IT'S ONLY RIGHT: THIS KID SHOULD GIVE THE MONEY, AND HER NEW FACE, BACK

Girl Transformed by Facial Surgery
Daytona Beach News-Journal ^ | October 24, 2005 | LINDA TRIMBLE

Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005 2:58:21 PM by Sabramerican

Girl Transformed by Facial Surgery Benefactor helps family get help for their 11-year-old daughter.

By LINDA TRIMBLE The Daytona Beach News-Journal

DELTONA -- Susan and John Macklefresh are still adjusting to their daughter's new world, where 11-year-old Joanna can play outside, go to school, visit a friend or stay overnight at grandma's without her parents or a nurse tagging along.

"We're not checking on her every 15 minutes to make sure everything is all right," said John Macklefresh. "Maybe every 16," his wife said with a laugh.

It's a habit born of years of medical crises that began when Joanna was born prematurely with a large benign tumor that distorted her face and affected her neck, mouth and lymph nodes, making it difficult for her to breathe or swallow.

Five surgeries over the past two years -- including the August removal of the tracheal tube Joanna had needed for breathing since she was an infant -- have now turned her life around.

Everything changed after a chance encounter two years ago between Joanna and Morris Esformes, a Chicago rabbi who owns the DeLand nursing home where Susan Macklefresh works as a licensed practical nurse.

Esformes saw Joanna, who was visiting her mother at work.

"I took one look at this kid and my heart broke," he said in a telephone interview from Chicago.

Esformes learned from Joanna's mother that several surgeries and chemotherapy had failed to shrink her tumor significantly and Central Florida doctors were giving her parents little hope for improvement.

"Everybody wrote her off; there was no chance she would look like a normal kid," Esformes said.

Saying he's "ferocious when it comes to kids," Esformes wasn't ready to settle for that outcome.

He insisted the Macklefreshes gather Joanna's medical records and arranged for Dr. McKay McKinnon, a world-renowned plastic surgeon and personal friend at the University of Chicago Hospital, to review her case.

McKinnon "told me by the time Joanna is 18, she can run for Miss Florida," Esformes recalled.

Telling the Macklefreshes he would pay for anything not covered under their health insurance, Esformes took the family to Chicago in February 2004 for their first meeting with McKinnon.

"We never asked anybody for anything. It was hard," Susan Macklefresh said of Esformes' offer. "He really didn't give us an option. He said `I'm not doing this because I have to. It's a gift and I'm doing it for (Joanna).' "

"You never met anyone with more confidence," John Macklefresh recalled of that first meeting with the doctor who would reshape his daughter's face. "It felt like somebody was standing behind us tossing the bricks off our shoulders."

After talking at length with her parents about the surgical options, McKinnon turned to Joanna to find out what she wanted him to do for her. She asked him to fix her misshapen lips.

McKinnon agreed but said there were bigger priorities first. Even so, McKinnon took time to begin reshaping Joanna's lips when he first operated on her in April 2004.

Susan Macklefresh thinks it was the doctor's special gift to his young patient. Joanna has undergone five operations in Chicago altogether to remove the tumor and part of her tongue, reshape her jaw and lips, align her teeth and remove the tracheal tube.

Additional surgery is expected to close the hole from the tracheal tube and remove scar tissue.

In the meantime, the Macklefreshes and Esformes are savoring the changes in Joanna's face and her life.

"The satisfaction is beyond the scope of my understanding," Esformes said. "This was saving the quality of life of a human being and giving her a chance to live a life like you and me."

"What good is money if you can't do the right things with it," said Esformes, who has paid bills totaling "over six figures" for the Macklefreshes so far. He credits God with giving him the "wisdom and tenacity" to get Joanna the help she needed.

"It's been miraculous," Susan Macklefresh said, while conceding she and her husband don't quite know how to show their appreciation for all that Esformes has done for Joanna. "How do you thank a man who does that?" John Macklefresh said.

No question. This kid should do the right thing. Write a check for $2.4M to a Quincy Nursing Home and remutilate her face.

McScrewdriver knows the bad actors from the good ones. He has ruled on this one. Cough it up, kid!

Pate Phillip and Lee Daniels are next.