TESTIMONIALS

Joshua

Country: Nigeria

Project: medical mission

Joshua came into the operating room in November, 2010 with a Band-aid across his upper lip. I didn’t realize that the Band-aid was  practically holding his face together. He had a tumor of the lip that had been present for years. The tumor was previously removed  but recurred. The tumor involved the entire upper lip and destroyed the central portion. There was a separate lesion was on his  nose.
The surgery required removal of the entire upper lip. After you remove someone’s entire lip, you realize there’s no going back!
We then reconstructed the mouth with a Gillies type Fan Flap. We cauterized the lesion on his nose.
I was so happy when he came back to see me three months later. His mouth was smaller, of course, but he could open it wide and  had good lip function. His speech was barely changed.
The tumor was a basal cell carcinoma. He refused radiation but has no recurrence to date.

Ogechi

Country: Nigeria

Project: medical mission

When I first saw Ogechi in June, 2006, she was lying in bed, with a shawl covering her upper chest, and I thought she was nursing a baby. She had a enormous left breast mass that was sucking the life out of her. She was too weak to walk. She had surgery previously and when the tumor recurred, she gave up. It was obvious that resecting the tumor would be challenging. The veins feeding it were bigger than my thumb. I called in Dr. Mike Enyinnah and we braced for battle. I had planned to slowly remove the tumor and keep the bleeding under control. But as Helmuth von Moltke the Elder stated “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy”. The bleeding was so fierce that it was audible. Finally, we just took a scalpel and cut off the tumor as fast as possible. Then we compressed the wound and the bleeding stopped! After several weeks, the wound was granulating  well and we placed a skin graft. Ogechi came back 6 months later and had gained about 35 pounds. She was so thankful. The pathology showed cystosarcoma phylloydes which is generally a benign sarcoma of the breast. Ogechi had radiation therapy after
surgery and remains tumor free

Obioma Blessing

Country: Nigeria

Project: medical mission

This cute little girl came to NCH with her mother in 2004. She had a left neck mass that had been growing since birth. We did a very careful surgery and removed the mass. Despite giving her a doll, she was never really happy to see us. The tumor was a benign neural tumor and she made an uneventful recovery.

Sepuruchi

Country: Nigeria

Project: medical mission

Sepuruchi was a wild banshee from the moment I saw her February, 2011. She didn’t want to have anything to do with examinations, surgery or me. She had a benign hemangioma of the lip (a collection of blood vessels) that was growing. At first, I considered doing some very fancy surgery such as an Abbe-Estlander Lip switch in which a portion of the upper lip is transferred to the
lower lip. But then I remembered KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). I decided to just excise the lesion, and, if the results were unsatisfactory, return for a more complicated surgery.
I did the operation and, in the week following surgery, it looked worse every day!. I fretted about it day and night. Finally, I told the Mom we would see how it looked on the next trip. When she returned July, 2011, my dreams were fulfilled. The result wasn’t perfect but it was pretty good and Mom was happy.

Chinwendu

Country: Nigeria

Project: medical mission

When twenty-five year-old Chinwendu arrived in April, 2010, it was obvious, from a single look, that she was a delightful woman-but one with a big problem. She had a tumor of the wrist that had destroyed her hand. Her ulnar bone was gone. The tumor was obviously a sarcoma of some type and amputation was the only treatment. Unfortunately, it would not be a cure. We proceeded with amputation and she recovered rapidly. She came back to see me in July, 2010 and was happy and looking well. In December, however, she developed a small metastasis on her leg that we removed. Several more appeared over the next six months and we
started her on chemotherapy. Overall, her prognosis is poor. Despite this, she remains upbeat.
The pathology showed rhabdomyosarcoma-a sarcoma in which the cancer cells arise from skeletal muscles

Team behind the medical  missions