So No Child Must Wait

Partners in Progress

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer. Photo by John Urban.

We've been very happy to have Wai-Ling Eng, member of the board of directors of Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC,) join us for the second half of the trip.

RMHC has been one of Interplast's strongest partners, supporting our surgical programs for over a decade. It was great to see Wai-Ling interacting with all the kids. Her background as a nurse was truly helpful, and she was welcomed in to the operating room to observe numerous operations.

At the dinner last night with our local partners, Wai-Ling shared the following:

"My experience with you has re-affirmed the reason we fund you and the type of work you do, which is consistent with our mission to create, find and support programs that improve the health and well-being of children...if you change a child's life, you change a family's life too, which can change a community and ultimately the world. What you do accomplishes this with long term and meaningful impact to children, their families and their communities."

We'd like to thank Wai-Ling for making the long journey to join this team. Her energy and enthusiasm were a welcome addition to our experience. We would like to thank and recognize RMHC for their continued commitment to healing bodies and changing lives.

Punkaj

Punkaj
Originally uploaded by interplast

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer. Photo by John Urban.

Punkaj took a full day on the bus to travel here for the surgery, so he's been staying at the clinic until his surgery this coming week. We've all fallen in love with him—he has a beautiful smile, bright eyes and a loving heart. He wrote the entire team the sweetest letter of gratitude. I've asked the interpreter to translate it, and I will post it in a future blog.

Punkaj burned himself when he was making tea, and he went to light the gas stove. He didn't know there was a leak in the gas, and the fire exploded on to his neck, chin and torso. Interplast performed surgery on him last February to release his chin.

Renu before her burn

Renu before her burn
Originally uploaded by interplast

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer.

This is a picture of Renu before her burn accident. She is the woman mentioned in the blog post titled “Ravages of burns.” Renu has been a really tough case for the team. Her burns are a result of domestic abuse. It's been incredibly challenging for us to have her husband here with her. She is clearly traumatized in every way. She has a master’s in geography and was making a good life. She told the translator, "Look at me. People must think I am the most useless person on earth. What good is my master’s?" She moves gingerly, with obvious pain. Her case has been one of our most disturbing ones.

Surgery was done on her last week to release her lip and nose contractures.

Priyanka recovering

Priyanka recovering
Originally uploaded by interplast

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer. Photo by John Urban.

This is Priyanka in recovery. Because her ear was closed, and the surgeon opened her canal during surgery, she's draining a significant infection. We have kept her at the clinic until she recovers as she and her father have a long journey home and won't easily be able to return should complications arise.

We've all fallen in love with her. She's become quite comfortable with us now and is a sweet little chatter box—in Hindi of course!

Prachi

Prachi
Originally uploaded by interplast

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer. Photo by John Urban.

We can all tell from Prachi's beautiful smile and happy nature that she is easily one for the most popular girls in her school. The problem is she's been held back three grades, because she so frequently can’t attend that she's fallen behind. Prachi's loose synthetic dress caught fire when she stepped over a lantern. Her thighs and groin area were badly burned and contracted together so she could not separate her thighs, and her entire genital area was covered in scar tissue.

This case quickly emerged as the most important one for the team. The doctors felt they had the chance to give this little girl her future back. We also worried that she is on the cusp of menstruation which will raise new serious complications for her. She's about 11 now. The doctors debated this case heavily, considering doing an entire release or a release in two stages with separate surgeries over the coming year. The concern was that her burns were so significant that the full release might be too much pain for her to endure. There are limited narcotics available, even to doctors, in India and the team felt torn between the ethical need to release her legs and the ethics of choosing a course that could result in excruciating pain for a child.

The surgery was completed on Thursday. The doctors informed us that the scar tissue was simply between her two thighs and her groin is completely untouched by the scars. They bandaged her thighs and we all breathed a great sigh of release. Now Prachi can walk and run and go to school. She can grow in to a woman and have future children of her own.

We've been visiting Prachi in the recovery ward and she's doing fine with the pain. Every time we see her she asks immediately, "When can I get up and walk?!"

Soon. Very soon.

Tears of joy

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer.

One thing that touched me very much today happened when Dr. Kush was taking us over to the ward that is housed in his living room.  The patients and their families tend to sit in the front courtyard where they've set up a TV and a small stove where a vendor has come to cook eggs.  The team likes to refer to it as the hospital cafeteria.  We came around the corner to a private area and two men were sitting together, huddled over, and one of them was sobbing.  Kush immediately went over to see what was wrong.  It was one of the fathers whose child had had her cleft lip repaired that morning.  He was overcome with joy to see her healed and whole for the first time in her life.  She lookedto be about 10 years old to me.  

The Oscars and Humanity

Originally uploaded by interplast

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer. Photo by John Urban.

Yesterday the Oscars were held in America. We were delighted to learn that our wonderful partner The Smile Train received an Academy Award for best short documentary for the film Smile Pinki. The team was hoping to be back to the hotel by 8:30 pm to have a small Oscar party and watch the rerun of the show on the English TV station. How striking a contrast to think of the patients we are working on now and the challenges they face in their lives against the epitome of the celebration of all that is beautiful. I am so grateful that this forum became a chance to share the story of poor people around the world who simply need help from their global community. This is called humanity.

Interplast Congratulates The Smile Train for Oscar Winning "Smile Pinki"

Interplast congratulates its long-time partner The Smile Train for "Smile Pinki," which won Best Documentary Short Subject at the Academy Awards.  Directed by Megan Mylan ("Lost Boys of Sudan"),
"Smile Pinki," is the  the story of Pinki Sonkar, a little girl in India born with a cleft lip. Her family could not afford the surgery, and she was an outcast before receiving free reconstructive surgery sponsored by The Smile Train.

Interplast is pleased the Academy Awards again chose to recognize the great need for reconstructive surgery for the poor and the dramatic and profound difference a short surgery can make.  "A Story of Healing," about an Interplast team transforming lives through surgery in Vietnam, also won an Academy Award in 1997.

The Smile Train has made possible more than 14,000 life-changing cleft surgeries for Interplast patients around the world. We are grateful and proud of our partnership.

Dr. Kush

Dr. Kush
Originally uploaded by interplast

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer. Photo by John Urban.

Dr. Kush Aeron is the son of Interplast's surgical outreach director, Dr. Yogi Aeron. You can tell immediately that he's a special human being, deeply committed to helping those less fortunate than himself with his medical skills. I've been blown away by his energy and humility. From scrubbing in for surgery, inviting in local community members to be inspired to support this work, and translating for patients to simply carting in water for the team, he is constantly busy and working to help the team see as many patients as possible in our two weeks here. This family is deeply committed to their service. They live in a home next to the small surgical clinic with two operating rooms. Because the team will be doing multiple surgeries a day, and the recovery ward can't hold all the patients, they have cleared out their own living room and turned it in to an additional ward. Several patients who have been abandoned are actually living with them and employed at the clinic. One lovely girl named Mamta is just such a case. Her entire face was destroyed when she was just one year old and the Aerons are slowly reconstructing it for her. I'll tell you her story in a future blog.

Anil

Anil
Originally uploaded by interplast

Dehradun, India-Nicole Friedland, Interplast chief development officer. Photo by John Urban.

Anil is a 50 year old who lost his livelihood as a journalist because of his burn. He has trouble turning his head and lifting his arms so he can't ride a motorbike to get the latest stories. He's already had several surgeries by Interplast and his improvement is significant. He burned himself when he was cooking, and he lit a match and the gas exploded. Anil took great care to comb his long healthy hair and set it nicely for his photograph. He was very interested in John's (our team photographer) camera and told us he was one of the first journalist/photographers to shoot with a digital camera in India. Today he will have his arm and neck contractures released.