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Surgery for California Girl Unable to Smile

by Brett Singer (Subscribe to Brett Singer's posts)
Jul 15th 2009 2:00PM

2Comments

Filed under: Medical Conditions, In The News, Health & Safety: Tweens

Surgery will let teen girl smile -- for the first time. Photo: ABCnews.com

Kiana Deane was born addicted to methamphetamine, and suffers from facial paralysis. As a result of her condition, she cannot smile. When she does, it looks like "a grimace," according to her mother, Robin Deane. Kiana gets teased in school, with the other children calling her "ugly" and making fun of her inability to do what most of us take for granted.

Dean, who adopted Kiana when she was three, has always seen the smile inside her daughter. The little girl had been placed in foster care at birth, but Dean says that as soon as she saw Kiana, "I was drawn to her and I was connected to her. And I -- I just believed for her."

And so does Dr. Andre Panossian of of Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, who is planning to perform an operation that he hopes will give 12-year-old Kiana the ability the smile. (Ironically, many celebrities seem to have surgery that does the exact opposite.)

"We are going to take a muscle from her inner thigh along with its blood vessels and nerves and blood supply and put it in the face on the paralyzed side" the doctor told ABC News. "We choose the thigh muscle because it will mimic the facial muscle almost identically." He has performed similar surgeries on other patients.

Kiana is excited about the surgery. "I hope the surgery will bring me more confidence," she says. "And I'll feel much more better about me."

Brett Singer is the editor-in-chief of DaddyTips.com. You can follow his tweets at Twitter.com/brettsinger.

Tags: bells palsy, BellsPalsy, disorder, disorders, face paralyzed, FaceParalyzed, facial paralysis, FacialParalysis, palsy, paralysis, paralyze, paralyzed, surgeries, surgery

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