Mirror mirror on the wall...the nose

I was called to see a young man in the ship's hospital who had undergone some maxillofacial surgery. He was taking nutrition through a gastric tube and was breathing fast, using accessory muscles of respiration, and had a rapid heart rate. He has no history of any breathing problems and many things ran through my mind, but he had some moderate wheezing that cleared with asthma medicine, his chest x-ray was clear, and he settled in for an event less night.

Most of the time when I passed by his ward after the surgery, he would be looking in a mirror, which never left his hand or his lap. His story is typical of many of the patients that come to Mercy Ships. They have a normal life and then one day it all changes. For him it was a little spot on the nose which in 10 years had grown to the point that it probably came to define who he was, at least to others if not to himself. His humanity was practically swallowed up in the the giant mass that the spot had become. He was shunned by society and treated as an outcast. Many a person here with either birth defects or acquired defects are thought to literally have a demon or devil, and must be put outside the circle of compassion to "protect" those that are normal. Such was his fate.

He was once evaluated by Surgeons from Saudi Arabia, but they determined he had to come to their own country to have the surgery, and it was impossible for him to make the trip (about 50% of the population make less than $1.00 a day).

The growth is benign ( in the cancerous sense, but neither you nor I would consider it "benign" if we had it!!), a form of ossyfying fibroma or fibrocystoma. He had a debulking of the mass with placement of a titanium plate to support the anterior maxillary wall. These are his before and after pictures. What a difference this makes, not just to his appearance but to how he thinks of himself. It will undoubtedly completely change the arc of his life, as he once again joins society and starts to live a more normal life. A priceless surgery for a priceless human being.