Fifteen Get Free Surgery at Baptist for Deformities
By Taylor Barnes, The Miami Herald
Jun. 21–Joseph Velez’s mother silently hugged her crying infant in the hospital room, fidgeting and trying to fit a pacifier over his deeply cleft lip before he went into surgery Saturday.
Joseph’s father, who works as a welder in Miami, watched nearby. He had never seen a cleft lip until the baby was born four months ago, by Caesarean section, and he thought a doctor had cut the baby’s mouth by mistake. The couple struggles to feed Joseph Jr. with a bottle, he said, since the split stretches from the four-month-old’s lip to nostril and allows air in when he tries to suck.
Joseph was the youngest patient that Baptist Children’s Hospital in Kendall hosted for its seventh annual “Day of Smiles,” which gave 15 patients free corrective surgery on Saturday. Six plastic surgeons and a swarm of nurses, anesthesiologists and oral surgeons donned their scrubs to work on cleft lips and palates, cupped ears, scars, burns and finger deformities.
Down the hall from Velez sat the family of David Prouty, 32, the oldest patient treated Saturday. They chatted easily in the waiting room as Prouty, already in a gown, quietly awaited surgery for his cleft palate, which he said would be his “twenty-something” surgery.
His mother, who traveled from upstate New York to be with him, remembered the difficulty of feeding Prouty as an infant. She used a special bottle nipple with a cup over it so he would not damage his lip.
Surrounded by infants and children awaiting surgery for conditions similar to his, Prouty offered this advice: “Hang in there, because it will get better.”
He hoped that Saturday’s surgery would be his last.
Dr. Joel Levin, the hospital’s chief of plastic surgery who has fixed cleft palates abroad, had spotted Prouty at the Gardner’s Market in Pinecrest, where Prouty works, and offered to help.
Levin said children born with cleft lips also often have ear infections, and dental, kidney and heart problems. Many of the patients for Saturday’s surgeries were not first-timers. Levin estimated that most patients require two to three surgeries, which for cleft lips usually take under an hour.
“You take a deformity and in 45 minutes have a beautiful baby,” he said, adding that surgery for cleft lips “involves science, art, engineering.”
Sarah Castellanos, a cheery and fast-talking middle-schooler from Hialeah, said her classmates had made jokes about her cupped ears in the past.
“I hope that after today I can go out in public without being embarrassed about my ears,” said Castellanos, who likes to sport a ponytail and play soccer. She added, “I usually go out in public with my head down.”
Dr. Jhonny Salomon, Castellanos’ surgeon on Saturday, predicted that her ears would be fixed with only one surgery.
Velez’s parents watched, tight-lipped and wide-eyed, as their son was wheeled away to the operating room. Joseph Velez Sr. said they were scared but hopeful that his son’s speech wouldn’t be affected.
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