We've Found the Right Children Hospital

The first time we heard the term “mirror foot” came from Dr. Miki of the Miami Children Hospital. He also told Natacha and I that he could operate the hands and create the thumbs—which made us extremely happy since we didn't know it could be done—but would have to find a foot surgeon in Miami, who specialized in what we needed. We told him about our wish of having Valeria’s surgery in that city, where we have family, but he made a comment that completely changed the course of our search, “if Valeria were my daughter, I’d take her to Shriners,” he said.

Shiners Hospital for Children is one of the top health care centers in the world, specializing in orthopedics, burn care, cleft lip and palate, and spinal cord injury. They also stand out for their warm hospitality; they showcase that on their website, and after meeting them, we concur with it.

But before knowing them, and right after seeing Dr. Miki, we first focused on researching about “mirror foot” and Shriners Hospital.

On “mirror foot,” we found out how rare the case was; it’s usually associated with different syndromes; fortunately Valeria, who has gone through detailed genealogical tests at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, has shown no positive signs of syndromes at all.

We found also different articles about some successfully treated cases, and one of them called our attention; it was about Hidehiko Kawabata, M.D. Vice President, of the Japanese Society for Surgery of the Hand. We contacted him with a long email, explaining our case as best as possible; he responded with a short and concise line, “I recommend Dr. Scott of Shriners Hospital in Philadelphia.”

From Dr. Kawabata’s email along with Dr. Miki’s strong advice and some research of ours, we realized how important Shriners Hospital was. Now, we had to contact them, and really hope they would take our case.

And they did it.

Valeria and Natacha at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Philadelphia