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When Brianna Brewer was only two weeks old, her parents noticed that she had a mark, kind of like a bruise, forming on her upper lip. A doctor diagnosed the condition as hemangioma, a collection of blood vessels growing in a lump underneath the skin.
Because hemangiomas can often form unnoticed and not cause any harm to the body, the doctors didn’t do anything for Brianna that day, aside from provide a diagnosis.
Over the course of the next seven months, however, the blood vessel collection swelled massively until it was even larger than Brianna’s nose.
Brianna’s parents brought her to see a specialist who provided treatment that caused the hemangioma to stop growing.
But by that point, it had already gotten to the point where it was five times the size of Brianna’s lip and caused her immense trouble whenever she wanted to eat or talk. Brianna wasn’t even able to smile.
Although the doctors reassured the family that the hemangioma was harmless, Brianna’s mother, Hannah, worried that her daughter would be bullied mercilessly for the abnormality. She wanted to get it removed.
“At its largest the hemangioma was the size of a kiwi and was so big that Brianna was struggling to eat and we had to feed her from an angle,” Hannah said. “It was in front of where all of her teeth came in, so I've never seen her smile.”
Last week, after three years of watching the vessels grow and searching for a suitable doctor, Brianna was able to have the mass removed and her lip reconstructed.
Hannah and the rest of Brianna’s family are ecstatic because the surgery went incredibly well. Even in recovery, Brianna is able to form a glimmer of a smile – and it will undoubtedly continue to grow as time passes.
Even just a week out of surgery, Brianna’s doctor isn’t at all worried, “I am confident that this surgery will not only improve her physical development, it will also offer Brianna and her family a better social and emotional quality of life.”
Hannah added, “We are just waiting for the swelling to go down, and seeing her smile will be the best Christmas present we could have asked for.”
