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26924: Hermantin(news)Haitian teen's first surgery a success (fwd)




From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Dec. 17, 2005
MIAMI
Haitian teen's first surgery a success
The case of a Haitian teenager undergoing surgery for a mammoth facial growth has drawn donations from as far away as Hong Kong and Latvia.

BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@herald.com

The plan had been to remove only part of the huge growth distending Marlie Casseus's upper face and leave the rest for future surgeries, but the operation went so well that doctors just kept going. By the time they'd tied off the last of about 2,500 stitches just minutes before midnight Wednesday, surgeons had opened the 14-year-old Haitian girl's face like a book and excised nine pounds of jelly-like fibrous tissue, bone fragments, teeth and fluid.

With titanium mesh, they'd constructed a new framework for her facial features, which, lacking the support the tumor gave, would have collapsed into an empty cavity. They'd formed an upper lip, reduced the size of her overstretched mouth by 70 percent and, finding her nasal septum intact, reopened her crushed nostrils with plastic ''trumpets'' during the surgery at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center's Holtz Children's Hospital.

''She's healing according to plan,'' maxillofacial surgeon Dr. Jesus Gomez said Friday during a press briefing. ''She's extremely happy and responsive,'' he said. ``This morning, with my broken Creole, I told her to give me thumbs up, and she gave me one. She's a brave girl. . . From the surgical standpoint, we consider this a success.''

BETTER VISION
And although she'll probably never be able to taste or smell, he said, Marlie will finally be able to see clearly. Dr. Kami Parsa, a Bascom Palmer Eye Institute surgeon on Marlie's medical team, said that pressure from the growth hadn't permanently damaged her left optic nerve. ''That's really exciting to see,'' he said, predicting that ''her visual potential is going to be great. For the brain to see perfectly, the eyes have to be aligned,'' which the tumor prevented. Marlie suffers from McCune-Albright syndrome: a genetic condition that includes the uneven bone growth of polysostic fibrous dysplasia, and endocrine abnormalities. It affects much of her bone structure, and could return to her face, doctors cautioned. As a very young girl, she appeared to be growing normally. By age 9, the mass had so distorted her face that she quit school. By the time she came to Miami 10 weeks ago, she could barely breathe. During Wednesday's surgery, doctors found teeth embedded in the mass near the inner corners of her eyes.

MORE SURGERY NEEDED
Marlie, in intensive care, will continue to breathe and be fed through tubes for about two months, when Gomez's team will remove the growth in her lower jaw. He predicted two subsequent procedures, ``to help her look a little more normal.'' During the next procedure, doctors will remove the remaining growth -- about seven pounds. The doctors unveiled an ''after'' photo, showing a dramatic difference from Marlie's pre-op profile. Where her face had ballooned outward in a heavy lump from below the eyes to the throat, it now lies flat down to the lower jaw, which remains distended. Marlie's mother, Maleine Antoine, flanked by Gina and Ginette Eugene, the twin Haitian-American sisters who brought Marlie's plight to the attention of the UM doctors, said in Creole that when she saw her daughter in recovery, she was stunned. ''I can't hide from you that I was in terrible shock . . . [but] what I saw after the surgery was a lot of joy for me,'' she said. ``I know she will never be the same, but I'm so happy that the misery will end.''

HOSPITAL FELLOWSHIP
Before the briefing ended, Antoine was joined by two U.S. Marines: Lance Cpl. Lisa Bergeron, 19, and her husband, Cpl. Jesse Bergeron, 22, stationed at Camp LeJeune, N.C. They too are staying at the Ronald McDonald House on the UM/Jackson campus, as their 6-month-old son, Skye Joseph, recovers from multiple-organ transplants. They learned that Marlie loves Barbie dolls, and through the Marines' Toys for Tots Christmas program, gave her Angel de las Fiestas Barbie; Barbie Magic Pegasus, and Fairytopia Barbie. ''She was thrilled and started clapping,'' Jesse Bergeron said. ``We came here today to bring her more toys and brighten up her day.'' The couple, the twins and Maleine Antoine then linked arms, faced the television cameras, and sang, 'God Bless America.