Changing Yeffre's world
Yeffre Ovando, age three, came to Michigan from Honduras hoping that soon he would be able to walk.
Yeffre’s problem was a difficult one: he had been born without shinbones, and his feet turned inward at a dramatic angle. The result was that he could not walk, but only crawl or scoot around on his bottom. Unless all that changed, a life of begging on Honduran streets awaited him.
But Healing the Children came
into his life, bringing along Dr. Christopher Lee, the company of Wright & Filippis, and Mary Ann Uznis. Dr. Lee, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon,
operated on Yeffre at Bon Secours Hospital in Grosse Pointe, performing a
bilateral amputation – removing Yeffre’s legs below the knee –
so that he
could be fitted for prostheses. Enter Wright & Filippis, makers of
prosthetics, and prosthetist Eric Burzynski, who built and fitted Yeffre’s
new legs. Mary Uznis, his physical therapist, taught him how to use them –
and, yes, to walk.
Yeffre’s host family, Bob and
Marge Padalino and their children, of Grosse Pointe Woods, say that the most
memorable event of his visit was his first walk outdoors. “He was the
happiest child
I have ever seen,” Marge says. “He could not contain his
happiness and was squealing for joy.”
That’s why we keep trying to change the world, one child at a time
