My children want to know what is wrong with the sad-faced little girl with something tumor-esque over her eye and the man after her with a handkerchief covering his mouth.
Can you tell us?
Just from looking at the pictures, it looks like the little girl has a tumor called a neurofibroma over her eye, and the man has a tumor called an ameloblastoma. Both are conditions we do surgery for on the ship, so I'm pretty sure they would have gotten appointment cards for surgery!
Here are a couple links to old blog posts of mine about patients with the same conditions:
Yeme had neurofibroma surgery; she had a huge one on her leg, but she also had one over her eye like the girl in that picture.
http://alirae.net/blog/archives/113-make-them-who-they-are.html
http://alirae.net/blog/archives/143-yeme.html
Esther was from this past outreach in Togo ... she had ameloblastomas removed, both from her cheek like that man and also from her bottom jaw. I don't have photos of her, but her condition was much worse and we were able to do surgery, so I'm really hopeful for that man!
Four years ago about now, I have a picture of you holding another little baby on the Mercy Ship -- now my nephew Mattew. You were trying to figure out how to help my sister-in-law Cathi save him. She's a nurse from Minnesota, who adopted him after he was abandoned because of his cleft lip and palate.
He's now a beautiful four year old who just started pre-school at the Metro Deaf school in St. Paul, MN. You helped save him! My family can't thank you enough for that! -- Karen J