She Lived With a 174-Pound Leg—Then One Decision Changed Everything…

A Florida teenager is recovering after having life-altering surgery where doctors amputated her left leg in order to remove a 174-pound growth.

“It started happening when I was two years old. Wow. Wow. And then it just started growing bigger as I was growing in age,” Jasmine said. “When I was younger, it was really light, so it wasn’t as heavy. But as I got older, it was getting heavier and heavier. I wasn’t having problems walking ’cause I’m limping, but I can still walk.”

“I always told her, if at one point it comes between your leg and your life, we will always choose your life,” her father recalled. “I will not ask you. No discussion. Nothing.”

Jasmine, the youngest of seven children, suffered from a rare condition that caused her left leg to grow abnormally and even baffled doctors worldwide.

“This is something that started like, we saw that her skin was looking like orange peel skin, you know, like little dense little holes,” her father explained. “At that moment, we took it to the doctor and they just kept telling us, you know, it’s gonna go away. Everybody has a little part of their body a little bigger than that other one. So they were not very concerned about it and we were not either, because it was not a large volume at that moment. But we started getting worried as the time progressed. You know, we saw that it was getting larger and larger and then they started doing some testing, researching and everything. And you know, they found out that they didn’t know what it was.”

“And from that moment on, we started the journey with this challenge. I never call it a handicap, I never called it a disability. I always call it a challenge. And that’s how we addressed it all the time. As the time progressed and they were telling us that they didn’t know what it was, they started going with lymphoma tumor. That was the closest that they could get to what she had. Her file had been through different parts of the world. And the last one was a vascular abnormalities seminar in Barcelona, Spain. It has been to Children’s of Philadelphia, Boston Clinic of Vascular Abnormalities. The only place that was able to offer us some kind of treatment, something for her, was Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas.”

She was part of a clinical trial of a drug that, at that moment, was being tested.

“We saw that it was being beneficial. Even with that, it didn’t stop the overgrowth. The tumor kept growing bigger and bigger.”

Life for Jasmine and her family hasn’t been typical as they have been all over the country seeking treatments as doctors try to figure out what it is. At first, it was thought to be a non-malignant tumor, but then it was discovered to be a rare growth of cells that had traveled around her left leg and then into her abdomen.

“It doesn’t have all the elements to be called a tumor. But because there is no other medical definition for what she has, they are treating it as a lymphoma, which is fat tissue lymphoma, tumor with overgrowth syndrome.”

Following multiple surgeries and treatments over the years, the condition continued and the growth got bigger, leading to discomfort both physically and socially for the 14-year-old.

“It was really hard for me,” Jasmine shared. “I kept getting looked at, judged. It was really hard with the surgeries, it was also hard too, because I don’t know how long I’ll be in the hospital for and when I’ll get out. Being in the wheelchair, I feel like it’s hard for my parents because they have to push me around and they’re going to get exhausted from pushing me around with my leg, with the mass and the tumor and stuff. It was really hard. And when I was in school, I kept getting judged and looked at as well. And I also got bullied because of my leg.”

“Some people say, ‘Oh, look at that girl with the leg, like her leg is big.’ And some of them ask what happened, but then they just walk away. So with it, it was really hard.”

“I always complimented Jasmine because she found a way to try to block everything,” her father said. “Many times, yes, I did want to start throwing punches at people, but I know that I just can’t go and be fighting everybody. That means tears at my daughter. Many times I asked Jasmine, I said, ‘You know, Jasmine, I wanna know how you do it. There is no way that you don’t know that they’re staring at you in a mean way. Not in a nice way.’ I said, ‘But I see you.’ Like, many times we were in restaurants and she kept eating like nothing, you know? Meanwhile, I was here, you know, angry. What are people gossiping about? Jasmine always responded, ‘You know, it’s just, I don’t care. I just don’t care anymore.'”

“Many times my wife is the one that approaches people: ‘Hey, why are you staring at my daughter? You know, you already looked at her, just walk away.’ But I kept telling my wife, ‘Just, you know, we can’t go and keep fighting everybody. We just can’t.'”

“With Jasmine, whenever people stare at her, mom will pounce on anybody,” her older sister added. “I always tell her, I can’t say exactly how you feel. I can’t say that I feel what you feel, but I can say with certainty that Jasmine is the toughest out of all of us. You know, out of everybody. She’s had the most surgeries, she’s had the most challenges out of all of us. And honestly, as her big sister, it’s a big inspiration because I’m like, my sister can do this.”

“But watching Jasmine kind of go through this, once it got to the point where we were seeing that it was really affecting how she was walking and her mobility, that’s where we started noticing this is something that’s not normal and they’re still trying to figure it out. So we need to help her. Especially when it came to like getting into bed, bathing, clothing, shoes, socks—like basic things that, you know, we may take for granted that we could do on our own every day. My sister couldn’t do a lot, you know, at a certain point. Certain things like, you know, buying one pair of shoes. Jasmine couldn’t buy one pair of shoes. She had to buy two.”

While her family kept Jasmine’s spirits up, her condition kept evolving. Just before Christmas, she was admitted to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, where doctors performed a 17-hour surgery to remove her leg and stop the growth from continuing. Jasmine is now recovering and defying doctors’ expectations.

“The predictions that the doctors had given us… we were told that she had a high chance not to come out of surgery alive,” her father explained. “One of the things that they mentioned to me is that the return flow of the blood to the heart, the vein is about this thick. Jasmine had thicker veins in her leg, which meant the risk of her bleeding out was very, very high. The oncology doctor mentioned that they’ve flown units of blood from other places so that they could have it in hand. The anesthesiology part, you know, it’s like, ‘I can’t promise you that your daughter will come out alive.'”

“So all of these predictions she overcame. And not only that, they said after surgery she will be sedated for about a week or two, most of the time will be sleeping. Well, eight hours after the surgery, she was out of bed in a reclining chair. A day after, she walked with an attendant with a walker for 10 feet. The following day she walked 25 feet and the PT tech made a bet with Jasmine and he said, ‘Jasmine, if you get to walk 150 feet, you can do my makeup.’ And I told Billy, that’s his name, I said, ‘Billy, you’re in big trouble because Jasmine will go farther than that.’ And she did. She already did the makeup.”

Now Jasmine is home and starting her new life.

“I’m gonna have my parents’ room, which is the master room, and they’re gonna have my room,” Jasmine said. “They painted it pink ’cause I wanted it pink. I can’t wait to go home and see my dog. I have a Chihuahua, his name is Coco. I miss him.”

The family has also donated Jasmine’s leg to science to study the rare condition and hopefully get answers so no one has to go through what she has.

“I can help other people that are in my situation because nobody should go through what I went through,” Jasmine shared. “Like, imagine a four-year-old going through that. Nobody should go through that because I went through that and I don’t wanna see that little 4-year-old go through what I went through. Because they should live a normal life. And I want that for everybody. Not just somebody who has the same problem as me. I want that for everyone.”

The family has also started a GoFundMe to help pay for medical expenses and for Jasmine’s future, as the brave young lady begins a new life and will eventually get fitted for a prosthetic leg. She and her family hope her story also sheds a light on others to be kinder.

“I think just one thing, you know, like we just want her story to like inspire people to be compassionate because she’s had such a rough time,” her sister said. “You know, like you said, with the stares and with the bullying and stuff like that. Talking to those bullies that bullied her, you know, personally, they can eat rocks. But I would just rather people know that it doesn’t take a lot to be compassionate. It doesn’t take a lot to be kind. Your life would be better if you were kind to others, especially to kids like Jasmine who might need a little bit more compassion in their lives than the average person. We just want her story to inspire that. That’s what we hope to inspire as a family is, you know, showing that compassion and showing that family closeness and just inspiring others to, you know, be kind and be gentle. And that’s all we can ask for.”