http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/business/ph-ac-cn-filmon-recovery-0814-20150813-story.html
African teen healing after facial reconstruction at Anne Arundel Medical Center
Filmon Haile, of Eritrea, underwent surgery two weeks ago at Anne
Arundel Medical Center to rebuild his face, which was stunted by
radiation when he was a toddler. He's staying with a family in Bowie
as he continues his recovery. (By Matthew Cole / Capita Gazette)
By Tim Prudentetprudente_at_capgaznews.comcontact the reporter
August 13, 2015
Medicine meets engineering with face reconstruction at an Annapolis hospital
Filmon Haile is constructing his new face.
He's building the shelf beneath his eyes. He's building the frame for
his palate.
His tools are screws, plates and gears. And of his labor, he writes:
It is uncomfortable, but no pain … I don't know if it is because of
the swelling, but in general there is a lot of difference … everything
is moving forward.
He writes because he cannot yet speak, not after last month's surgery
— but he can build.
African teen comes to Annapolis for a new face
Gently, gently, he turns the screws behind his ears. Gently, slowly,
the titanium plates move bones in his face.
Each day, three movements travel the thickness of a credit card.
The architect is Dr. Edward Zebovitz, an Annapolis surgeon, who
pledged more than a year ago to rebuild the face of the African teen,
a student so painfully shy from a childhood deformity that he would
hide his face beneath a black scarf.
I told them (my friends) that my surgery was successful, but they want
my new look, my pic ... I guess their expectation is that I already
changed.
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Instead, his new face will be built gradually, during the next eight
days, maybe more.
And it wasn't until the morning of July 31 at Anne Arundel Medical
Center, hours into the most ambitious surgery of Zebovitz's 20-year
career that the doctor felt sure.
It would work.
Radiation had stunted Haile's face when he was a toddler. Doctors in
Africa had found a tumor on his cheek and prescribed targeted
chemotherapy. The cancer was disrupted, so was his growth.
He endured high school with the face of a boy: concave cheeks with
paper-thin bones, a pinched mouth with only 13 teeth.
CAPTIONFilmon Haile
By Matthew Cole /
Filmon Haile, from Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea, in east
Africa, at the home of his sponsor, Mike Naizghi, in Bowie on Thursday
afternoon.
CAPTIONFilmon Haile
By Matthew Cole /
Filmon Haile, from Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea, in east
Africa, left, plays a video game with Matt Michael, at his home in
Bowie on Thursday afternoon.
Would his bones and tissues recover from surgery? Lasting radiation
damage appears as pale tissue.
"If I saw something I didn't like, I would have aborted," Zebovitz said.
He didn't know until hours into the procedure, when the surgeons cut
open Haile's face to reveal the eye sockets and cheeks. The doctors
needed profuse bleeding — bleeding proves healthy tissue.
"They were profuse," Zebovitz said. "We were going to be fine."
The surgery lasted 10 hours, the doctors snipping, cutting, sopping
and drilling into the bones.
cComments
Dr. Z. is a wonderful man and great humanitarian. We need more like him!!
DVILLESUZ
AT 8:19 AM AUGUST 14, 2015
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Haile awoke at 8 p.m. Two screws extended behind his ears, another
from the gum line of his mouth.
Now, morning and night, he twists each screw to shape his new face.
The plates pull apart the cut bones, about 1 millimeter a day. Tissue
regrows in the gap. And when the procedure is finished, maybe next
week, his cheeks and top jaw will have widened and moved forward about
a half-inch.
Next month, he will turn 20 with the face of an adult.
Is a cardiac program needed in Anne Arundel County?
Maybe in December, the plates will be removed and Haile might return
home to Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea in the Horn of Africa.
Then, the university.
In that city, more than a year ago, Haile met Zebovitz, the former
chief of oral and maxillofacial (face) surgery at Anne Arundel Medical
Center. Zebovitz formed a charity in the 1990s, Surgeons for Smiles.
He travels to rural villages and foreign cities to repair cleft lips.
Haile's surgery proved too challenging to attempt in Africa. Zebovitz
won permission from the State Department to bring Haile and his mother
here. They arrived in March to stay with a refugee from Eritrea living
in Bowie. Zebovitz performed the surgery for free and Anne Arundel
Medical Center absorbed its own expenses.
That surgery, an apparent success, expands the possibility of
Zebovitz's charity work.
"Now the systems are in place, if those special cases come up, there's
an avenue for treatment," said the surgeon, with an office in Bowie
and home in Annapolis. "The more we see, the more we learn — the
better we do in the future."
News stories about the surgery spread online. And Haile, turning his
screws each day, building his new face, unable to speak, reads the
comments of encouragement.
I want to thank them with all my heart. God bless them.
Copyright © 2015, Capital Gazette
Received on Fri Aug 14 2015 - 21:50:49 EDT