As I am doing my rounds yesterday looking for another story to write about, my old friend Bruce our Clown (payaso) grabs me by the neck and tells me that I am going to write about this mom and her two little girls who were scheduled for surgery. Now, not many of us say no to Bruce (he's a pretty big guy), so I'm going to tell you about these two beautiful girls.
Iris Garcia is 3 1/2 years old and goes into surgery first with Dr. Don LaRossa and Dr. Julie Herndon. Iris has a couple of problems, a double cleft palate, a cleft lip that needs reconstruction and her front baby teeth need to be extracted. I went into surgery watching Dr. Julie, using great finesse extracting her front baby teeth. Now Dr. Don is starting the closing of the double cleft palate and cleft lip.
While Iris is in surgery and during recovery, mom and Ingrid (12 year old who is having surgery later in the afternoon) are mostly in tears anxiously waiting and pacing up and down the halls. Rosalie, our Mission Director, takes notice of this and starts to talk with them and try to calm their fears. She befriends Ingrid, braids her hair, and brings her in to our administration area to sit with us. To keep her busy, Rosalie asks her to write a story and she does so, writing mainly about her family, 6 children and mom and dad.
Iris comes out of surgery and is still in a lot of pain. She is with her mom who is trying to calm her. During this time Rosalie is keeping Ingrid busy so mom can concentrate on Iris. Ingrid is about to go into surgery for a cleft lip revision.
Ingrid's surgery is a success and you can see the two girls are resting side-by-side. All is well, parents and girls are happy it's over.
The parents' comments in their words:
"Thank you to God for the opportunity to have our daughters faces fixed and thank you to all the people of Rotaplast who helped our daughters. Thank you God, we are very appreciative to all of you for taking care of our daughters. May God bless the sponsors of our daughters. Simply Thank you!".
All the sponsors of our Mission should be very proud of themselves for being as giving as they are, and this is the kind of praise and appreciation we have been hearing since we have been here.
Congratulations to you all, and in the words of all the parents we have talked with "God Bless you".