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“Keegan Maley is five years old and is unrecognisable from the baby that attracted so much attention several years ago.
His first two years were the subject of a documentary that screened in 2004.
Now, three years later Transforming Keegan, part-one of a two-part documentary, screening Thursday, September 27th at 8:30pm on 3, follows up Keegan’s progress.
In the womb, several of Keegan’s skull plates had fused prematurely and his growing brain forced the unfused plates at the front of his head upwards giving him a large cone shaped head when he was born.
Keegan looked very unusual and his family were subjected to cruel taunts from the public.
Transforming Keegan begins when Keegan is two and a half and facing his third skull reconstruction. Although he has reached some infant milestones, his parents were warned not to place too much hope in him reaching goals like sitting up and walking.
Keegan is still struggling with his breathing, eating and sleeping are also difficult for him, he is also developmentally delayed.
Transforming Keegan follows Keegan through the next three years of his life and through radical surgeries that eventually, at five and half years old will almost complete the process of transforming him. It is as much about the testing of a family and the force of life that exists in a child as it is about the medical processes that have shaped Keegan's early years.
“Sharing the lives of this remarkable family over the last three and a half years has been an incredible privilege. The strength of their love has been a constant force through the hardship of surgeries and the tough times Keegan has faced, being different in the world. Keegan’s ability to make the bad times good, to me makes him one of New Zealand’s most courageous five year olds,” says Director Kate Cresswell." TV3; tv3.co.nz; 01/10/2007