LWB Community Blog

LWB has been asked to help with four beautiful children in China who were born with cleft needs.  We are hoping to have their operations done before Chinese New Year in February, as travel becomes incredibly difficult the closer it gets. The three youngest children come from the Kaifeng Physical Therapy Center in Henan. The head nanny from our Henan Healing Home is now the head nanny at the Kaifeng PT Center, and we have done a number of projects with the center. The children here receive excellent care, and we have been pleased to help provide them with orthotics and braces which are very expensive in China.

Taryn and Chase are from orphanages in central China, and both were born with bilateral cleft lip. This type of “double” cleft is seen in about 15% of children born with this special need. A bilateral cleft often divides the lip into three segments:  two side sections and a middle segment without muscles. In most cases, there is also involvement with the child’s nose, and the cleft can impact eating, speaking, and even breathing. Having surgery with a well-trained doctor is very important with bilateral cleft.

Over 100 orphaned children with cerebral palsy live at the Physical Therapy (PT) Center in Kaifeng, Henan. The center serves the entire province, and orphanages from throughout Henan send their children to the center for healing care.

In addition, a number of children in the local community are served daily by the PT Center even though they do not live there as residents. Read more.

Saturday morning our team headed to the hospital to make our final rounds on the children and to say goodbye to the wonderful Chinese team we had worked with all week.  Real friendships are formed in both the OR and on the ward, and it was hard to say those final farewells, not knowing when, if ever, we would meet in person again.

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Friday in Kaifeng was bittersweet, knowing that it was the final day of surgeries and that the trip was soon coming to a close. We began the day with lots of discharges, and while we were sad to see our little patients go, we are sure the children were ready to leave the hospital! To each of them, we send our warmest thoughts and wishes for a beautiful future.

Mary Beth, Leo, and Violet discharge to our healing homes

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We had another great day in Kaifeng with eight more children receiving surgery today. We’ll start by telling you about the children who are orphaned first, and then introduce you to some of the wonderful rural families we were honored to help with medical care.

As we mentioned yesterday, four of the little boys on today’s OR schedule were from the Kaifeng PT Center, which is a government-sponsored project run by one of the past directors of the Kaifeng orphanage. Read more.

After a short formal ceremony this morning to officially open the 2014 international cleft exchange, the surgeries began.

Ted and Joy were the first two babies taken back to the OR. Ted went with Dr. Ness, and Joy went with Dr. Tolan. Read more.