South Florida toddler facing more challenges from birth defect

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – When Carolina Fenner gave birth to her daughter, Luna, in 2019 she never imagined the odyssey that would unfold.

“We were prepared for just a regular normal life,” Fenner said.

It became anything but a normal life when Luna was born with a giant melanacytic nevus covering most of her face.

In the search for specialists to remove the potentially cancerous growth, the mother and daughter wound up in a small town an hour outside of Moscow.

“He said he had a less aggressive procedure -- that was the major reason for us to go there,” Fenner said.

Between the fall of 2019 through late last year, the two made multiple trips to Russia for laser treatments, but things didn’t turn out as Fenner had hoped.

The last series, around Luna’s eyes, created scar tissue that’s now threatening her vision.

“She’s sleeping with the eye wide open. She can’t close it anymore, so we started being scared of that because she can be blind,” Fenner said.

Fenner is turning to experts right here in South Florida for help in navigating the next leg of this long journey for little Luna.

“Every time we have something in the middle of our road, now it’s the eye, the other time it was the keloid, or the cancer, so we’re just getting stronger and stronger and hoping she’s going to be good in a few months maybe,” Fenner said.

A specialist with the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute is getting involved in the case.

We’ll stay on top of this story and her progress.

For more on the effort to help little Luna go to: https://www.instagram.com/luna.love.hope/?hl=en.


About the Authors
Kristi Krueger headshot

Kristi Krueger has built a solid reputation as an award-winning medical reporter and effervescent anchor. She joined Local 10 in August 1993. After many years co-anchoring the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m., Kristi now co-anchors the noon newscasts, giving her more time in the evening with her family.

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