Valeria's Progress

If part of my feet’s bones were cut off, I'd be crying to my mom that I'd never walk again, but Valeria, like most babies, is resilient, and completely unaware that she went through surgeries.

Her progress was moving quicker than I anticipated.

Since she accidentally removed the casts off her feet, only a week after the surgery, she's tried to stand up. Silly me, I didn't ask that Friday when we went to see the doctor whether we could allow Valeria to stand up if she tried, and I paid for that.

In my mind she was in pain, so she would never try it; in her mind she was finally free of those casts, so she would only crawl, jump, and walk. I emailed the doctor asking my concern, but it was the weekend, so he didn't reply until Monday.

Loly, my mother-in-law, Natacha and I ended up exhausted trying to hold her and distract her from wanting to lean on her feet. We listened constantly the Gummy Bear song and Mickey's Hot Dog song, let her play with all the cel phones and remote controls of the house, and took turns, carrying her back and forth in our small NY size apartment. Finally on Monday, Dr. Alburger responded, "it's ok for her to stand up; it's a good sign."

Since then, the floor has been her kingdom.

Three weeks later, we went back to Philly to Shriners Hospital for Children to remove the bandages and get the final discharge. Dr. Alburger showed up to his office with his assistant, and holding a brand new package with scissors and bandages in his hand. He sat in front of Valeria, who started crying, and began unrolling the bandages until the feet appeared in front of us.

They had the right amount of fingers, and almost had the right shape. They were still swollen, and, because of the bandages, the top parts were almost live skin. Dr. Alburger used the scissor to remove the stitches from each edge, but the rest of the stitches were inside Valeria’s skin; her body was going to absorb them. The shapes of the feet were 90% as expected, but the x-rays were 100% perfect.

Seeing the before-surgery and after-surgery x-rays was extremely comforting, and gave me a moment of peace. I told Natacha, “after all this, we need a good vacation.”

I now see Valeria’s feet, and I’m amazed by their new look; it’s gladly unexpected after being used to seeing the old foot, the mirror foot.

We prepared for months for this moment, and were joyful that we took the right action. We had been very patient though; especially when we wanted to do something since that moment in the ultrasound room, over a year ago, when Valeria was growing in Natacha’s womb, and the ultrasound technician was telling us that everything was normal with the baby. Suddenly she stopped smiling, printed some images, and left the room. She came back with a doctor, a matured woman, who sat in front of us, and told us, “your baby has an extra digit.”

Valeria's brand new feet work perfectly fine

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