LIMA PERU 2012 BLOG #5

LIMA PERU 2012 BLOG #5
I’m on my way home after two of the most interesting weeks I’ve known in recent years. When I was invited to participate in the 2012 Lima Rotaplast Mission, I had a small idea about what was ahead. I knew that volunteers, under the auspice and financing of Rotary, traveled to strange places around the world to provide surgery for children who were born with cleft palates and lips. Two members of our Rotary Club had participated in the past and have given talks about their experiences. What I’ve learned from my experience in Lima is that there are some truly awesome individuals in this world and that I’ve had the privilege of knowing and working with a number of them.
Most of the twenty six members of our team had served on several Rotaplast missions and nearly all were already signed up for future missions. With rare exceptions, the professionals left full time practices to serve with Rotaplast. All of the nonmedical volunteers, with the exception of the Mission Leader, paid their own expenses with the exception of their hotel accommodations. One of the local Rotary clubs in Lima provided morning snacks and lunch each day as well as serving as host for a farewell appreciation dinner. Dinner each day was at the volunteer’s expense
I had heard our club members who had participated in previous Rotaplast missions speak of long work days but I didn’t realize what that meant. Our team’s work day began with a bus pick-up at our hotel each day at 7:00 am. We rarely returned to the hotel before 7:00 pm and on several days the return was after 9:00 pm. The surgeons were on call each night in the event that a patient was having difficulty. Each day was followed by a “happy hour”, to which participants contributed, where the team anjoyed relaxing and sharing the events of the day.
It was amazing to me to observe the medical volunteers and the endurance they displayed. I never once heard anyone mention fatigue or the stress of the busy day. Each day I saw these medical volunteers intensely involved in the skilled work they performed, bustling about seeming always to be on the run. If one of the medical folks completed his or her surgery assignments for the day, he or she always seemed to find some supportive involvement with surgeries yet completed. And all of this tireless effort accompanied by smiles. I was amazed.
In all, the team completed approximately ninety surgical procedures. While cleft palate and lip repair was the primary function, several patients received surgery of the nose that related to his or her deformity. The vast majority of patients were very small children; many less than a year old. A small number of older children and a few adults were also treated. One patient, a lady, was seventy-four years of age and had lived her whole life with her birth defect. One of her sons had heard a radio broadcast reporting on the Rotaplast Mission and decided to try to get surgery for his mother. He drove several hours to pick-up his mother to bring her to the clinic where she was interviewed, evaluated and accepted for surgery. The lady seemed frightened but patiently went through the process. On the final clinic day she was seen looking as though she was afraid to smile with her new lips but a twinkle in her eye showed the joy in her heart. One boy of about eight years of age was evaluated and found to have club feet and clubbed hands along with his cleft palate and lip. A decision was made by the surgical team to see if something could be done. After a study of X-rays, it was determined that it might be possible to make the boy’s thumbs functional. I watched much of the surgery and was amazed at what was accomplished. The boy went home with the potential for being able to grasp something with hands for the first time in his life.
The smiles of joy on the faces of parents and the hugs of appreciation received by volunteers perhaps explains in part why some volunteers have been serving on Rotaplast missions every year for dozens of years. Accounts are related by these veterans about 19 hour flights followed by eight or nine hours of auto travel over rough roads to remote places where one can’t eat the food safely and one needs to share a thin mattressed bed with another. Now I know why they return to do it again.
Rotary is all about “Service Above Self” and I witnessed first hand on the Lima 2012 Rotaplast Mission what that really means. The team of volunteers, only a few of which were actually Rotarians, demonstrated to me how our motto really works. Their tireless devotion to people in need left me with an indelible memory of their service and a personal challenge to devote my few strengths, time and resources in a more significant way as I attempt to fulfill my obligation to place “Service Above Self”.
Incidentally, each Rotaplast Mission, of which there are a half dozen or so a year, costs approximately $80,000. Rotaplast has been in existence since the eighties and has provided tens of thousands of youngsters around the world with a new look and new life.
Love to all,

Bill, Grandpa Bill, Dad