girl always ends up pregnant, usually due to rape. You have to wonder why they allow people to photograph them, I guess the money and attention they get from the yellow press reporters is practically the only income they have

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by Tonchi

If you watch Univision's news programs, you will soon come to the conclusion that the most grotesque deformities and birth defects are right at home in Santo Domingo, which shares the island with Haiti. I can't imagine if it is the filth or whether inbreeding has caused it, but it seems there are villages full of people like these. (

So, in other words, this was so normal to them they didn't do anything about it???

Now THAT is scary.

[Dypok]

So they couldn't do anything? They just gave up after 5lbs? They couldn't take a polaroid or send a verbal description to the red cross? Thank God someone fixed this instead of shaking chicken bones at it.

[laebedahs]

I used to work with a guy from Haiti (he was the maintenance guy for a McDonald's). He was very excitable, both in good and bad senses.