When browsing the internet, particularly on social media, you may come across unique tales that are not new but are still widely shared.
My friend on Facebook posted the bizarre tale of tiny Mya Wh!ttington the other day, which at first seemed like a scam but turned out to be factual enough to get media attention.
MYA WH!TTINGTON: A NECKBONE-RETAINING FEATHER.
Hutchinson, Kansas’s county seat and a major US city, played host to the event in December 2012.
Mya Wh!ttington, a seven-month-old infant at the time of the events, is the main character.
On the 8th of December, 2012, Mya Whittington’s parents discovered a lump on their daughter’s neck, in the region immediately below her jaw.
They are so concerned that they decide to take the child to the Hutchinson Regional Medical Center’s emergency department.
Doctors at the hospital are fast to make a diagnosis: they think it’s a swollen gland and are likely to prescribe antibiotics once they examine it.
The group is subsequently discharged.
Mya Whittington’s grandma returns with her granddaughter to the hospital after discovering a mysterious pimple on the swelled region, which by then was the size of a golf ball and a half.
After determining that she has a staph infection in her lymph nodes, the doctor prescribes her more antibiotics, breaks the pimple, and marks the boundaries of the inflamed region with a marker in order to track its progress.
On Monday morning, MYA WH!TTINGTON returns to the hospital to have the crust that had formed over the broken pimple removed by the on-duty physician.
This is the point at which the oddness starts to take place.
When the parents are alone, they see what looks like a stick protruding from their daughter’s face.
After the doctor did little to help, they took her to their paediatrician.
During the follow-up appointment, the latter removed the mysterious item from the girl’s face, revealing a 2-inch (5-centimeter) long black feather.
The doctors concluded that the only reasonable explanation for the presence of the feather in Mya’s cheek was that she had inhaled or ingested the feather at some point in the past, and that it had remained lodged between her neck and jaw for some time before being rejected by her immune system.
In fact, Emma, Mya Wh!ttington’s mother, said in one of the many interviews that were later made public that she used to own a feather pillow but opted to toss it out after the accident.
The physicians opted not to operate on the swelled region since the unusual event fortunately did not have any tragic effects.
Since the Wh!ttingtons’ story piqued so much interest, it was featured on multiple national talk shows, including “Anderson Cooper Live” (the second video embedded below – ed), and a Japanese programme that sent a film crew to Wichita, Kansas in May 2013 to interview Aaron and Emma Wh!ttington.
The interview with the parents may be seen down below.
The Whittingtons were on Anderson Cooper Live, and you can see their segment down below.