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Day Five of the 2012 Cleft Exchange – Final Surgery Day

Friday was a wonderful and exhausting day in Kaifeng as the LWB 2012 cleft trip entered its final day.

Baby Theo waiting for his turn

Ten surgeries were completed today, which brought the total number of children healed to 49. One baby had to be disqualified from surgery this morning due to infection, but we all agree that 49 lives changed is a wonderful accomplishment in just five days of surgery. Both the US medical team and the China medical team feel that the trip was a complete success, and they are already talking about when they can get together again in the future to help more children in need. Read more.

Journey to Guizhou – Day Four (Liupanshui)

We took a three hour train from Guiyang, through the rural countryside of Guizhou to get to our next destination of Liupanshui. The passing scenery was beautiful, with crop terraces all up the mountains. Whereas the eastern side of Guizhou has many homes made of wood, the western side has white stone and concrete houses, but still with the traditional Chinese style curved tile roofs.
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Billy’s Fight

At the end of October, a tiny baby boy was born in rural China. I always try not to, but it’s so easy for my mind to go to the moment of his birth, and wonder whether his parents were excited, nervous….happy or scared. I am sure very quickly they realized that something wasn’t quite right. The baby was very blue and so weak when he came into our hands that I wonder if he ever gave that first cry heralding that he was now part of this world. Shortly after being abandoned, his orphanage called us and told us it was urgent that he get medical treatment right away, and thankfully we had an open bed at our Heartbridge healing unit, and so he made the trip to Beijing almost immediately. Read more.

An Update on Baby Corey

We want to thank everyone who donated with such kindness to help baby Corey, the newborn who was left following his birth with a serious medical condition.

His first stage surgery went beautifully, and the doctors said he will not need another operation until two months later.

Our director in Anhui spoke several times by phone with the mom’s cousin and convinced him to come to the hospital today.  We learned what we expected.  The child’s mom is very poor (she worked as a cook at a temporary construction site), and, after delivering her son, she knew she could not afford the medical care for such a sick child.  That is why she panicked and abandoned the baby boy. Read more.

A Baby Alone

Right now in a hospital in Anhui, there is a newborn baby boy who is in need of urgent medical care. This baby was abandoned with anal atresia, a life threatening condition that requires emergency surgery for the baby to survive. The orphanage called us immediately after the police brought the baby to them, and we moved him to the hospital right away. And then things got “complicated.” Read more.

2010 Cleft Trip – final day

Saturday saw many more children being discharged from the hospital. The nannies had their babies all bundled up and ready to head for the train station for their journeys home. The parents of the rural kids we were able to heal were emotional as they thanked our team for helping their children. Our staff in China were deeply moved by their words.

The medical team from the US was trying their best to hurry out of Fujian before Typhoon Meigi came ashore. They were delighted to find that several caregivers and babies would be traveling with them to the airport. Maureen Brogan wrote the following: Read more.

Day Four of the 2010 Cleft Surgery Trip

Dr. Ness and Dr. Martin deserve Superman nicknames today as they did five bilateral cleft surgeries, which made for a very intense day. The repairs look wonderful, and we are so grateful that the kids are receiving such beautiful repairs. We wanted to share this before and after photo of Lianne (just a day after surgery), so you can see what an artist he is in the OR. (I did remove a bit of the blood from her nose with a photo tool, but the rest is all from Dr. Ness!) Her aunty had changed her out of her little blue hospital gown back into her pink sweater and hat, and I think this is the first time we have had a baby in the same outfit for a before and after shot! Read more.

The 2010 Cleft Surgery Trip is Underway!

Social media experts always advise to “keep your blogs brief” and “make it shorter”, and we have tried to do that with our blogs over the last year, but today I honestly don’t want to be brief. : -) The 2010 LWB Cleft Surgery Exchange is officially underway, and I hope you will feel as I do that every child deserves a moment in the spotlight since many have traveled so far for their surgeries. These trips involve months of planning, so many incredible donors, and a wonderful commitment by the orphanage caregivers, doctors and nurses, and so I want to make sure we report as much as possible to thank everyone who made this trip a reality. 
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An Update on Erin from the Heartbridge Pediatric Healing Unit

“What’s that? Can you tell me again how beautiful I am? I can’t hear it enough!”

The Amazing Gavin

Gavin arrived at ACHH on December 14, 2008 at just 13 days of age. At first glance, all one might have been able to see was the very large cleft that engulfed the right side of Gavin’s face, extending into his cheek and up to his eyelid.