The Remarkable Life and Death of Roy L. “Rocky” Dennis
He wasn’t supposed to live past the age of seven.
On Dec. 4, 1961, Roy L. “Rocky” Dennis was born in Glendora, California, and was initially thought to be a perfectly healthy baby. It wasn’t until an X-ray technician noticed a slight cranial anomaly when he was 18-months-old that doctors began questioning what was wrong with the adorable little boy. What started out as just a routine tonsillectomy turned into a decade-long battle for survival.
“The bridge of his nose hadn’t formed,” his mother, Florence Tullis, told the Chicago Tribune. “That happens in a lot of babies, so no one had worried much. But then his head started to grow. I went into shock.”
Rocky suffered from a rare and fatal congenital disease called craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, which caused his face and head to swell to a bizarre size and shape. Craniodiaphyseal dysplasia triggered severe headaches, paralysis, and ruptured blood vessels.
His condition was so unusual that only a handful of other cases have ever been reported. Doctors believed he would be mentally retarded, blind and dead before turning seven-years-old. But his mother, who was a former go-go dancer with a fondness for bikers and drugs, didn’t believe a word of it.
