Skateboarder and Model Brooklinn Khoury Reflects on 'How Far I've … – PEOPLE

Vanessa Etienne is an Emerging Content Writer-Reporter for PEOPLE. Prior to joining in April 2021, she served as a reporter for Men's Health Magazine and BET Digital after freelancing for publications such as The New York Times and Everyday Health. Originally from northern Virginia, Vanessa is a proud Haitian American with a love for R&B music and mental health topics. She graduated from North Carolina State University with a bachelor's in Communication and Public Relations before earning her master's degree in Journalism from the City University of New York.
Brooklinn Khoury is showing off her remarkable transformation as doctors continue to repair her top lip and parts of her nose after she was attacked by a pit bull in 2020.
The pro skateboarder and model, 23, has been candid with fans about her recovery, documenting her numerous reconstructive surgeries on social media. Over the holidays, Khoury shared a series of progression photos, recalling how scared she had initially felt about her injuries and reflecting on perseverance.
"Today I had to remind myself how far I've come since the attack. Looking back at photos and videos makes me feel a way I cannot put into words. But what it does is it shifts my perspective on how precious life is, and also time," she wrote. "Timing is so unpredictable, but it's also so divine. I would have never imagined something like this to happen, but I have learned so much about life, and finding happiness through this whole journey. Whatever you are going through it will get better, and it will happen the way it needs to."
"When I got into the attack it was so hard to see what the future held for me," Khoury added in another post. "Thank God for giving me the strength, and the people I have in my life to help me grow, and continue to trust the process."
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Last week, Khoury filmed herself going to Sephora where a makeup artist drew an upper lip on her face. Her followers raved in the comments that she's looking more and more like herself.
Khoury — who is currently dating Dance Moms alum Chloé Lukasiak — previously opened up to PEOPLE about the tragic accident, which occurred in November 2020 when she was visiting her cousin’s house in Gilbert, Arizona.
The model was standing in the kitchen when she went to pet her cousin's dog, an 8-year-old blue nose pitbull named Diesel, who she had met many times before.
"I was like, 'You're such a good boy.' He literally sprung from a sitting position like onto my face," she recalled to PEOPLE in 2021. "I was standing, and he was sitting — he literally just sprung up. And he was literally, hanging — literally like arms, legs hanging off of my lip. And my first instinct was like, 'Oh my God, get on the ground with him, hold his head, go wherever he goes.' "
Whenever he pulled, she moved with him. "Finally, I felt a release. And then, something flew and hit the wall," she remembered.
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​​She stood up, took a deep breath before realizing she tasted blood: "I looked down and my whole shirt was just blood — like blood, blood, blood everywhere," Khoury said.
She saw a pink lump on the floor, and — realizing it was her lip due to the presence of the zit she'd just cropped from her photo — she wrapped it in a napkin and rode with her cousin to the emergency room.
Despite their quick response, the surgeons, unfortunately, weren’t able to save Khoury’s upper lip. Later that week, she posted a selfie from her hospital bed, writing, “hug somebody you love.” She decided to document every part of her healing journey because, even in her skateboarding posts, she always showed the good and bad — including falls.
"Life is not perfect," she told PEOPLE. "Instagram is a place where people can hide who they really are."
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