Radical Brain Surgery is the Answer for Murrieta Girl

Hoping to improve her cognitive growth and stamp out damaging seizures, doctors last week removed large portions of Faith Rentar’s brain in a major operation.

Five-year-old Faith, the daughter of Chaparral High School P.E. teacher and athletic trainer John Rentar and his wife Dawn, suffers from tuberous sclerosis, which she was diagnosed with at 19 months. The disease has caused tumors to grow throughout her body, including on Faith’s brain and heart.

Many people in Murrieta and Temecula and the local education community have been cheering the family on, raising money for the Rentars and keeping tabs on Faith’s condition as her parents search for answers--and medical help.

Faith’s brain tumors caused constant seizures and slowed her speech and cognitive development. The hope is now that the brain tumors have been removed and the seizures reduced or eliminated, Faith’s development can progress.

The family makes their home in Murrieta, where Faith attends a special day class at Rail Ranch Elementary School.

Faith had surgery Friday and is recovering in the pediatric Intensive Care Unit at UCLA Medical Center. Her surgeons had to remove more of her brain than they had anticipated to extract the tumors, her mother Dawn said. Surgeons removed her entire right occipital lobe, her entire right temporal lobe, part of the right parietal lobe and a tumor from the right frontal lobe.

None of Faith’s major speech or information processing centers should be affected, but she will lose sight in the left field range of vision from both eyes, explained Dawn Rentar, who is staying at the hospital until Faith can come home, hopefully in about two weeks or less.

Faith’s mother said she, her husband and the doctors had to weigh the negatives and risks of such a major surgery against the benefits. A large tumor was tangled in Faith's brain and there were other tumors too, endangering her life.

“The goal was to remove hot spots without being overly invasive,” Dawn said. “Hopefully with this, over time she will have a chance to live.”

Until Faith recovers more and therapists can assess her, it’s uncertain how Faith’s development will progress in the future. However, her parents are optimistic.

“We might not know for a few months where she will be at, but we have hope," Dawn said.