Downtown business owners try to keep smiling amid pandemic - 1736 Magazine, Summer 2020

“They whisked her off because they were
thinking it was maybe a heart condition,”
Brown said. “We were told it might be portwine
stain.”
The diagnosis that took geneticists nearly
three months to determine was much more
serious. The infant had macrocephaly-capillary
malformation, a genetic disorder so rare
that Frances was – at the time – one of only
89 cases in the world.
“At age 25 I had ‘this plan,’ “ Brown said.
“John T. totally changed me as a person,
but Frances was like tenfold. ‘So I have a
child that is like one of 89 in the world? Like,
what?’”
M-CM is characterized by skin discoloration
and abnormal growth in the limbs, head
and brain. The genetic mutation meant the
girl would have lifelong developmental disabilities.
“It was always like having an infant but
with a lot more needs,” Brown recalled,
noting her own difficult decision to remain
in the workforce to pay for Frances’ multiple
surgeries and ongoing therapy. “I was a working
mother. I had to be – I had no choice.”
Considering the spectrum of outcomes for
children with M-CM, Frances had a full life,
learning to walk, talk and use mostly sign
language as a means to communicate. And she
loved attending Lake Forest Hills Elementary
School, where she was a part of the deaf and
hard-of-hearing class.
“Frannie,” as her family called her, was
an inspiration to parishioners at the family’s
church, St. Mary on the Hill, as well as care
providers at Augusta University’s Children’s
Hospital of Georgia. Kelley Norris, a pediatric
critical-care specialist at the hospital, was
moved to create the nonprofit “Friends of
Frances” organization along with her friend
Mary Covington Coleman.
The awareness organization, which helps
fund medical equipment and therapy for
Augusta-area children with genetic disorders,
grew to be the largest charity team in
the annual AU Half Marathon. The highlight
culminated with Norris and Coleman rolling
Frances across the finish line in her wheelchair.
But no one was moved by the girl’s intrepid
spirit more than her mother.
“One of my biggest motivators was
Frances,” Brown said. “She just made me
more. She made me want more – to do
more. Watching her made me do more than
I thought was possible. We all have these
ideas of what perfection looks like, and we
sometimes let that hold us back out of fear.
She inspired me to not stop doing something
because of fear.”
Her daughter’s candle burned bright, but
not long. Frances’ final neurosurgery left
her a quadriplegic, a complication the family
knew was a risk. A subsequent cardiac arrest
confined the girl to a ventilator. With her
health deteriorating daily, physicians grimly
advised Brown and her husband to place their
daughter in hospice care.
The couple and their then-15-year-old son
were there to the very end. Frances Faughnan
Brown died on March 26, 2018. She was 11.
In the span of a year, Brown had lost a
career and a child.
“I had a whole year to spend with her before
the end,” she said. “It was obviously a very
emotional time. It’s still very difficult.”
BROWN continues on 57
The Turn Back the Block office
in Augusta’s historic Harrisburg
neighborhood is a converted
warehouse. [MICHAEL HOLAHAN/
THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE]
1736magazine.com | 55