Netflix child actress Millena Brandão, 11, died of cardiac arrest Friday, People reported. The young Sintonia actress contracted an unknown illness that her parents, Thays and Luiz Brandão, believe contributed to her death.
The young actress and model began having symptoms such as fatigue, loss of appetite, headaches, and leg pain. Millena's parents took her to a doctor on April 24, but there's reason to believe the diagnosis was insufficient.
"She had a headache, but she could walk and talk. The doctor said it was dengue fever, but he didn't do any tests. He told us to take her back home and give her dipyrone," Thays Brandão said of her daughter.
Just two days after that visit, Millena briefly lost consciousness. Her parents took her back to the hospital, where things went from bad to worse.
Thays Brandão explained how things got severe for Millena with doctors providing few answers. "She put her hand on her head and screamed in pain," her mother said.
Millena remained in the hospital, where she suffered a cardiac arrest. "Her lip turned purple," Millena's mother explained.
"Then they resuscitated her and intubated her. From that day on, she never woke up again," Thays Brandão recalled. Doctors noted a mass in her brain, but without a neurologist to consult, they were unable to conclude exactly what it was.
"She got worse, with two to three cardiac arrests per day. She had 13 arrests in total. She had never had that before. There was one day when she had seven respiratory arrests. Sometimes they gave her massages and other times they gave her shocks [with a defibrillator]," Thays Brandão went on.
After doctors declared Millena brain dead, her family made the choice to stop treatment. "I said that if we were to let her little heart stop beating on its own, we would suffer more, and so would she. And we asked for the machines to be turned off," Thays Brandão explained.
Thays Brandão wrote a heartfelt post to Instagram memorializing Millena that People translated from Portuguese to English. "An open letter to my little girl," she began in the post featuring a photo of her daughter made to look like an angel.
"On May 2nd we lost our little girl, but I'm sure she's in the arms of our almighty father and in a beautiful place to play. The memories we spent together will remain in my memory and I'll never forget your joy that was contagious to everyone around you," her mother said Saturday.
"My girl, I'm already missing you more and more not having you here and I know I'll miss you even more in the days to come! You were the light in our lives and I know that from up there you'll continue to watch over us and light up our lives. And I'll love you forever, and you'll always be in my heart. I love you my girl," Thays Brandão said.
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It's unusual for a young girl to get ill and die so quickly, especially when it involves the heart. This is truly a tragic story of a little girl gone so suddenly, so soon.
