when the whiskers come off...

Monday afternoon I set a stool next to the charge nurse desk and gathered some supplies - gauze, saline, a basin, gloves, and several pairs of small sterile scissors.  We were fresh out of mirrors on D ward, so I walked down to B to get the most important item for my small salon: a handheld mirror.

Bla before surgery

And I chose my first victim carefully.  I looked up from my preparations to find 8-year-old Bla watching me intently.  He grinned and came over for a hug.  Bla was one of my broken-lipped kids, with a smile so genuine and brilliant you would never realize he had a hole in his lip, and an enthusiastic snuggle-hug every time he catches a nurse with an arm free.  Bla and his mama are from way up north, so far that no one else on the ward speaks their language.  When our one translator fluent in Moba goes home for the day, we pantomime.


The "serious face" - shortly after the
visit to the cleft lip salon.

So I made faces at Bla, sat him on the stool, pretended to clean my lip with the gauze, and gave him the purple mirror to watch.  He nodded, and smiled, and then looked very serious.

As I cleaned Bla's lip with the saline and gauze, we gathered a small crowd of whisker-lipped kids all intently watching and commenting on the process, reaching half-way up to their own repaired lips before remembering not to touch.  I kept up a running commentary of who would be next and how beautiful their lips would be, while the two-year-old with his hand on my knee patted me and giggled along with the rest.  Bla stayed very still, intently watching my hand in the mirror as I snipped the extra spiky suture ends along the upper lip and up just into his nose.  When I finished I told him how handsome he looked, and he inspected himself in the mirror before breaking into an excited smile.

The reward was stickers, and he decorated himself enthusiastically while I cleaned up.  Then I took him by the hand and led him over to my next victim, 4-year-old Abla.

See how handsome Bla's lip is?  I would like to take your stickers off your lip and make it look pretty.  Abla hid shyly behind the translator, but she didn't particularly object, so I soaked off her steri strips and started snipping.  Abla's mama came over to inspect the repair job.  I didn't understand much of the words, but the big grin and thumbs-up are relatively universal.  Little sister watched, interested, from her place on mom's back.  Once I had finished four little lips, we gathered all the mamas and the kids for a group teaching session on wound care and lip exercises -  in four different languages.
This field service our surgeons have repaired 34 cleft lips and palates.  We had 8 on the ward that day in various stages of healing; some still with nasal bolsters and fresh steri-strips, and others already "discharged" and just waiting for a final would check before the long trip back north and home.  The next morning 5 newly-healed little lips were ready for a final photo and a discharge once all the transportation and follow-up details finished.  They're in varying degrees of acceptance still: Bla is quite proud of his new lip, flaunting a "see how handsome I look" at every one of his favorite nurses and visitors that walk in the door, while 6-year-old Assoum isn't used to the attention and mostly just hides his face in his chair and 5-year-old Yaovwi hasn't quite forgiven me for taking off his steri-strips.  They'll forget to be shy eventually and forget that maybe once they were called ugly and outcast.

Instead I hope they remember that first look in the mirror once the tape and crusts and dried blood have all come off, that first glimpse of a chance at normal life, and a voice telling them they are handsome or beautiful...

I pray they know they are wanted and loved, and that beyond just physical repair they find wholeness and new life in a God who loves them regardless of the brokenness on the inside or outside, and no matter where they once had holes or whiskers still waiting to come off.