If you've been heartbroken whenever you've seen photos of children with cleft lips and cleft palates, you'll be crushed over the images of the facial deformation 7-year-old Filipino boy Jhonny Lameon had until March, when he underwent a direly needed surgical procedure to remove a HUGE tumor that practically covered his face. Here he is after, but wait until you see the shocking picture of what a massive tumor on his face looks like. You'll be speechless.
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Because of an extremely rare and severe neural tube condition, a congenital anomality, the boy had a membranous sac expanding through the insides of his eyes and practically covering his entire face. Since the boy required extensive–and expensive–surgical procedures to correct the problem and he hailed from a poor family in the southern part of the Philippines, where there was little access to state-of-the-art medical equipment, parents and members of the community felt little could be done to address his condition. Luckily, a non-profit organization caught wind of Jhonny's condition and quickly mobilized to get him the surgery he needed–for free!
The non-profit organization Interplast, based in Australia and New Zealand, is dedicated to securing free reconstructive surgery for people in the Asia Pacific area who are disabled or deformed due to congenital or acquired medical conditions. During a visit to the Philippines, a team of Interplast volunteers assessed Jhonny and arranged for him to undergo a complex procedure in Australia, enlisting the Children First Foundation to make all the necessary travel arrangements to get Jhonny and his mom from the Philippines to Australia as quickly as possible.
Under the leadership of plastic surgeon James Leong of the Monash Children's Hospital in Melbourne, a team of four surgeons operated on Jhonny for seven hours in order to remove the mass and reconstruct his entire face. The operation was successful and little Jhonny is now recovering in Australia.
The images of Jhonny post-surgery show the boy smiling, his once obscured face now plainly visible. Those photos remind us that this is, at heart, a joyful tale of a child being given a chance at a healthier and happier life and a testament to human kindness on the part of all those who facilitated this life-changing surgery.
Images via Monash Health
