Flower is a Spina Bifida Poster Child

Amanda was Flower's foster mom in China. Flower was born with Spina Bifida and Amanda orchestrated the surgery that likely saved her life. After Flower(previously known as Nina) was adopted by us, Amanda received three more babies with Spina Bifida, all given 'flower' names. They also had successful surgeries. Amanda is currently with four more babies and one young boy getting their surgeries done by the same amazing doctors that helped Flower. Below is what she wrote about Flower and all the other babies and the doctors on her blog today. It touches my heart every time I read about Flower's past and where she is now and that she was somewhat of a pioneer in Amanda's efforts. (You'll also read about her and these sweet children needing more neurosurgeons. If you know of anyone, please please PLEASE let me know so I can network for Amanda. Thank you!)


UCLA Medical Team


When Starfish started out 3 years ago, I received six babies on one day. What a shock to the system that was! One of the babies they dropped off, had the sack filled with fluid on her neck centered on her spine and I was told before the orphanage staff left, what ever you do, don't brake it. I had absolutely no idea what it was or what to do. I was so ignorant of so many things. Came to find out that the baby had spina bifida (SB) and the sack was filled with spinal fluid. Anyway through a long series of events, I learned that a foreign neurosurgeon was coming to Shanghai and I got a chance to get Nina as she was then called, now known as Flower, onto his surgery schedule. Initially the orphanage refused me permission to take her, but I persisted for about a week and finally the morning we were suppose to leave they agreed. I was so scared because I had no idea what was coming. We went to one of the best hospitals in China (Shanghai United) and I got to see the miracle of what Dr Jorge Lazareff can do. I found out he separated conjoined twins from Guatemala a few years back. Not only that but he had worked in Groote Schuur, the hospital in South Africa were the first heart transplant was done (Just in case you get that as a Jeopardy question ever) Nina came back with out her sack and I just cried with the wonder of it all. He had repaired her cleft spine and had removed her sack known as a meningiocele. I also got to meet Dr Barbara whose specialty is neurological anesthesiology. Since then Dr Lazareff and Dr Barbara have repaired the three flowers spina bifida: Heather, Lily and Jasmine (now Megan).

Here are our four spina bifida babies and our boy











This week I will be with another four babies and a nine year old boy who will have a third attempt at repairing his SB. The previous two surgeries were not successful. The children are from the two orphanages I work with. The surgeries will be at Dr Bao's hospital in Shanghai. I get to see first hand the gift of great doctors who come to China and are willing to volunteer their skills and their time to transform the life of a child. I get to see the effects of their work in my house everyday. There are so many children here who are born with SB in northern China, due to the lack of folic acid found in food which is not always affordable. Unfortunately there are so few really good pediatric neurosurgeons and so we keep Dr Bao pretty busy with all the constant flow of SB babies. I honestly pray we could get more doctors who are willing to come and help. So if you know of any neurosurgeon who would like to come to China and help us out please let me know. I promise to have a full schedule to keep them busy.

Lastly, here is Flower today. These pictures were taken by her mom Angee and so she is our SB poster child. I could not have imagined. This picture is from December 2005 when she had her surgery.



Life, Love and Laughter,
Amanda

Starfish Foster Home
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com
chinese.starfishthrower@gmail.com
www.chinesestarfish.org
Cell: 1348.812.4847