When Marlie was 3-year-old, she had her mother’s nose, big brown eyes and two baby teeth showing in her wide smile. But by the time Marlie was 14, there was no resemblence in her face to what she was when she was 3. There was something under Marlie’s skin that looked like a basketball or two eggplants. And instead of a nose, all that was left was two distended nostrils. She had only one good eye and a single tooth poked through the stretched upper lip.
Till now, the doctors at Miami have performed 4 operations to cut away the 16-pound mass, replace bone and release the girl inside.
Dr.Jesus Gomez, the surgeon at Holtz Children’s Hospital says that the mass that engulfed her face probably started growing when she was as young as 5. “She didn’t have any mouth. She didn’t have any nose” he added.
He said that her condition is a rare form of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, which is a nonhereditary genetic disease, that affects every bone in the body, though not with the same severity with which it disfigured her face.
Marlie’s mother says that her daughter never spoke clearly, and her permanent teeth were not appearing, but she didn’t worry until Marlie was 8 and she noticed two small bumps on either side of her nose. She had also started to complain that her mouth and throat hurt when she ate.
At school, Marlie mostly would hide behind walls and trees to avoid the other students pointing at her face. And passengers on city buses backed away from her.
But now after the surgeries, her features have been repositioned and hard polymer has been used to replace other facial bones. But she may need more cosmetic surgeries when she stops growing. Doctors say that the facial mass won’t grow back, but her condition will require lifelong monitoring. And she will soon be able to speak again.
Now in her room at the Jackson Memorial Medical Center, Marlie has a book bag packed for returning home. She is happy that she will go back to school and will be like everyone else.
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