This birthday almost didn’t happen.
Miranda Perez turns 16 today, a milestone her family was once warned she might never live to see.
But look at that BIG smile.
After battling brain tumors since she was just 4 months old, losing her eyesight, surviving emergency brain surgery and enduring years of treatments, this South Texas teenager has spent much of her life proving grim predictions wrong.
And she’s doing it again.
Her dad, Rollie, reached back out to me this morning with an update I’ve been hoping to share.
Miranda is celebrating her 16th birthday today.
But she made a decision about the party.
She wants to wait.
“I wanna get this chemo over,” she told her family.
If everything goes as hoped, Rollie says Miranda could receive her eighth and potentially FINAL round of chemotherapy this week.
Think about that.
When I first shared Miranda’s story years ago as a baby, her family was living with the fear that they might not get these birthdays.
Then she made it to 15.

Last September, more than 200 people surrounded her as she celebrated the quinceañera doctors once feared she would never experience.
Just months later, everything changed again.
A tumor suddenly grew aggressively, causing swelling and bleeding in Miranda’s brain. She was flown from the Rio Grande Valley to Houston and rushed into a seven-hour emergency brain surgery.
She survived that too.
Then came radiation.
More chemotherapy.
More time away from home.
And now she’s 16.
Her dad sent me a video from last night and couldn’t stop talking about that smile.
Neither can I.
Because when you know everything behind it, that smile means something.
Miranda may not be able to see the candles, cards or faces surrounding her today.
But I hope she can FEEL how many people are celebrating the fact that she’s here.
Rollie says their family continues thanking God for every day they’ve been given with their daughter and for all the people who have prayed alongside them.
So for her 16th birthday, I have one favor to ask.
Flood these comments with HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MIRANDA!
If you’ve prayed for this girl through brain surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, tell her you’re still here.
And say one more prayer that this week’s treatment really is the last one — so Miranda can finally get that chemo behind her and have the Sweet 16 celebration she’s been waiting for.

Source: Ryan Wolf