LWB Community Blog

Hello again from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where our medical exchange team had another productive day.  First up was morning rounds — a great time to check on all the kids. For those of you who may be new to cleft operations, we’ll just say that recovery from palate surgery is often quite painful. Simply put – it hurts. During this week in Cambodia, we’ve been amazed at how quickly most of our patients have bounced right back after surgery.

It’s Day Two of surgeries here in Phnom Penh, and we’re happy to report that all of our little patients are doing well. Avery is understandably still very sore from her lip repair yesterday, but she looked great during morning rounds. One of the adorable little boys having surgery today is Silas, who will be turning four in just a few weeks. His parents are rice farmers, and he’s the baby of his family. Silas’ mom saw an advertisement that our team would be in Cambodia this week and knew right away that she needed to bring him to see the doctors.

Today was Intake Day for our 2017 Cleft Medical Exchange. When our team arrived early in the morning, many families were already lined up hoping to be seen. Unlike our past medical exchange trips to China where we pre-identified the children having surgery, this year ads were sent to villages, schools, and orphanages by Smile Cambodia. Today was the “open call” for anyone to come and be seen by our international team.