Rotary Clubs in Australia raise money for repairs of cleft lips and palates—as well as speech therapy service—for poor children in Asia and Southeast Asia at no cost to their families. The Australian Rotarian Operation Cleft program is not unlike those sponsored by Smile Train and Operation Smile here in the US. What's different is that a team of volunteers from the Rotarian community are able to keep administration costs to a minimum. The cost for each operation is very low and covers … [Read more...]
Hear no, Speak no, See no? Important month and week for cleft lip kids and others.
May is Better Hearing and Speech month in America. At one end of the age spectrum, this is important for cleft lip/palate kids for whom their early surgeries are just the beginning of their struggle to look and sound 'normal.'Seniors as well as Cleft lip kids.At the other end of the age spectrum, many Boomers and Seniors are facing increasing hearing deficits from natural aging, speech issues from strokes and TIAs, etc. Speech Language Professionals are being minted in huge numbers these days to … [Read more...]
Cleft lip kids pay a big price in Vietnam.
I've benefitted from the Vietnam War. Because western doctors operated on innumerable cleft lip and palate kids during and after the war, they learned how to deal with the cartilage of the cleft nose. (More about this in my next blog.) In my 40s, I had my final cleft surgeries . . . on my "smushed down" nostril it turns out, in a bid to become a bit more facially symmetrical. The first surgery: Fail, big time. Even with a temporary stent in the nostril to keep the cartilage from reverting … [Read more...]
Surgery for other orofacial issues like oral cancer.
Some of the oral surgeons, head-and-neck experts, and plastic craniofacial surgeons I often write about also deal with accident victims and cancer patients. Let's look now at one of the conditions these patients endure, oral cancer. (I'll deal with patients with skin cancer and gunshot or auto crash trauma another time.) Before getting to the surgical issues regarding oral cancer, let's examine the basics of this cancer that strikes about 43,000 new Americans each year, according to The Oral … [Read more...]
Putting Humpty Dumpty back together—— cleft lip repair.
Not much has changed surgery-wise for clefts since the mid 20th Century when I had my initial cleft lip and palate repairs. At least this is the case with regard to most closures of clefts. Cutting edge (no pun intended) treatments experiment with wires, retainers, and orthodontia-type contrivances to non-surgically pull the cleft palate together. Cleft lip and palate are caused by abnormal facial development that occurs while the child is still in the womb. The upper lip and roof of the … [Read more...]
New Year’s Resolution: give back like this cleft lip girl.
A heartwarming CBS news story caught my attention the other day.* It's about a young cleft lip girl (adopted from a Chinese orphanage) who donates stuffed animals to fire and police departments. The idea is for officers to give them to the kids they encounter who're caught up in the stressful situation they're responding to. So, please add one more New Year's resolution to your list, or replace one that you've already broken. The resolution is simply to give back in 2015, mindful of the … [Read more...]
Celeb Heroes help repair cleft lips and palates.
Just found out about a bunch of celebs like Gwen Stefani* and Harrison Ford** who’ve signed holiday tree ornaments, which are being auctioned off on eBay. Go here to bid before the December 16 deadline to get an autographed, quality Balsam Hill*** ornament—perhaps for a song (many are $7 to $70 at the moment)—to benefit OperationSmile. As you may know, the non-profit Operation Smile provides free cleft lip and cleft palate surgery to children in more than 60 countries. Cleft lip and palate: … [Read more...]