Wine

We operated on 70 patients over 5 days. Wednesday was the longest day when we did 20 surgeries. It took a team of 25 people and worked with more than a dozen Rotarians. We need many support people for each surgery. These include the Anesthesiologist, OR nurses, Recovery Nurses, Instrument cleaners...

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Elijah is 2 years old. Two hours of work...

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Ramil is 12 years old and lives with his parents and 7 siblings. His father is a carpenter and his mother a housewife. He has a lateral facial cleft which makes his mouth very large on one side. Because the muscles are disrupted he drools from that side. As is common with this condition he has...

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The ward is made up of 24 cots. One cot per patient and family. Sometimes the patients  must double up and have two per cot. Where do the parents sleep you must be thinking. As we all know, life as a parent can at times be difficult.  We can all remember the night when our child had an ear infecti...

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Today we had 16 patients scheduled for their cleft repair and we did all 16 cases. Eight cleft lip repairs and 8 cleft palate repairs. We  finished this last case at 6:15. Then the patient has to awaken and go to recovery. It takes about an hour to recover a patient. It is a long day! But it is a...

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We arrived at the hotel at 12:30 AM. The room was just what I needed.....A nice bed! Unfortunately, the morning came quickly. Then it is off to the screening clinic. The hospital in Lapu Lapu had crowds of people all hoping to have their clefts repaired. The process to see 80-100 patients at times...

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Alora's Story I have participated in over 30 surgical outreaches to 8 different locations throughout the world. Last year Alora touched me and the members of our team is ways that no other patient has ever affected us. Alora was born with a Bilateral Cleft Lip and Palate. She had a lip repair as a...

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This years adventure begins Friday February 10 with a flight on Korean Airlines from San Francisco to Seoul Korea to Cebu Philippines. We left our home at 7:30 AM Friday. It is now 7:30 PM Saturday. We have one more leg to reach Cebu. I am traveling with Sally Kamal, a resident from UC Davis. We ha...

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