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California company to produce Ed Port documentary
By Denise Dick
Austintown
A township man’s multiple surgeries to remove facial tumors and his efforts to live a normal life are getting more national attention.
A Burbank, Calif.-based television production company will be in town Sunday through Tuesday, filming Ed Port.
Port, 41, will travel next month to Chicago for a second surgery to remove tumors that have obscured the left side of his face since childhood. Dr. McKay McKinnon, a plastic surgeon, will perform the surgery Oct. 19 at St. Joseph Hospital.
Port has neurofibromatosis Type 2, a rare disease that causes large tumors.
“They’re going to film me Sunday at the [Boardman Rotary] Oktoberfest,” said Port, who will have a booth at the event in Boardman Park, selling T-shirts and wristbands as a fundraiser and educating people about NF2.
On Monday, the MorningStar Entertainment crew will film Port where he works, and Tuesday night, they’ll film Port and some friends hanging out at Big Don’s BBQ on New Road.
The documentary has the working title, “The McKinnon Files 2011,” and is being produced for The Learning Channel.
“It’s basically how Ed has been undergoing surgical procedures to remove tumors from his facial area, and we’re trying to document that,” said Sridhar Dasari, a researcher at the production company.
As the working title implies, the documentary will feature Dr. McKinnon’s work.
MorningStar had been in town filming Port a couple of years ago, and Port expects some of that footage will be used in the documentary as well.
The surgery Port had in June was the most extensive — when the large tumor that covered the left side of his face was removed.
In the second operation, Dr. McKinnon will operate on Port’s left eye, remove tumors from behind his left ear and behind his head and raise the left ear to make it more even with the right one.
A third surgery is expected once Port heals from the second one.
In the three months since his first surgery, swelling has decreased and Port is happy with the result.
“I was looking at one of the Vindicator photos from before the surgery and looking in the mirror, and I thought, ‘No wonder people have said that’s two different people.’”