Mitral Valve found by MedWish Volunteer Saves Girl in Honduras
While described as dynamic or voluminous, terms better on a brochure than amongst the sort racks, the supply stream at MedWish ebbs and flows in a fluid dynamics played out with cardboard and plastic. Serendipity morphs from sage to enemy in a search comparable to finding power ups in a video game. Tom Ryan, perfusionist for the Lake Health System and veteran MedWish volunteer, understands this paradigm and his chasm deep dedication, along with a sharp eye, make him the king maker of many an order. Tom is the kind of story teller that begins any aside with a cross of his arm and a sharp inhalation of air that segues into a long “Well…” His experience trumps that of many an employee and his role in Suyapa’s story demonstrates the reverse butterfly effect of a MedWish order. From the chaos of our sorting comes the precise order of a newly rejuvenated heart beat.
Early January 2011 marked new challenges for MedWish. Would the organization springboard from the surge of new donors and volunteers, in addition to piles of product, generated by the 2010 Haiti earthquake response into something permanent? There were staff changes and the roof of the warehouse sprang new leaks with each snowfall. These failed to compare to the problems of our recipients, including Torax Hospital in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. MedWish Board Member, Brian Smith, planned on a mid January trip to Torax in conjunction with his colleagues at International Children’s Heart Foundation. Brian’s orders can strain the knowledge base of a MedWish sort. They included utilitarian items like tourinquets (which is a lovely medical term for a big rubber band) to complex items like Fogarty cardiac catheters. Tom Ryan saves the day in many of these situations and his presence plucked out a single plastic box from the process of a January 8, 2011 Saturday sort. The size of a stack of Post It Notes, the box contained a flat cylinder with a liquid inside. A casual glance may have fooled someone into labeling it a jar of cold cream. The reverence Tom gave to it gave it more gravitas than something found on department store valves.
Inside the cylinder was a mitral valve replacement. A synthetic replacement for sinew and muscle, the mitral valve was just what someone like Brian Smith needed for his cardiac focused mission. At the moment, he had no idea it would be used in less than a week. Instead, he placed it in a duffel along with all the other supplies, suture, grafts, and gloves, needed for any array of surgeries at Torax.
Upon his arrival, Brian had already learned of a girl in need of such a valve. Ten hours away, in a small Honduran village, a 15 year girl named Suyapa survived with a damaged heart. A bout of rheumatic fever at an earlier age had damaged the valve and her quickly emerging terminal condition made a 20th birthday and impossible dream. International Children’s Heart Foundation, Helping Hands for Honduras, and Brian Smith arrange for the long bus ride to Tegucigalpa where a new valve, literally a new chance at life, awaited. Less than 48 hours in country, and the valve was already inside Suyapa’s body after a five hour surgery. Adding to this lovely convergence was Brian’s smartphone, which he used to snaps images, from the OR room. These were then sent, in real time, to MedWish where they first hit our Facebook page and later spread to many a media (this blog included). It may be the closest thing MedWish ever gets to having CNN cover us, but Brian’s work had rendered not just another success for MedWish, but a chronicled one, with a beginning, middle, and end. Hollywood could have written this, but only with a bigger budget and much less heart.
In May 2011, Suyapa met Brian Smith again at our annual Band Aid Bash, along with Tom Ryan. Held in our actual warehouse, she not only saw a party with over 400 guests, but the actual walls that formerly held the piece of her heart.
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