COTA Team 2010 Slideshow

COTA Prepares for Team 2011

Children of the Americas board members have been busy since June working on the details of our upcoming team. In January of 2011, over 100 volunteers will depart the U.S. for Guatemala.
This past summer, several COTA board members drove throughout Guatemala searching for the best Team 2011 site. Many things have to come together in order to create a successful team experience, and Salama had the right combination. Since the scouting trip, supplies have been gathered from several locations, inventoried, boxed and shipped to Guatemala. All team applications have been received and approved by a team committee. Professional CV's are ready to submit to the Guatemalan Ministry of Health. Hundreds of clinic and OR forms have been printed and packed, COTA is networking with other NGO's for prospective surgical candidates, and plane reservations are being made by our volunteers.
All of the above is done by board members who work full-time and volunteer in their "spare time" for our organization.

Jose moves to his new foster home

Jose, who you will remember as having the large AV malformation of his face, was transferred to his new foster home in Cherry Hill, NJ on June 20th. His long-term stay with Margaret and Scott in Tennessee was a wonderful and nurturing environment, but their home was a long way from Roosevelt/St.Luke's Hospital in New York City. Jose is scheduled for his final surgical revision of his facial tumor on July 22, and COTA foster parents Beverly and Warren agreed to host him. This will allow Jose easier access to his surgeons in NYC, and will make the post-operative course less concerning in case of medical care issues. Beverly, an RN, and Warren, who is an OB/Gyn surgeon, have fostered three other children for COTA, and are well-versed in the issues of fostering a medically-fragile child. Shown above in Warren's plane, Jose is preparing to enjoy is first-ever ride in a private plane.

Imner has a new palate repair

On every COTA team, there is one baby in particular that is critically ill and captures the hearts of team members. Imner was that baby for Team 2010. It is hard to believe that on January 18th of this year, he was severely malnourished, had a baseball sized hernia, cleft lip and a cleft palate. He was limp in his mother's arms when she brought him to our clinic. He didn't have enough strength to eat.
Imner has just completed his last of three surgeries, and will soon be reunited with his mother in Guatemala. Although COTA has sent photos of Imner's progress while he was in foster care here in the states, we are sure she will be surprised to see what a sweet and healthy smile he has now. Imner has been very blessed with the excellent donated foster and surgical care in his adopted state of Illinois.

Baby Imner has a new lip!

He is almost hard to recognize. The tiny malnourished baby from the COTA Team 2010 is now a frisky, happy baby.
Imner was discovered in January by our COTA doctors when his mother brought him to our team in Guatemala seeking help for his malnutrition related to his cleft lip/palate. Imner also had a very large hernia that was life-threatening. His fragile health and low weight made fixing the hernia in Guatemala an impossibility.
Thanks to the diligent efforts of foster mom Nicole and foster dad Chad, Imner is a different baby. His cleft palate repair is scheduled and we hope to have him home to his mother in Guatemala by late summer. Nicole had great medical connections in her community due to her work as a physicians assistant. Imner has his own little "village" helping with his healing.

Update on Jose as written by his foster mother

Jose and I spent the first two weeks of April in the hospital in nyc. We flew Atlanta to La Guardia on Easter (Alan Jackson's album of hymns on the way with Old Rugged Cross was about the best Easter service I've ever heard). We visited the penguins in Central Park and the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum on Monday and drank a lot of fluids and played a lot of Go Fish in the hotel that night. Jose got his two sclero surgeries on the 6th and 9th, where Dr. Berenstein'

s team injected the same drugs as last time into his neck to start the sclerosing process and create a plane for excision for Dr. Waner. The day after the 2nd injections, though, his labs looked funny...probably an error, they thought. But they rechecked, and several of the labs that indicate kidney function were too high. They rechecked once or twice a day for several days, and the labs kept getting worse. This, along with edematous arms, blood red urine, high blood pressure, and no appetite, showed that something had led him into acute renal failure and made the excision impossible. His labs and physicals and renal ultrasound from before admission had been normal, so all the docs seemed to agree that he'd finally had enough of the drugs, or maybe they did something else different with the slow-flow clotting factor; nobody was positive, they had never seen this before, but the head doc on the pediatric intensive care unit and the pediatric nephrologist said they would not approve any kind of surgery for Jose for at least several weeks or months, and then only after a good renal workup.

Thanks to God his kidneys did turn around that 2nd week, and everything went back to normal. After needing blood drawn every 12 or 24 hours, his veins went into hiding and they'd try 2 or 3 times to get blood. Sometimes his old IV line would work, but usually that came out so slow it would clot before getting to the lab. A couple times they had to do arterial sticks. Once I was holding Jose's free hand and trying to get him to look at me instead of staring at the needle; but, still tensed up and staring at the needle digging in his arm, he held up his free arm and hand toward me as if to say: Please be quiet; I simply have to watch; it's OK. He'd cry but always be extremely still for the nurses. Actually, he started suggesting veins they might want to try the next time and reminding them what hadn't worked the last attempt. The first time his urine went back to yellow I held up the plastic container and said, Look, it's beautiful! He laughed and laughed that I called his urine beautiful.

We left the unit Saturday morning, the 17th, after one last check of his blood pressure and creatinine and urea nitrogen levels. We walked out by the nurses station; they were happy and telling Jose bye and clapping, and of course Jose was very happy to be going -- While walking around the picu circle earlier that week we had pretended to think of ways to get out those doors without anyone noticing! It was a little sad, though, because of another patient who had been up there the whole time, unconscious, and whose mom was looking up funeral homes that morning instead of expecting to get to walk out with her boy. But she waved goodbye and told Jose to take care.

So we've been back home in Chattanooga and Jose is again a healthy happy active functioning little boy with his kidneys and everything working well again, and for that we are so thankful. The sclero they injected in his neck may actually help minimize the overgrown veins there a little bit, which would be good. Not wanting to risk more serious kidney issues, though, he will probably not get an excision any time soon unless all his docs and the nephrologist agree it wouldn't be overly stressful on his kidneys. But he will definitely never get any more sclero!

As of now it looks like Jose will head home as planned on June 2nd with April. He has two parents who will be very happy to see him, and 2 little brothers who, I am told, like to play Spider Man and chase and to go fishing in the river with Jose. He's also going to try to fit the fire engine in his suitcase this time, but we'll take out the batteries first so he won't set off any alarms at the airport!

Alex Turns Four

There were few cleft babies in our stateside program over the years who were more photogenic than little Alex. Under the loving care of his KY foster parents, Jay and Kim from Simpsonville, Alex grew into a chubby, happy baby who was well-nourished for his surgical repair (donated by Dr. Andy Moore in Lexington,KY.)
Alex has been home with his parents in Guatemala for three years now. He is shown here in a photo taken yesterday, when his mother went to Mayan Families in Panajachel, Guatemala to receive this donated food.
It was a great Mother's Day gift for foster mom Kim to see Alex looking so healthy.
Many thanks to all the great staff at Mayan Families for continuing to meet this child's needs.

Maylin celebrates Easter in KY

As Maylin's foot heals, she continues to enjoy her first spring in the United States. Thanks to excellent donated wound care, her foot is healing very well. We hope she can be reunited with her family in Guatemala by late spring.

Imner prepares for cleft lip surgery

Baby Imner has recovered very well from his hernia surgery here in the states. His cleft lip repair is on the calendar, and meanwhile he is enjoying lots of formula and TLC. Foster parents Nicole and Chad have done a wonderful job of organizing surgical donations of care for this baby, and clearly, he is benefiting from the attention of dedicated medical professionals. COTA volunteers keep in close contact with Imner's parents to keep their concerns met.

Baby Imner in Guatemala, January 22, 2010

COTA pediatrician, Dr. Carol Cottrill, and Barb Buss, RN, worked closely together in Guatemala two months ago to support Imner's critical nutrition needs with donated formula, feeding technique teaching and assessment of his medical needs. Imner's immediate need was surgical repair of his large abdominal hernia. Our Children of the America's surgeons could not provide this service in Guatemala due to Imner's low weight.
The decision to bring the baby to the U.S. to receive donated surgery before his hernia became a surgical emergency.
Imner is seen below with new COTA foster mom Nicole. He has been in Illinois for a week, has adjusted well and is scheduled for donated surgery in two weeks. Nicole and Imner's mother in Guatemala communicate often.

Maylin hosted by COTA Volunteers Laurie and Mike

Maylin has adjusted beautifully to life in cold KY. After several weeks of medical care, she was ready to move to a more permanent foster home where she can continue her wound healing and improve her nutritional status. She is shown here with her new foster parents, long-time COTA volunteers Mike and Laurie.
Maylin had many loving and medically talented people in Lexington seeing to her needs before she settled in South Central KY.

Maylin comes to KY

Maylin was one of our Team 2010 patients who needed extra medical support following her surgery in January for a club foot repair. With the generous donation of a free airline ticket from American Airlines, a volunteer escort from the American Ambassadors Program, and the fast work of COTA Guatemalan volunteer Aida de Carcamo, Maylin was quickly transported to Lexington, KY where she is enjoying the special care of COTA medical volunteers.

Bianca returns home to Guatemala

Bianca was safely returned to her parents in northern Guatemala on January 10th. She had been the fortunate recipient of several sessions of donated sclerotherapy under the direction of her interventional radiologist in northern KY since last summer. The decision was made by her physicians to send her back to Guatemala in order to allow the hemangioma to heal. Although Bianca may need more care in the future, for now she is enjoying the the reunion with her family.

Bianca has a second set of injections

Bianca is in the hospital in Cincinnati as this is being posted. She had her second set of facial injections into her hemangioma this morning. Foster mother Jennifer (and Children of the Americas board member) reports that although she is not happy about being in the hospital overnight, Bianca is being a brave young lady.
Bianca has had this facial malformation for many years. Her determination to regain her health is only matched by her foster families willingness to help her do so. As you can see, she has plenty of spunk and spirit.

Jose's American family

Fourteen months of doctor's visits, hospitalizations, trips to the dentist, to the ER and to the OR, are memories now for Scott and Margaret, Jose's foster parents in TN.
COTA has been abundantly blessed to have the highest quality foster parents for our medically fragile pediatric patients. Most of our board member's have also fostered for COTA and we realize the responsibilities, emotional issues and joys of fostering a child that comes from a developing country with no English, in poor health and needing surgery. Jose and COTA were very fortunate to have Scott, Margaret and their daughters to share in his journey to recovery. They offered their home, finances, time and attention to Jose as if he were their own son.
We could not have asked for a better situation for Jose. The results are evident!

A brave little boy returns to Guatemala

Do you recognize the child in the red shirt ? The two photos of Jose that were taken while he was in the hospital in New York City show Jose just before surgery. Your financial contributions created the change that you see from the recent photo of Jose in the red shirt. What an amazing difference! The "angel" sitting next to Jose in the hospital is foster mother Margaret.
Jose returned to Guatemala yesterday. He had not seen his parents in almost 14 months. Maria and Carlos knew that COTA considered sending Jose home without surgery early this past summer, since the amount of money we needed to raise to obtain his surgery was so large. Their sincere requests asking us to try harder gave us the stamina to push forward. I think you will agree that the results were worth the effort!
I will see Jose again in January when COTA goes back to Guatemala for Team 2010. At that time he will be evaluated for further surgery. Dr. Waner wants to do a second procedure to take care of the neck mass that he was not able to repair (Jose could not tolerate a longer surgery due to blood loss).
Meanwhile, Jose is enjoying a reunion with his family, and as soon as I get photos of his experience, I will post them. Thank you for making this adventure possible for this special little boy.

Dr. Blaise Baxter and Jose