Healing the Children Rocky Mountains

Mileny

Bilateral Cleft Lip and Palate Surgery

During our January 2023 mission, we met a beautiful 4-month-old girl named Mileny who was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. Her family are descendants of the Inca and speaks Quechua. She is from a very small village in the rural mountains of Peru and no one in this village had ever seen a cleft before and didn't know what to do. Luckily Mileny's 5-year-old brother told his elementary school teacher that his sister was born with a cleft lip, and she called a friend in Trujillo which is a much bigger city. Ultimately, they were put in touch with us at Healing the Children Rocky Mountains. We purchased bus fare for Mileny and her mother Isabel.

Isabel is an amazing woman- she had only 2 years of public education and never learned to read or write. She had never traveled before yet embarked on a 3-day journey that involved walking, riding a motorized bike (tuk tuk), and multiple buses to arrive in Lima. Just like we do for all patients coming from outside of Lima, we had a local medical student meet them and arrange for a hotel and food near the hospital we operate at. Isabel had never been to a city before which must be incredibly intimidating given how big Lima is; yet she said she would travel any distance to help her daughter. She told our team that she was afraid she would get the reverse of altitude sickness by coming down out of the mountains to get to Lima and would become very ill. But she took that risk to get her daughter the care she needed. Mileny received the 2-hour surgery from our team and recovered exceptionally well. She had a very wide bilateral cleft lip, and her surgery was transformative. It was very emotional for everyone in the recovery room as Isabel held Mileny and shared her story of how far she had traveled. Mileny now has a chance at a much more typical and normal life in her village."

Danna Sofhia

Cleft Lip & Palate Surgery

Danna Sofhia is beautiful 4 years old little girl who came to see our team in November 2014 after receiving word that we were coming from an aunt who lives in Canada who had seen information about our mission via the internet. Danna Sofhia is the perfect example of the power of early surgical intervention. Born with a cleft lip and a cleft palate, she had her first cleft lip surgery at 4 months old and her first cleft palate surgery at 9 months by two local Peruvian doctors through their non-for-profit organization. Last summer, at age 3 years, she had a fistula repair, a small hole in her palate, by another US medical mission team.

As children get older and their heads and faces grow they often need cleft lip revisions because their scar stretches and gets thin and tight. In November 2014 our medical team was able to preform a cleft lip revision for Danna Sofhia. She is now set for the next few years.

Though she is a beautiful little girl and her lip will look close to normal just a few weeks after surgery, the most remarkable thing about Danna Sofhia is actually her voice! Most children who are born with cleft palates have a hard time talking and learning how to pronounce their words correctly, especially without intensive speech therapy. They often sound very nasally because the air is coming out through their nose instead of through their mouth. Because of her cleft palate surgery at such a young age she never learned how to speak incorrectly, or with "broken equipment". When she began to talk, her palate was intact and repaired. Because of this, our very own team of professional speech therapists could not detect any residual affects of her cleft palate. In fact they did not believe she ever had a cleft palate. This is a testament to early cleft surgical intervention!

Danna Sofhia has one older brother. She has only received professional speech therapy from our team this November, but her mother does work with her at home and her teachers also work with her at school. In her spare time, like most kids her age, Danna Sofhia likes to play, draw and watch TV with her brother.