Julia Hernandez loved to smile. She had a relaxed, eye-catching natural smile which telegraphed her happy and warm personality. This combination, along with her striking beauty, won her beauty pageants in her native Southern California community of Diamond Bar. Her life changed precipitously when she suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm at the age of 21. This left her with left sided facial paralysis and right sided hemiparesis, which made walking especially challenging. She learned of the facial paralysis team at UCSF through her sister Sophia, who came to UCSF as a medical student in 2016. After 4 years of dealing with facial paralysis, Julia came up to UCSF for facial reanimation surgery under the care of Drs. Daniel Knott and Rahul Seth. Now 15 months after that surgery, and after suffering further brain bleeding and right sided facial paralysis, Julia returned to UCSF to be reunited with her surgeons. Although now dealing with facial paralysis on both sides, at least she can close her eyes, and smile with the left side of her face, thanks to the skill and efforts of Drs. Knott and Seth and the facial paralysis team at UCSF.
From ABC7News
