Honduran girl has surgery for bone tumors donated

Published: September 29, 2003 | 183rd good news item since 2003

A 10-year-old Honduran girl had successful surgery for potentially crippling bone tumors performed in a Birmingham hospital by some mission-minded doctors.

Joselin Margarita Vargas Alvarez should be able to grow normally and avoid life in a wheelchair, according to doctors who donated the care at Brookwood Medical Center.

Drs. Bob Foster and Greg Banks, both members of Liberty Park Baptist Church, met Joselin during a medical mission trip to Honduras in January. They worked to bring her to Birmingham to treat her rare condition, multiple osteochondromatosis, found in nine people out of every million worldwide.

Jose Ramon Vargas, Joselin’s father, praised church members, American medical technology and the United States for the care his daughter has received.

“Children were already starting to make fun of her,” the 42-year-old Vargas told The Birmingham News through an interpreter. “Her self-esteem will be much better because she doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Dr. Jeff Wade, an orthopedic surgeon and member of Liberty Park Baptist, said he removed two tumors Friday from the girl’s right leg, one from her left leg and another from her right wrist during a 2-hour surgery.

The surgery went faster than expected because the tumors were not embedded in nerves or blood vessels.

“It went very well,” Wade said. “We were able to address all the tumors we were concerned about.”

Wade also was able to straighten Joselin’s right palm and restore the hand’s use to the girl.

Joselin will remain hospitalized four to five days and faces at least six weeks of recovery and physical therapy. She and her father are being housed by church members and have a visa to stay up to three months.

Published in Science & Technology
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