Devyn’s New Dome is Here!!!

Thank you Dr. Duncan and Dr. Persing for working an absolute miracle today.  The “after” pictures are a little rough she had just come out of surgery.  We wanted to get some pictures as soon as possible though, because tomorrow the swelling will set in and be rather severe.  She is beginning to look like her twin… finally.

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Say your prayers.

Devyn’s surgery is still set for Thursday.  So please do us a large favor and say a few prayers that our luck holds out until Thursday.  Take care and we will update on Thursday night.

Surgical Miracles

As Devyn’s cranioplasty gets closer we find ourselves stumbling upon all kinds of stories about children who have undergone “miracle” plastic surgeries.  Here is the latest we have found and are very encouraged by this girl’s story.  Hope everyone is well and we will keep you posted before and after Devyn’s surgery.

 
Once-Disfigured Girl Attends Prom After 18 Surgeries

Wednesday May 28, 2008 

By: Marrecca Fiore, Fox News

Cody Hall was born with a hemangioma, a tumorous birthmark that distorted the shape of her face and grew larger as she got older.

When she was 1-year-old, her doctors in England told her parents that nothing could be done about her condition, so her parents took her to see surgeons in the U.S.

Fourteen years and 18 reconstructive surgeries later, most of them at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, the girl who once had a hopelessly deformed face was flashing a beautiful smile at the prom.

“Cody came to me several years back after she had undergone an initial procedure in San Francisco,” Hall’s surgeon, Milton Waner, told FOXNews.com. “She had some really bad problems at the time. It was a very difficult situation. She had excessive scarring from an aggressive hemangioma.”

Most of her 18 surgeries have been performed at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York.

“She had extensive tissue destruction and we performed several procedures to restore her face back to normalcy,” said Waner, who is co-director of the Vascular Birthmarks Institute of New York at Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Waner said hemangiomas are benign tumors of the stem cells. Although the tumors are not fatal, their complications can be.

“What happens is that the tumor grows very rapidly in the first few years of life and the affected stem cells lose their ability to replicate,” Waner said.

The tumor leaves behind a path of destruction. In worst-case scenarios, they can cause infections and punch holes in blood vessels, causing death from heart failure or excessive bleeding, Waner said.

About 1 out of 10 people has a hemangioma, Waner said. Most do not require treatment. Of those that do, treatment can range from simple laser procedures to complex reconstructive surgeries.

Hall underwent numerous procedures at the hospital over a 14-year period, including facelifts, rhinoplasty, skin grafts, liposuction, dermabrasion, eye surgery and laser surgery. The surgeries cost more than $376,000. Much of the money was donated by people in the U.K., according to the Daily Mail.

With the majority of her medical treatment behind her, Hall, of Corby in Northants, England, is expected to lead a normal life, Waner said. “She looks much, much better now. If you saw her walking on the street, you would never know she had had any problems.”

 

The New Big Countdown!

Now that hand surgery has been added to the docket, we thought it only fair to update the Countdown.  So, here it is below, and as always you can always go to The Big Countdown page at the top of the blog to get the most current countdown.

Have a look inside.

Well everyone the moment you all have been waiting for… a look inside those crazy hands of Devyn’s. Hand surgery will be happening June 12, 2008 along side her cranioplasty. The hand surgeon will release the thumb and pinky finger on her left hand. That is only the beginning, the plan is to separate all fingers on both hands over the next few years.

American Society for Surgery of the Hand

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Miracles

If doctors can help this little girl then Dev’s head and hands should be NO PROBLEM! We’re always praying for more miracles and this story sure gives us hope!

Girl, 15, Prepares for Surgery to Correct Upside-Down Feet

Thursday , May 01, 2008

NEW YORK  — 

In her 15 years, Jingle Luis has never walked on the bottoms of her feet. 

Born in the Philippines with feet so clubbed they twist backward and upside down, she uses crutches to hobble on what should be the tops of her feet.

“I can accept it,” Jingle said Wednesday in a voice so soft it was barely audible.

But if all goes well, Jingle won’t have to accept the condition much longer. She and her mother have journeyed from the Philippines to Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx for surgery Thursday and follow-up treatment that will consist of slowly rotating her feet until she can walk normally.

Click here for photos.

Her case is more severe than those usually seen by doctors in industrialized countries.

“Generally speaking, with modern technology, it doesn’t get to this point,” said Dr. Terry Amaral, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who will perform the surgery at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

Clubfoot is a relatively common deformity, occurring in about one in 1,000 births. Children are usually treated in infancy with casts or braces that gradually bring the feet into correct alignment. The condition becomes harder to treat if it is not corrected early on.

Amaral said Jingle’s case was complicated by the fact that her clubfoot was associated with spina bifida, a birth defect that involves the incomplete development of the spinal cord or its coverings.

He said doctors who saw Jingle as a baby thought that her spina bifida would shorten her life span and prevent her from walking, so they did not treat the clubfoot.

“They felt it wasn’t worth managing because of the life expectancy, so they decided to leave it alone,” Amaral said.

But Jingle’s spina bifida is relatively mild. Her bladder and bowel functions are impaired, but she has normal intelligence and can move her feet and legs.

Jingle came to the attention of Montefiore after Dr. Randall Owen, a head and neck surgeon, traveled to the Philippines in 2003 on a mission trip organized by the Tennessee-based Christian Medical and Dental Association.

Owen saw Jingle there but could not treat her clubfoot.

“She needs a multidisciplinary team,” he said. “It was nothing we could do on a two-week mission trip.”

Jingle and her mother arrived in New York on April 17. The treatment, which doctors are providing pro bono, will consist of surgery Thursday to insert screws into the bones of Jingle’s feet. The screws will be attached to scaffold-like devices that will stabilize her feet while the screws are turned bit by bit.

“Her bones are a little deformed, but most of it comes from the tight soft tissues in the inner part of her feet,” Amaral said. He estimated that it would take a month to rotate the feet a few degrees at a time.

The scaffolding will then be replaced by casts, and then by braces Amaral expects Jingle to wear for about a year.

“And then, eventually, regular shoes,” he said.

Jingle and her mother will stay with a friend in Bergenfield, N.J., during the treatment.

Jingle’s father is a corn farmer; her mother sells farm-raised fish door to door, carrying her wares on her head.

Jingle has other career goals. “I think a doctor or a nurse,” she said.