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PHILIPPINE SEA – When she realized
her baby was sick, Analiza Villanueva took her son to Philippine
surgeons to correct an abnormal fold on the child’s intestine. The
doctors treated the fold by separating the nine-month-old child’s
colon and creating a colostomy for solid waste to drain out of the
child’s abdomen. It was supposed to be a two-part operation in which
doctors reattached the colon after sufficient recovery time. But
Analiza had spent what little money she had on the first surgery, and
was now unable to afford even colostomy bags to capture the child’s
waste- relying instead on constantly changing out gauze on her son’s
stomach.
For more than two years, this was the reality for the 22-year-old
mother from Albay and her son.
That reality changed June 24 after the Pacific Partnership medical
staff repaired the child’s colon during surgery aboard the ship.
“The operation went as well as it should have. It was pretty much text
book,” said Cmdr. David Plurad, who performed the surgery.
During the more than two-hour procedure, Plurad and his team comprised
of both Navy doctors and civilian medical professionals operated on
the child’s small and large bowels to correct the former from having
telescoped into the latter, according the Plurad.
From the moment the child and his mother arrived on the ship, the
tenacious three-year-old became an instant celebrity with the medical
department’s staff, according to Lt. Leslie Councilor, Peleliu’s
embarked medical laboratory officer.
“He was the first child on board since we started the mission, and he
and I became friends,” said Councilor, who has a three-year-old of her
own. Once meeting the child and his mother, Councilor began bringing
toys to the child, playing with the boy, and even talking with the
boy’s mother, despite the language barrier.
“Even though his mom and I speak two different languages,” said
Councilor, “we both have that ‘mommy’ connection where we can
sympathize with one another.”
According to Cmdr. Shari Jones, anesthetist during the boy’s surgery,
the staff’s attachment to the child resonated not only outside of the
operating room, but within it, as well.
“Little kids tug at your heart strings,” she said. “They have so much
of a life to live, and to be able to change a kid’s life and let him
live like a normal little boy is amazing.”
Had the child not received surgery for his condition, he could have
grown up to suffer severe skin ailments, as well as ridicule from his
peers, said Jones.
With the surgery now completed, however, Plurad’s prognosis is
optimistic.
“(He) recovered in a normal recovery time (and) left here as a normal
kid,” said the doctor. “This child will now have the opportunity to
grow up normal.”
A day after the surgery and prior to the boy’s release, Analiza was
asked- through a translator- if there was anything she’d like to say
to the doctors who helped her son. The woman smiled, waved the
translator off, and spoke in English:
“So many thank you’s for this operation for my baby… Thank you very
much.”
Pacific Partnership is a humanitarian mission by the U.S. military and
participating non-governmental organizations: Aloha Medical Mission,
Project Hope, University of California San Diego Pre-Dental Society,
and others. The four month deployment builds on the success of USNS
Mercy (T-AH 19) and her 2006 deployment to the region.
The Pacific Partnership team will visit Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, the
Solomon Islands and the Marshall Islands before wrapping up
mid-September 2007.
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