High mortality among infants with birth defects. Vieng’s mother struggled to keep him alive.

February 8, 2008
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With funds donated by Wisconsin school children this boy was able to receive surgery that changed his life.

Nakai Tai Village - Khammouan Province - Laos Peoples Democratic Republic

About eighteen months ago, thanks in large part to some “good deed money” donated by students at Madison Elementary School in Stevens Point, Wisconsin a Lao toddler from Nakai Tai Village received life-changing surgery.

Vieng, whose name translates literally as “Hole-in-the-lip”, was born with a cleft lip and palate.  As an infant his birth defects threatened his survival.  The cleft in his lip prevented him from creating enough suction to successfully draw milk from his mother’s breast.  What little milk he did receive ran through the hole in his palate and trickled out his nose.  Only his mother’s vigilance and dedication kept him alive.  She captured her breast milk in a cup and carefully fed it, a teaspoon at a time, to her son.  Little scrapper that he is, Vieng beat the odds and survived.

I first wrote about the boy and his family in a September 5, 2006 journal entry.  At that time I wrote that I had arranged for the child to have surgery in Vientiane, to be paid for by a civic organization called the Women’s International Group.  (I’d learned that a physician from abroad was planning a working visit to the city’s largest hospital.  This doctor was reputed to have the surgical skills required to close the holes in Vieng’s palate and lip in a single operation.  The Lao doctors I’d spoken with were competent to close Vieng’s cleft lip but lacked the skill to work on his palate.)

The one hitch was that Vieng was not a particularly good candidate for surgery.  He was malnourished, full of parasites and, as a consequence, underweight.  It was a safe bet that he was anemic as well.  Until Vieng’s health improved and he showed more likelihood of surviving the surgery, the doctor wouldn’t operate.

I used money from the kids in Stevens Point to take Vieng to his first-ever visit with a doctor.  The nurses checked his blood count, dosed him with some concoction to rid him of intestinal parasites, and started him on a daily regimen of vitamins.

To boost his general health and to help him gain weight, I started using student funds to conduct weekly shopping trips on his behalf.  I provided his mother with fruits, vegetables, peanuts and cooking oil.  Every week I’d deliver seven eggs to his home to insure that he would have a measure of protein every day.  Vieng began to thrive on the diet.  Eventually, however, he grew so bored with eggs that his mother had trouble getting him to eat them anymore.  I advised her to crush peanuts and add the bits to his rice and vegetables.

Here’s a 2008 update:

Perhaps the attached photographs tell it all!

Vieng passed the pre-operational physical, met the weight requirement with nearly a pound to spare, and came through the operation with flying colors.

His mouth was sore for several days after the procedure.  My post-operation visits during that week were the only occasions when he has ever declined to climb into my arms; even his mother found it hard to comfort him.

Today, Vieng is the picture of good health and as I often tell his mother, he’s handsome enough to someday claim the hand of any young lady in the village.

Vieng’s family sees no reason to change his name.  He’s still “Hole-in-the-lip” and will be for the rest of his life.  I get a laugh thinking that someday, long after I’m dead and gone, perhaps when Vieng is the age that I am now, his grandchildren might ask, “Grandfather, why do people call you “Hole-in-the-lip?”

Then, Vieng will tell them the story that he learned from his mother: “One day a tall American with a big nose and no hair on his head walked into my village…”

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