WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW Salee completed her second round of prosthetics treatment in Greenville. Nora has returned home after successful treatment in Maine. While continuing with our ordinary work, NMV is now working to seed fully independent projects in the US and abroad, and developing a documentary.
Many thanks to Ed Skewes, Dr. Jon Davids, Dr. David Westberry, and the wonderful staff at Shriners who’ve welcomed her once again into their care. Also, thanks to Bill Sorochak, Marsha Smith, Marti Spencer, Tasha Bruce and everyone at the Greenville Ronald McDonald House who’ve opened their arms and hearts to Salee and her father. We are also grateful to Salee and Abu Ali’s many friends in the Greenville area who have showered them with affection and hospitality since their arrival.
It is with much relief and joy that we send along this note to let you know that Noora sailed through her 12th operation (7 in Iraq and 5 in Maine) yesterday and is now resting on the regular Peds floor, at Maine Med. The operation took Dr. Wilson and Dr. Attwood approximately 3 hours and resulted in the successful reinsertion of the prosthetic skull. Dr. Attwood was able to use the new skin, which the balloons had created, to cover the prosthetic skull and eliminate a large portion of the scar tissue on Noora’s head. If all goes well, Noora should be discharged by the end of the week. In spite of a headache, her current ambitions (as of 20 minutes ago) are to….. get her IV out, eat some grapes, and get to the playroom…..”resilience” in it’s purest form
Last evening a group of us were together and we were able to talk with both Mustafa’s mom (Nidhal), and Ahmed. So much thanks to Abu Bedour and Abu Zahra for translating. First the news, then some impressions.
Most important is that Mustafa is doing well. He has not had any signs of bladder or kidney infection. They are doing fine with the catheterization procedure. He is only using the prosthesis when strongly encouraged to do so, and seems to prefer the wheelchair. He still plays floor soccer at every opportunity he has. Since they arrived home to Iraq after this school year had started, Mustafa is not now in school. However, he will start going next school year.
After several months of worrying and so many of us missing Mustafa and Ahmed so so badly, and many friends/interpreters trying various #s to reach them, we were finally able to talk with Ahmed last Friday night. The phone situation and security in Iraq is terrible. The phone connection was horrible and it took several tries to get the line to go through. So, the conversation was limited–on both ends it was extremely hard to hear clearly and at one point, we got disconnected and had to call a second time. The speaker phone didn’t work as the connection was so distorted, so we kept asking our questions to Waddah and Saed as one or the other interpreted into the phone.
At the beginning of the call, for the first minutes when we could hear on the speaker phone, we all broke into smiles and tears as Ahmed said, “I love you, Portland!” It was his wonderful lovely voice!
The important thing we heard is that Mustafa is doing okay. Ahmed said Mustafa had recently gone through some tests and that all is okay with his renal status. (For those of you on the medical team, we did ask Ahmed and the doctor in Fallujah to send the medical reports to Jordan to be sent to us for review by the nephrologist here). More on that soon.
I know that, like me, those of you in the Carolinas have been anxiously awaiting Salee’s return “home”. Many of you not in the area have either met Salee or heard me rattle on about her so much that you feel like you know her! All of you know that she’s a sweet, charismatic, fun, beautiful and loving little girl.
Maybe for some of you, part of your heart is in Iraq with her like mine is. So you know it’s difficult for me to have to let you all know that we’ll have to postpone Salee’s trip to the States, probably until at least September. But, I know it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that NMV, like the rest of our nation, is suffering a serious financial setback. We thought we could cover Salee’s trip with money from our general fund until we could raise the funds here, but our general fund no longer has the money to do this. As you all know, NMV had some serious financial situations recently with Mustafa Ghazwan’s stay in Jordan lasting several months as they awaited his father’s visa approval, Mustafa Abed undergoing emergency life-saving surgery at a hospital that was not the one signed on for pro bono care, and little Noora still here, awaiting what we hope to be a successful surgery on May 4th.
Noora’s surgery went just as planned and once again little Noora worked her way through the recovery period with the grace, tenacity and focus of a seven year old bound and determined to get back to what really matters in life, playing. Noora was discharged on Wednesday and not surprisingly, after only 3 short days in the hospital, had made enough new friends, that it took her 20 minutes just to give her “goodbye hugs”. As anxious as she was to get back to the Ronald McDonald House and play, her tastebuds got the better of her on the ride “home” and she requested a pit stop to pick up a couple of her favorites, kabobs and “cheese chips” (cheetos).
I so regret having to write this update to let you know that the Integra product (which I wrote about in the last update) was unsuccessful in its attempt to rebuild tissue in the open wound on Noora’s scalp.
The new plan, unfortunately, necessitates the temporary removal of Noora’s prosthetic skull. The fact that Noora’s scalp has had an open wound onto the prosthetic skull, for this length of time, was the determining factor for removing the skull. What Dr. Attwood and his colleagues are fearful of, is that if the skull is not removed and sterilized, it could potentially present problems for Noora once her scalp is closed and she returns to Iraq. The concern is that if they close the wound without sterilizing the skull, bacteria, which is now possibly embedded in the skull, could fester and present a significant threat to Noora’s health.
How we follow the news in America depends very much on how vivid our imaginations are, or how vivid we allow them to be. As an artist, I let mine often have free reign, so when I heard the horrific story on “Democracy Now” about what happened to young Salee by the American forces in Iraq, my response was visceral.
Over a year later, I helped No More Victims bring three year old Mustafa to San Francisco to have surgery. He had been completely deafened by a US missile strike next door to where he was living.
Dear Friends - Today was absolutely incredible. The UCSF audiologist hooked up the cochlear implant device to Mustafa to very briefly test it at a very low frequency. She did not know if he would respond at all. The device was also attached to the computer to read the response of the device.
We all waited anxiously. He was busy playing with small toys. And then… he just stopped and his eyes looked another direction. I think our hearts stopped for that second of time. Here are two photos from the office where he was tested… a very small space. And I’ve written a very short poem about the moment. It was truly, utterly amazing. No words or photos can adequately capture that moment.
