An Altus family is thanking OU surgeons for a beautiful face and bright future.

Laura Bacon, 16, was diagnosed with a rapidly growing tumor behind her right eye when she was a 4 years old. The tumor was removed, and surgery, followed by chemotherapy and proton therapy, destroyed the cancer. But because of the treatment, part of her face did not develop with the rest of her body. The right side of her face was left with a cavernous deformity .

“Growing up, I thought I’d never be normal,” Bacon said.

Leslie Bacon, Laura’s mom, said when her daughter was diagnosed with cancer and underwent treatment, she knew her daughter would have a hard time with her appearance.

“Kids would look at her, and I’d have to explain to her that many people have never seen a bald girl,” Leslie Bacon said. “Some men would assume that she was a boy ... We just looked at her and told her ‘this might be your badge of courage, and let’s see what God has in store’.”

But as Laura became older and her hair grew back, the right side of her face remained the same because the chemotherapy and proton therapy inhibited bone growth. As Laura became older, the right side of her face failed to grow and form with the rest of her body.

Many people were not able to see the deformities on the side of her face because her hair successfully covered up the right side of her face, Laura said.

Leslie said she and her family had hope a day would come when Laura would have access to the proper treatment.

Laura had to wait for the rest of her body to finish growing before any surgeries could begin to repair the damage, Leslie said.

The family considered one Texas doctor’s treatment, but found his procedures too drastic and risky for the family’s comfort.

“He wanted to take a nerve from her arm, and turn it into a blood vessel on the side of her face that had been damaged,” Leslie said.

It was then Leslie met with Dr. Ivan Wayne, Laura’s future surgeon, at the OU Medical Center where a multiple part procedure to reconstruct Laura’s face was planned.

The surgeries began in December 2008.

“She had lost a lot of fat in her face,” Wayne said. “Fat is a normal part of the body, and she had lost bone and fat that would have helped her face develop when the cancer was removed.”

Wayne said he took fat from Laura’s stomach and put it in the place where her face had not had any. Wayne and other surgeons then took strips of bone from her skull to repair the rest of her face.

“We used procedures used during cosmetic surgery to help a cancer survivor recover from her treatment,” Wayne said.

Over the next year, Laura would begin to show dramatic and quick improvement.

“Usually the areas that are treated on a body by radiation do not bruise because the fat and skin is practically dead,” Leslie Bacon said. “Soon after the second surgery we started seeing bruising, and I knew that things were starting to work.”

“She looked in the mirror after her second surgery and said ‘Mom, I’m beautiful again’,” Leslie said. “I’ve always known Laura was beautiful inside and out, and it was a good feeling to see her finally see that again.”

Laura said she has had a complete turn around in her life and in her appearance.

“I feel like a whole person,” she said.