When brand new mom Brandi McGlathery first held her son, soon to be christened Timothy Eli Thompson (and known to everyone just as ‘Eli’), she straight away noticed that something was amiss. The doctors hadn’t spotted it when they first took baby Eli and cleaned him up a little. But Brandi saw it immediately. Little Eli was different. He’d been born without a nose (no jokes about how he smells, okay?).
It’s called congenital arhinia and it’s extremely rare. In fact, there’s thought to be only 30 cases of it in the USA today. So rare is it, that a child’s chances of being born with the condition are just short of 1 in 200 million.
Eli’s issue came as quite a shock as ultrasounds, used to check out baby’s development in the womb, only show up bone and not tissue, so his lack of nose wasn’t noticed before.
Brandi and husband Troy don’t care, they love Eli all the same. Here’s their story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gnXUgblfxs
