Thursday, March 27, 2008 Girl, 14, gets life-changing trip from club
“WALA’Y ilong!” was the constant taunt 14-year-old Cherry Mae Espedillo heard from classmates as she was growing up.
Ignoring them, Cherry Mae nurtured dreams of travel and enhancing her grasp of the English language.
Today, the third daughter of Charles, 45, and Ma. Theresa, 32, will leave for New York, where a team of plastic surgeons is waiting to help her restore her nose.
Cherry Mae lost her nose to a bacterial infection when she was nine months old.
Charles, a barangay tanod in Kasambagan, Cebu City, said they kept telling Cherry Mae to focus on her studies and to stay positive.
Indeed, a good-humored Cherry beamed before the cameras and joked with reporters during the meeting of the Rotary Club of Metro Cebu at Casino Español de Cebu yesterday noon.
“Ang ako karon magtu-on ko og English og pirmi mag pray and give thanks to the Lord sa tanang blessings (I will work on my English and keep praying so I can thank the Lord for all these blessings,” said Cherry.
She cried with joy and gratitude at the prospect of getting her nose restored and at the same time being able to travel abroad.
According to Dr. Wyben Briones of the Rotary Club of Metro Cebu, antibiotics could have solved the necrotizing infection when the nose was still intact.
However, the Espedillo family is “financially challenged” and a series of check-ups at a government hospital did not stop the infection from eating up Cherry’s nasal tissue and nasal structure.
Reconstruction
About three years ago, the Rotary Club of Metro Cebu discovered Cherry through its program, Operation Restore Hope, which aims to help people with facial deformities.
The club brings American and Australian doctors to perform procedures to treat harelips and cleft palates.
Dr. Briones said that surgeons evaluated Cherry’s case and told them that she will need to undergo a series of four to five surgeries that will include forming the nasal bridge with the cartilage from Cherry’s ears.
The operation will be done at the New York Ear, Eye and Nose Center.
The high cost of the operation did not hinder the members of the Rotary Club of Metro Cebu, among them Joshua Hatcher, to provide the logistics to make Cherry’s trip and operation possible.
Cherry received yesterday a round-trip ticket courtesy of Philippine Airlines. She will be staying with a foster family in New York for eight months to one year.
“And Cherry will come home more beautiful,” added Briones, currently in charge of the service projects of the Rotary.
When she comes back, Cherry said, she wants to continue her high school education and finally do something a lot of teenagers take for granted: wear a pair of sunglasses most of the time. (NRC)
