1, 2, 3, 4….But first, we start one by one.
Michelle Montes – Team Blogger and Daniel Montes – Team Photographer
On our first morning working in Antigua, I was with Dr. Davis and Dr. Miller in the triage area as Dan toured the waiting room with the team’s spiritual leader, Stuart, to meet some of the week’s patients and hear their stories firsthand. Later that morning, he found me in the hallway and quickened his pace to catch up, saying, “You have got to see this patient I met — he is so precious.” Like the true photographer he is, he immediately pulled out his camera to show me the images he had captured.
Beneath the canopy of trees in the hospital courtyard, a little boy was curled into a sling in his mother’s arms. After his snooze, he woke with full alertness. Dan and Stuart sat with his mom and learned that their family lived up in the mountains, and that Yeicob is 11 months old, born with syndactyly of both hands and polydactyly in his feet — his third fingers are webbed together, and he has an extra toe.
To Yeicob, he knows no different. He holds his food, his bottle, and grasps for his mom without hesitation. But in a few years, many would agree his development could face some real barriers. As other parents may be teaching their kids to count, playing peek-a-boo, or singing the itsy-bitsy spider, those childhood moments would look a little different for this little one without surgical intervention.
With eyes as big as saucers, he scanned the area around him before settling back into his mom’s arms. Yeicob endured the pokes and prodding of the pre-op process like a champ, the whole team cooing over his cuteness — blissfully unaware that he would be going through a life-changing experience that week.
For Yeicob, this process will unfold over time and across several surgeries. Keeping him in a full cast and thereby robbing him of any and all dexterity wasn’t a realistic or kind option, let alone for a toddler. Progress had to be made without taking away his freedom to move. And so, the first of many steps began this week. Ben and Janae Kittinger, the husband-and-wife plastic surgeon duo from the Bluegrass State, executed their plan with precision and care to separate his webbed fingers.
The before and after photos are markedly transformational, and the team is confident this step will be a meaningful one in Yeicob’s continued growth and development. As he begins to count his 1s, 2s, and 3s, hold his mother’s hand, and eventually grip a crayon or pencil, he will do so in much the same way as others his age. His artwork, his skills, his aptitude in this world may in some ways be unchanged — but in other ways, the team’s work will drastically change this little boy’s life. One step at a time, one by one.
While I may be biased, I feel the words of this story can’t begin to do justice for the storytelling Dan captured in these images. This is what your support creates.
