This morning I didn't really feel like doing much of anything, so I turned on the t.v. while I was eating lunch. I pulled up the guide on the screen and started looking at what was on. Nothing really caught my eye, so I kept looking until I got to TLC. The show that was on at the time didn't really interest me, it was about this lady that was living with half a body because of some disease she had. The show that was going to be on after it, on the other hand... one o'clock could not come fast enough for me. I amused myself with Full House for an hour waiting for this show to come on. And the reason the show looked so good to me... the girl in it was from Haiti!!! She had a birth defect, and I can't remember what it's called, but it was the worst case of it in medical history. The bones in her face were extremely distorted and caused a 16-pound growth to form on her face. She couldn't hold her head up without her hands. She couldn't breathe easily at all. She couldn't eat. Her family thought she was going to die. The girl, Marlie, locked herself in another room so no one could see her. She tried commiting suicide once, but her dad caught her before she slit her throat. She was 13 years old at the time.
This is the story.
Her dad never watched the news, but one time he did, and there were these twins from Haiti on it who were nurses and had dedicated their lives to saving people from their country. He contacted them somehow and the nurses came to the house to look at Marlie. They both said that at first they wondered how she could be human and didn't think there was anything that could be done for her. But then they both thought about their own kids and decided they had to do something for her. So they worked at getting money for her to come to the United States on a medical visa to have emergency surgery. It happened, and the two nurses, Marlie, and Marlie's mom all came to the U.S. for about 6 months. In this time, the doctors performed two surgeries on her face, one on the midsection and the other on her jaw area. They did not think she would be able to have a nose again, but during the first surgery they built one for her. In the second surgery, they took out the rest of the growth and put in a metal jaw. By the end, she was dancing and smiling. Before she could hardly open her eyes and couldn't move her face at all. Her dad and two sisters came to visit her in America at the end of her surgeries, and then the whole family flew back to Haiti. She was going to come back some other time to have the finishing surgeries on her face, and the doctors said that when they are all done, she will be able to walk around without anyone looking at her different, she is going to look like everyone else.
Part of it was filmed in Haiti, and the two nurses, and the family were speaking in Creole. Most of it was translated over so you couldn't hear it, but there were a couple of parts where you could hear them talking. They showed some in Port au Prince and some in the city where Marlie was from... I can't remember what it's called though. There were tap-taps, market, the airport, roads, houses, everything.
Anyone up for a quick trip?? ;]
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2 comments:
What a cool story! I'm so glad she was able to have the surgeries done and she can live a "normal" life! I've seen Lori and Lecia's blogs and it seems there's so much strange deformities in 3rd world countries... it's just so sad. We need to remember this and never take our medical facilities for granted!
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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