June 14th, 2012: DAY 4 OF SURGERY

          We are happy to announce the successful completion of the international surgical mission in the province of Nghe An, Vietnam. We were fortunate to have a very excited and skilled team of volunteers from Australia, Canada, Sweden, the United States, and Vietnam. It was amazing to witness how such a diverse group of people were able to work together effectively and transform the lives of so many children despite several cultural and language barriers. As a team, we screened a total of 131 children and provided 83 procedures for 75 patients at the Nghe An 115 General Hospital.

            Many patients touched our hearts with their stories this week, but we have to mention Hau Huu Nguyen, a twelve-year-old boy who was born with a unilateral cleft lip and palate.

            I spotted Hau sitting closely next to his mother in the front of the hospital during screening, shyly staring at the hungry babies screaming in their mothers’ laps and the excited children running around him. He wore a soiled white and blue collared shirt, complete with a tiny blue tie and a small badge with his school’s name printed on it. His stubby legs, clad in jeans covered with colorful cartoons of superheroes, dangled over his chair, slowly tracing shapes in the air beneath him. As I started to move closer to Hau, he quickly tucked his lips in, concealing his scarred mouth from view. I tried to speak to him, but Hau shoved his face in the crook of his mother’s arm, avoiding me completely. I decided to talk to Hau’s mother, Ha, to collect the heartbreaking details of her son’s story.

            Hau was always used to hiding his deformed face from others. Although Operation Smile worked on Hau’s cleft lip twice before when he was very young, Hau’s lip still wasn’t fully repaired from the surgeries because the scar on his upper lip is still visible. At school, Hau’s peers tease him, mocking him with hurtful comments because of a deformity that is totally out of his control.

            Hau’s unrepaired cleft palate also poses many difficulties for Hau. As an infant, Hau had much trouble feeding. Ty always needed to grind Hau’s food into a milky liquid in order for Hau to eat it. Hau also has severe speaking problems, a reason why he neglected to respond when I tried to talk to him.

            Ty recently began to lose all hope for her son to finally become normal. As a rice farmer, she is barely able to support her mentally challenged husband and three sons with her measly earnings. Ty knew she would not be able to pay for the surgery Hau needed with her negligible income.

            When someone told her that Operation Smile was coming to Nghe An, Ty felt that her son would finally have the chance to live a normal life. Ty and Hau traveled 70 kilometers from their home in Thanh Chuong to make it to the hospital for screening. As Hau went through the screening process, Ty said, “I am grateful that we have come here. I hope my son will be able to have the surgery he needs to look completely normal.”

            Ty was extremely excited to hear that our team accepted Hau for surgery. When Hau’s surgery was completed, Ty was brought into the recovery room to see her son. When Ty reached Hau’s bed, her face contorted in disbelief, unable to believe what she was seeing. “This is not my son! This is not what he looks like! Where is my son?” Ty exclaimed, looking for Hau in the other patients’ beds. Even though the anesthesiologist tried to assure her that her son was lying in the hospital bed before her, Ty persisted with her confusion, unable to realize that the newly handsome face lying in front of her was Hau’s. Eventually, the anesthesiologist gave up, showing Ty that Hau’s chart was attached to the bed he lay in. Shocked, tears quickly began to run down Ty’s face as she thanked the anesthesiologist over and over again for making her son normal.

Hau waits to enter the screening process. (Diana Amini)