Mateo Hernandaz, continued

Mateo Hernandaz was number three on the surgery schedule. He was wheeled from his room and his mom waited patiently at the doors of the operating hall, standing against the wall.

Mateo's surgery was straight-forward. He was going to have his cleft lip repaired now, and his parents were encouraged to come back in a year or two to complete the palate repair. But other children's repairs require more steps. Because good dental hygiene is uncommon for folks living in these remote villages, many children who need cleft lip and palate repair first need to have decayed teeth extracted, in order to provide the surgeon a disease-free mouth. On this particular MOST mission, there is one youg child who is scheduled to have 18 teeth removed. (Children typically have no more than 20 teeth).

After spending time in the recovery room, Mateo Hernandaz was wheeled back to the post-op ward, where the two earlier patients were also recovering. Both his mother and father were there to embrace their son. Throughout the course of the day in post-op, Mateo would be joined by three other young children who were all from the same area of the country. All four families came to Xela together, and all four wanted to leave together.

Sometimes, if everything goes well, if the surgery isn't complicated, and if the child is robust, he or she is able to leave the same day as the surgery. In the case of Mateo, and in the case of the other three from his village, he spent the night. This was partly due to his low weight, and partly due to the distance that needed to be traveled to his village.

More continues in the next blog...