Marleny's curiosity was never satisfied. She constantly asked her father, Lotario, to explain things to her in their native language, Kektchi. She loved to see water coming out of the faucet, and feared the hospital's elevators. She was discovering a world far away from her rural village of Guatemala. She came to St. Louis and had surgery at St. John's Mercy Children's Hospital to remove a congenital anomaly in her skull that caused her to develop a sac-like formation between her eyes (encephalocele). Bright Marleny went back home to reunite with her mom and continue exploring and discovering without any physical limitations in her horizon.