Stories - Baby Joanna

I want to tell you up front that this one has a happy ending! We received baby Joanna (6 months) as one of our patients about three weeks ago. Joanna was born with a clept lip and palate which means that her lip and the top of the roof of her mouth didn't develop properly and so there is a hole where there should be a lip and palate. These aren't that unusual in the U.S. but we fix them. Here is a photo of baby Joanna.

In Africa, many times the mother and the community will reject the baby because they believe there is a curse. In this case, Joanna's mother Rebecca did reject her (but didn't abandon her). She brought her to the ship a few months ago for help but the baby was too underweight to have surgery. So Joanna was put on a feeding program and the nurses also helped Rebecca to bond with Joanna.

So all was well for a while. Joanna gained weight and Rebecca took on her role as mother. So a month or so ago, Rebecca brought Joanna to the ship to see if she was ready for surgery. Upon her full physical evaluation, it appeared she had a heart murmur and the anesthetists were concerned she had either an ASD or VSD (which are basically holes in the walls of the heart). They were concerned that she would not survive the surgery and so we gave Rebecca the bad news - we wouldn't be doing surgery on baby Joanna.

Obviously, Rebecca was devastated and cried and cried. I can only imagine how much she hurt knowing that her baby was going to grow up in a society that shuns people with deformities. Rebecca was so upset that she was referred to us so that we could provide ongoing emotional support.

So we visited Rebecca and Joanna (and big sister Madeleine) 3 weeks ago. Rebecca told us that she thought God was angry with her and that was why Joanna had this problem. So we told her how much God loved them and he didn't cause this and all the other explanations we come up with that really don't provide answers.

Now for the good part. For the last two weeks we have had a pediatric oncologist, Tom Walwyn, from the UK going out on visits with us so we asked if he would evaluate Joanna so we could get a better idea of what her problem was. At this point, we had no idea what her heart problem was and whether she would live a long or short life. Dr. Tom evaluated her last week and detected NO heart murmur - in fact she was perfectly healthy. So he arranged for Joanna to come to the ship on Wednesday for an ultrasound of her heart.

Fast forward to Wednesday. Baby Joanna and Rebecca come to the ship for the ultrasound. Dr. Wolfgang, our new crew doctor and heart specialist, and Dr. Tom perform the ultrasound and they see only a strong, healthy heart. So we are all now very excited. Dr. Tom gets a hold of the person in charge of the surgery schedule and she says we can fit Joanna in the next day for her surgery. So now Rebecca is crying and I'm crying. And we all have huge smiles.

It turns out, though, that Joanna had a respiratory infection so to be safe, we are postponing her surgery a few days after a few days on antibiotics. Joanna's surgery will be next Monday, Oct 1, so Rebecca and Joanna will come to the ship on Sunday to be admitted.

Tom says sometimes VSDs/ASDs repair themselves on their own. I'm skeptical because it has only been a month or so since we heard the murmur but it's possible. I prefer to believe God healed her. We have been praying so much that God would make a way for Joanna and I believe He has. If Dr. Tom hadn't come and if Dr. Wolfgang hadn't come or if they had come earlier or later than they did, baby Joanna wouldn't be having surgery. And we won't be back to Liberia until 2010 at the earliest. Joanna would have grown up with her deformity and her mother would have lived all these years believing Joanna had a heart problem.

Here's a photo of Rebecca, Joanna and Madeleine. I can hardly wait to post an after-surgery photo!!

Peace,

Michele