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 Doctors at Stony Brook Children's Hospital on Long Island will
perform the first of several surgeries on Dunia Sibomana on Monday.
The goal will be to restore functioning lips that will improve his
speech and stop constant drooling.
During Monday's 8-hour surgery, doctors will harvest a rectangle of
skin and a nerve from Sibomana's forearm that will be used to form
the circle of both lips, said Dr. Alexander Dagum, the hospital's
chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery.
Under a microscope, tiny veins and arteries will be reconnected to
provide blood supply for the transplanted tissue and the nerve will
allow the lips to feel sensations.
The attack occurred two years ago in a war-torn region that
struggles with environmental conservation and is home to some of the
world's few remaining mountain gorillas.
Taunts from other children drove Sibomana from school in his village
bordering Virunga National Park in Democratic Republic of Congo.
He was brought to the United States six weeks ago by Smile Rescue
Fund for Kids, a philanthropy founded by retired Stony Brook dentist
Leon Klempner, who helped arrange the surgery donated by the
hospital and its doctors.
The organization is also collecting donations at SmileRescueFund.org
to allow Sibomana to attend boarding school back in Africa, which
costs less than $700 a year, Klempner said.
Sibomana is temporarily enrolled in second grade at a Long Island
elementary school, where he is learning to read and write English.
His native language is Swahili.
He has acquired a taste for chicken fingers and pizza, although he
has some difficulty keeping food in his mouth without lips. Still,
the 48-pound (22 kilo) boy has gained weight in recent weeks,
Klempner said.
Park rangers in Democratic Republic of Congo are still searching for
Sibomana's older cousin, who was part of a group of children
attacked by the chimpanzees. They believe he may have been killed in
the attack or so severely disfigured that he chose to hide from
friends and family, officials said.
Sibomana's younger brother was killed in the attack.
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The rangers connected Sibomana with Stony Brook Children's Hospital
through famed anthropologist Richard Leakey, who teaches at Stony
Brook University. One of the rangers accompanied the child to the
United States, while Sibomana's widowed father stayed behind.
In a subsequent surgery, muscle from Sibomana's cheek will be used
to allow him to move his new lips, Dr. Dagum said, adding that the
lips may later be tattooed to give them appropriate color.
"We try to make it beautiful because we don't want just normal,"
Dagum said, noting that Sibomana would be the youngest recipient of
a double lip reconstruction. Two other known cases involved adults.
During a meeting with doctors this week, Sibomana's eyes sparkled as
he used a remote control to raise and lower an exam table,
mischievously sticking his tongue out at doctors who asked him to
stop playing with their equipment.
"One second!" chirped Sibomana in English as doctors tried to finish
his examination.
He then dashed off to a playroom where he hopped onto a red scooter
and marveled at an abundance of toys that will be used by therapists
to help him recover from his surgeries.
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Scott Malone, Toni
Reinhold)
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