Iris and Philip had their surgeries today. They were the last two kids who received surgeries from this UCLA-SCMC medical mission.

Iris is this sweet 3.5-year old girl. She was amazingly brave. When she came out of OR she was aware of things around her but wasn’t crying, instead, her caregiver was crying. This caregiver was asked to take Iris to Shanghai just the day before their departure and that was her first time meeting this little girl. Obviously she has bonded with her and fallen in love with her during these days.

Philip went into OR with smile. His surgery took 8 hours and he was aware of that before he went into OR, but he was so brave and believed that he would be ok. He couldn’t wait to have a straight spine like others. His caregiver Lily - she’s a sweet young lady in her 20s, who works as a special education teacher back in Philip’s orphanage. Philip certainly has huge respect to her and loves her dearly. Before he went into OR he asked for one big favor from Lily. He wanted to see Lily in skirt when he would out of OR as he believes that Lily should dress herself pretty like other girls in their 20s instead of in her work clothes. Lily waited patiently outside of OR for hours and she did change herself into this very pretty elegant looking dress when Philip was on his way to ICU from OR. How sweet is that! I am sure Philip was happy to see his hardworking caregiver has the chance to dress herself pretty!

Other children continued to recover well. Jack had a “concert” today singing songs after songs to people who visited him. He really melted everyone’s heart. Shawn was already showing big smile to anyone who visited him. Seems like he had never gone through a surgery yet. Orly is already looking for her day to be discharged on the 5th. Lucas was doing amazingly well too and he never cried since he was outside of OR. What a big boy! Shanna has been sleeping sound most of the time. Hopefully the sleeping can help her heal quicker! Chase and Gavin were doing very well too without running fever, although Tyler was still the fighter, who cried a lot and wouldn’t stay still. His caregiver was in tears all day and had to hold him all the time. Poor her, you could tell how exhausted she was from her red eyes. We tried everything we could to calm Tyler, but it turned out that he seemed to be fine when you take him to the hallway. Boy, he already couldn’t wait to get out and play!

Tonight Dr Lazareff took us out for a fun dinner at a Thai restaurant to celebrate the success of all the surgeries! It is also one of the UCLA doctors - Sandy’s birthday! It was so much fun when the waiters brought in the birthday cake and challenged all of us to dance together! What a fun way to call it the end of this medical mission. We are looking forward to seeing how these children will turn out and looking forward to the UCLA doctors’ return next year!

I will be out of town for 3 days, but I will continue to update you on how the children are doing when I am back on the 4th! Stay tuned!

Tingting

Today has been quite an emotional day. My heart was so warmed and touched by the three boys’ caregivers. Chase, Tyler and Gavin received their surgeries today. All surgeries went very well, however, these are tough boys. They were having so much fun and now putting them down on their tummies is just so hard on them. Every caregiver’s eyes were red, tears hanging on their cheeks. Tyler was a real fighter as he just wouldn’t stay still, which really broke his caregiver’s heart. She was holding him and his arm for hours, in order to make sure the IV drops went ok. However, he just fought and tried to move so much. Finally she figured out it worked out great when she held him on a pillow. It was a lot of work for this caregiver but she was so patient and so loving. You can easily tell how much she loves this baby and how much she wants him to feel well. Today my heart was once again touched by this very kind father, whose child was in hospital. He was so helpful and so caring to our children. When Gavin came back to the room, he was once again by the bedside helping around, comforting his crying caregiver. He, his wife and his son who’s next bed to Gavin, all tried to comfort Gavin and told us not to worry, they would take good care of these babies too. What a kind man and his kind family!

All these three boys who received surgeries today haven’t had any symptoms yet from their spinal bifida, which means they will be all perfectly healthy. I hope that is something that can cheer their caregivers up. Hopefully as the children are getting healed, their caregivers will feel better too.

Tomorrow will be the last day of surgeries. Iris and Philip will have their surgeries at the same time in two different ORs. Philip’s surgery will be pretty big and he will be in ICU afterwards. Our best wishes are with these two kids, and hopefully Philip can come back to the ward very soon.

More from tomorrow! Hope all the children are sleeping sound and healing well while I am writing this!

Tingting

It was so pleasant to meet the children who received surgeries yesterday. Was it really yesterday? Seems like they had their surgeries days ago as everyone looked so good already today. Orly felt much better today and she enjoyed watching DVD on her bed. She still had tons of dvds piled up by her bedside sent from Baobei volunteers. Shawn was already hanging out on the hallway with our volunteer! You couldn’t even find him at his own bed. I just can’t believe his surgery was only a day ago! Jack came out of OR crying a lot yesterday, but today he was singing children’s songs one after another. He was smiling and talking and talking and talking! He got a mirror and loved it! He called it the magic mirror and he showed it to everyone who entered the room! So glad to see these children healing so quickly already.

Lucas and Shanna received their surgeries today. Lucas, after all, as one of the older children among all, was so brave, just like Orly. He came out very awake but very calm, didn’t cry at all. A father whose child was in hospital next room was by his bedside helping around. Lucas’s caregiver was quite worried and nervous, but this father patiently told her what to do and how to position him, how to feed him, etc.. He’s such a sweet and kind person! In late afternoon when I checked on Lucas again, he told me he was doing fine and he said he had his first surgery when he was 5, he could remember some and he said he would be a brave boy, no problem for him! Good job Lucas!

Shanna, our youngest baby, just like the princess, all these was probably too much for her. She came out crying and crying. Dr Bao came to check on Shanna a few times and he helped reposition her. Obviously that worked! Shanna felt asleep comfortably soon after that. I hope she would sleep well tonight! It is so exciting to think of her future since her surgery happened so in time. She will be a perfectly healthy baby then!

Tomorrow’s surgeries will be the three boys’ - Chase, Tyler & Gavin. Then on Tuesday we will have Iris and Philip’s surgeries done. Philip’s surgery will be a long-houred one, first performed by the neurosurgeons, then the orthopedic surgeons since he has scoliosis. He will be the only child that needs to stay in ICU after surgery. Poor Philip, he doesn’t like the idea of staying in ICU. He was picky at food, but since he heard that he would stay at ICU for shorter time if he would finish all his food, now he always empties his dishes!

Well, we hope that all the healing will continue to go well and the rest of surgeries will go well too!

Orly, Shawn and Jack had their surgeries today!

Orly is the oldest child among the 10 kids and she’s an adopted child by an American couple. She does behave like a big sister. I am so amazed by how brave she is. Her surgery was the longest today. When she came back to the ward she was awake and even gave a big smile when I asked if everything was alright. She really set such a great example for all the younger ones.

Shawn went into OR shortly after lunch time. His roommates, a Chinese couple whose child was also in hospital, told me how much they had fallen in love with Shawn. They asked me if Shawn would be a healthy perfect baby after the surgery, I told them yes! They were so thrilled to hear that and they really hoped he would find a family soon. When he came back from OR he was crying, but he quickly had his caregiver and roommates around him, trying to comfort him and told him it was ok. He soon fell asleep. How sweet it is to see that this darling has many people caring for him.

Jack had his hair shaved before the surgery. On his way to OR he was very happy with the gurney ride. I told him to be a brave boy, he smiled and said “Ok”. He even waved and said “byebye” very loud to everyone with a big big smile. Poor child, he certainly had no idea what was going on. He came out crying very loud, probably realizing it wasn’t as fun as he thought it would be. But as soon as I approached him and asked if I could take a photo, he paused his crying and “forced” a smile for me. His caregiver never left his bedside. Jack is certainly very close to her. He would point to her and tell people that’s his “mama”. What a sweet child!

All surgeries went very well today. Children awaiting for surgeries continued to enjoy their time with our volunteers. We had a special team of volunteers today - they are the uncle team. The boys had such a great time. Philip even got to go out with them and he loved it!

Lucas found himself a best friend now, which is Philip. When I entered the room, I saw these two boys having a “tea party” and talking about their toys. Lucas excitedly reported to me “Guess what, I am 9, Philip is 9 too. And guess what! I love noodle, he loves noodle too!!” They carried conversation about their toy cars for hours. They certainly know so much more about cars than I do.

Later in the evening, UCLA team got to hang out with the SCMC neurosurgery team on the Yangzi river cruise, along with some Baobei people. One of the doctors from the SCMC team is from a children’s hospital in Shandong province. He’s staying in SCMC for a year to learn more technics here. He expressed how exciting it was for him to have this opportunity to also learn from the UCLA team. It was so much fun to just hang out, chat and exchange ideas! The evening in Shanghai is lovely, but we also have a group of lovely people here, who share the same passion to these children’s future!

Tomorrow Lucas and Shanna will have their surgeries. We hope everything will go well with them!!

Let’s enjoy some photos from today:

From Left to Right: Dr Vartan Tashjian, Dr Barbara Van De Wiele, Dr Sandy Lam, Karissa Echeverria (OR nurse), Dr Jorge Lazareff,  Julie Byrd (OR nurse), Ann Kedl (Baobei Child Care Director)

Left: Shanna, our youngest patient. Isn’t she darling?

Right: Jack’s caregiver patiently caring for Jack.

Left: Iris enjoyed drawing today!

Right: Gavin LOVES to be on his caregiver’s shoulder!

Left: Dr Lazareff & Dr Bao

Right: Tingting & Dr Lazareff

Left: UCLA team

Right: SCMC neurosurgeons

Dr Lazareff and his team arrived safely Friday morning. What a team of lovely people. Everyone is so friendly and full of fun!

Shortly after they checked into their hotel, before they even had a chance to grab a quick lunch, they were already coming to the hospital, couldn’t wait to meet the children awaiting for surgeries. However, they were greeted by these two adorable toddler girls, who were former patients. Elizabeth, a 5-year old little girl, who had spinal bifida and hydrocephalus before, received her surgery from Dr Lazareff last year when his team visited SCMC. She used to have balance problem and headaches. She didn’t have language ability back then either. But she greeted Dr Lazareff with a big smile this time and a big “hello”! Everyone’s heart was melted to see how well she’s doing now, and how much in both Chinese and English she’s talking now. I can’t recall how many times Dr Lazareff used the word “perfect” after he saw Elizabeth’s latest scan result from a week ago. What a happy reunion.

After meeting the two girls, we started the ward round and met all 10 patients who would start receiving surgeries from Saturday. Looks like we have 10 very happy children this time. Everyone was smiling and happy to meet their doctors. Dr Lazareff even found himself a little friend who has got the same hairstyle like his. Guess who that patient is? Philip!! He and Dr Lazareff greeted each other by touching their own hairs - it really made the whole room laugh! Philip has decided that he likes this “waiguoren shushu” (foreign uncle).

The UCLA team were also warmly welcomed by Baobei’s volunteers who were busy holding babies or helping around in the ward. Dr Lazareff was also very excited to run into a volunteer who also speaks Spanish, with whom he started to chat in Spanish. After that, he looked at everyone and said “Can you believe that? I just got to speak Spanish in Shanghai, in SCMC?”

At the dinner, Dr Lazareff asked me a very interesting question. He told me he has been to China many times and worked with many different hospitals, however, SCMC is a very unique and different one among all the other Chinese hospitals, because he is amazed all the time by how much the doctors know and how well they are doing already. He asked me why such medical trip can still bring out something good. This happened to be something Dr Bao and I had discussed in the past. And I LOVE the answer Dr Bao gave me. Such mission is not only about saving one life at a time. It is about teaming up, about upgrading the technics with each other’s skills. Also, SCMC is a teaching hospital, they are responsbile for training doctors from all over China by bringing them into SCMC to work for a period of time. Such opportunity also allows these doctors to learn from the great surgeons and go back to their hospitals to teach more! So, the meaning behind this UCLA-SCMC medical mission is not only to save these children, but to save more children whose special need is still waiting for the newer technics! We are also very excited to learn that Dr Lazareff and Dr Bao have more projects together coming up, such as next year’s international pediatric neurosurgery conference, writing a text-book together, etc.. Baobei feels thrilled and honored to be asked to help facilitate them because we do believe these two great teams working together will solve many unsolved problems in their field and many more children will get the help they need!!

We hope the following 4 days’ of surgeries will go really well! And we believe we have a promising future to look forward to beyond these surgeries!

And please enjoy a few more photos from Friday.

(Left) Jack & Philip: “We can play bubbles for hours!”

(Right) Iris: “Can’t you tell I LOVE bears?!”

(Left) Lucas: “I think I can be a racing car driver when I grow up!”

(Right) Tyler: “Look Look, I can walk like that too!!”

(Left) Chase: “Gavin, you are soooo big! I’d better stick to my bottle to be like you!”

(Right) Gavin: “Don’t you think I am perfect? Oh, but where is my neck??”

Dr. Jorge Lazareff was born and raised in Argentina where he also went to medical school. Before coming to work at UCLA Medical Center as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, he spent time working in both Mexico and South Africa. Now a dual American and Argentine citizen, he has used his passion for helping children worldwide to establish a non-profit organization called Global Neuro Rescue (GNR). GNR was created to help children of developing nations born with congenital diseases of the brain and spinal cord. Dr. Lazareff and his team have traveled to several countries to provide neurosurgery to underprivileged children, often times orphans, including countries such as Romania, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, China, Nicaragua and Nigeria. The purpose of GNR is to work along side the local surgeons in the child’s country to share the techniques that allow for the effective treatment of different congenital malformations. Since 2002, Dr. Lazareff and his team have operated on more than 100 children and examined nearly four times that number of children.
Dr. Lazareff himself is newly and happily married to Dr. Barbara van de Wiele who works along side him both at UCLA and abroad on the GNR trips as an anesthesiologist. Dr. Lazareff is one of the most intriguing individuals you will ever meet and not only to his tiny patients seem to bond with him instantly, but each person who meets him is easily attracted to his charm and warmth

Dr Nan Bao is the director of Pediatric Neurosurgery in Shanghai Children’s Medical Center. He studied at Shanghai 2nd Medical School, which is also known as the medical college of Jiaotong University today. He later worked as a fellow at Schneider Medical Children’s Hospital of Isreal, and had also spent some time in the US exchanging experience at different hospitals, including UCLA. Dr Bao and his neurosurgery team performed 200 - 300 surgeries a year on hydrocephalus and spinal bifida at SCMC.

Dr Bao is also an old friend to Baobei and has volunteered his weekend many times to visit orphanages in China and provided pro-bono service. His support to Baobei is what makes our work successful. He’s like a father to our children. He loves them very much and treats each baobei child like his own. He is also like a teacher to us, who shares with us knowledge all the time. He also pays great attention to follow up each child’s healing process after they are discharged, because he always believes that surgery is only the beginning and healing makes it complete. Although Dr Bao might sometimes look serious when he’s busy, deep down, he’s sweet, humorous and fun! We’ve been enjoying working with him!

Dr Lazareff and his medical team from UCLA are coming in just a few days!! All 10 kids have arrived by today and settled down.

Hospital life can be boring… however, it looks like these kids had a great day! Let’s look at some of them and see what happened!

Seems like we had a decoration team going, led by a 4-year old “project manager”. Lillie was Dr Bao’s patient and she returned today for a regular check-up, however, she stayed afterwards and helped out! She was so busy “directing” the other volunteers where to put the stickers. She has made friends with Philip. They had fun for hours this afternoon. Philip was busy showing Lillie all the transformers he has received from the volunteers. Lillie was busy showing him the stickers, and she certainly didn’t forget to “decorate” themselves! It was so much fun to watch how they chitchat at each other!!

In the other room we have Jack, the 2.5-year old boy from Philip Hayden Foundation. We got him a stroller today! Great, this way he doesn’t have to lay down all the time. He can now stroll around and go find out what’s going on! He was singing children song “da tou da tou, xia yu bu chou, bie ren da san, wo you da tou”. He also had so much fun playing cards with our volunteers, then he would all in a sudden laugh at you and say “ayi ai da pai” (aunty loves playing cards). hmm.. I thought Jack ai da pai too!!

I am hoping by the time these kids can be discharged.. all they will remember will be about the fun moments like this, will be about all the new friends they make during their stay.. Thanks so much to our Baobei volunteers in Shanghai, who are making these children’s hospital stay special and fun!

As Baobei is a new foundation, an important part of our work is raising awareness of who we are and what we do.  The more the word spreads, the more people get involved and the more money is raised, which enables us to fund more surgeries for even more little babies.  Just what we’re aiming for.

The first Lifeline Health Fair was held at the beginning of September in Shanghai and Baobei had a booth at which volunteers, dressed in the beautiful new Baobei T-shirts, were on hand to explain our mission to interested passers by, of which there were plenty!  As well as the t-shirts, the new Baobei pendants went like hot-cakes, with all proceeds going to fund the surgeries of the Baobei babies in the UCLA medical mission which starts this week. We learnt a lot from the great day at the Health Fair, and had a wonderful time too.  Can’t wait for the next one! If you missed our T-shirt or pendants, you can still contact us for purchase - info@baobeifoundation.org.

Chanlynn, a Baobei volunteer’s daughter was planning her birthday party, which is actually today, two weeks ago.  Chanlynn was asked if she would consider to ask her friends to donate money instead of bringing presence as she did last year.  Then a few days later, grandparents came and gave them the money for their birthdays.  So both Chanlynn and her sister took most of their birthday money out and donate to the two of the babies from the UCLA mission. It is such a blessing for their generous hearts.

Juliet, another little Baobei volunteer, did some modeling at school and asked her mother to give the money to the little “baobeis”. She wants them to use the money to get healthy! Isn’t that so sweet?

These are just some of the many examples how volunteers have helped Baobei raise awareness and funds. We are very thankful for all of your support and love to all these precious babies who need help. My favorite quote is “To the world we are one person, but to one person we could mean the world.” I truly believe that every one of us and every bit of our effort can make a huge difference and impact on each of these children who need us.

As it is getting closer and closer to the UCLA-SCMC medical mission, we will have a few busy weeks coming with babies in town. Among all the 12 little patients, 4 of them are from Baobei, while the rest are from Starfish Foundation, Philip Hayden Foundation and The Shepherd’s Crook Ministries. Please allow me to introduce you the 4 cuties from Baobei Foundation this time.

Abbi - She’s a 4-month old baby girl from the Anhui province. She was born with an meningomyelocele sticking out from her head . A week ago, we were informed that she was running a fever and her orphanage were worried. To make sure Abbi would receive medical care before her surgery could happen, the orphanage asked if she could come to SCMC earlier. They quickly delivered her on the 13th of Sept. SCMC nurses and doctors have been giving her a lot of attention. This morning, Abbi seemed to have allergy over certain medicine and she was quickly transferred to PICU. We are so thankful for all the attention she’s getting and hoping by Dr Lazareff’s in town, she will be healthy enough for her surgery. She’s such a sweet and quiet baby girl.

Iris - Iris’s arriving at SCMC on the 21st morning (tomorrow). She’s a 3-year old, also from Anhui province. Everyone who has seen her photo so far commented that she seemed to have gone through a lot. Her diagnosis from her CT scan is possibly hydrocephalus, but there’s also a possibility of fossil cyst or brain tumor. A further exam, MRI is scheduled on the 22nd and we are hoping it is nothing more serious than hydrocephalus. We still need to raise another 50,000RMB for Iris’s surgery as she will need a very expensive shunt, which is programmable. We can’t wait for Iris to receive the surgery she needs and hopefully some smiles on her beautiful face.
Philip - This is a sweet 9-year old boy from Shaanxi province. He was at SCMC last year to remove his neuro teratoma, however, the tumor was so big that his spine was supported by it, so the surgeon couldn’t remove the whole tumor. While he was at SCMC last time, many volunteers fell in love with him because of his pleasant personality, they decided to raise money for his further surgery. Big thanks for the Song Ching Ling Kindergarten, who has successfully raised enough funding for Philip’s 2nd surgery, which will be performed by both Dr Bao from SCMC and Dr Lazareff from UCLA, also Dr Chen, the chief orthopedic surgeon from SCMC. This will be a very big surgery, but it will be also a dream that comes true for Philip. He was already in Shanghai since over a week ago because he had to go through a lot of tests. The whole time he was brave and happy, and TALKS all the time. Oh, by the way, he loves transformers.

Shanna - Our youngest child, who was added to our patient list kind of at the last minute. She’s only 2 week’s old, born with meningomyelocele. She’s from Henan province and was found recently. Her orphanage called me up, screaming with joy “This new baby is chubby, pink cheeks, kicks with good strength…” We decided to send her to Shanghai asap to receive proper pre-surgery care. She’s quite a tough cookie. She cries on top of her voice when she’s not getting her way, you can tell already that she’s a real fighter. She’s just precious!!