Restoring Faces

The speech mission is a small part of the larger mission that the International Children's Surgical Foundation (ICSF) organizes. It is an organization run by Dr. Jeff Williams, who travels year round to repair cleft lip, palates, and/or other craniofacial abnormalities. He travels to the same locations, which allows him to provide multiple surgeries to children who need it and to establish relationships with the communities. He is very unique when it comes to medical missions in that he spends extra time to make sure the surgery is done well. I will let you read more about this amazing organization from my friend Ellie's blog (elliemckinnonblog.blogspot.com and ICSFoundation.org). 

I had the privledge of observing two surgeries: a unilateral lip repair and a unilateral cleft palate repair. Both surgeries lasted around five hours! Dr. Williams is meticulous. He takes the time to ensure the lip and palate are not only functional, but look as "normal" as possible. We see his previous clients for speech therapy and you have to look closely to see any scarring. I 'nerded' out examining all of the tissues, muscles and cartilages that I have only read about. The human body is incredible! It was amazing to see how he worked with what tissues were present to create a functional palate and lip. I will spare you the details, but will share that he requested the artist "Fun" and "Tubthumbing" by Chumbawamba to play in the OR. The doctors, nurses and us observers were jamming out!