Boy with Deformed Legs Has Life-Changing Surgery Thanks to Tim Tebow
Tim Tebow has been an utter inspiration — so much so that some media outlets have begun gently poking fun at his graciousness. Satire site The Babylon Bee good-heartedly ribbed the baseball star, publishing an article with the headline “Tim Tebow Hit By Pitch, Charges Mound To Offer Instant Forgiveness.”
Yet Tebow seems to understand that the purpose of life isn’t personal enjoyment or the professional accomplishment or the adulation of others. It’s to do good to all people.
That’s why Tebow has launched a number of charitable initiatives. And one of his most impressive is the Tebow CURE Hospital in Davao City, Philippines.
Since its founding in 2014, the Tebow CURE Hospital has performed 2,139 surgeries on needy individuals without easy access to medical care. These aren’t always easy procedures.
Dr. Tim Mead, an on-staff surgeon, blogged about some of the difficulties they’ve faced. Once he had to operate on a teen with scoliosis so severe his back had a nearly 90-degree bend.
Worse yet, the air conditioning went out on the day of the surgery. So Mead performed the procedure as a nurse wiped sweat from his face so it wouldn’t drip into the patient’s open incision.
Dramatic stuff, but not as dramatic as when Mead and his cohorts worked on an 11-year-old boy named Aldrin. Why? Aldrin had a horrible congenital knees deformity.
“Essentially, Aldrin’s knee bends the wrong way like a flamingo,” Mead wrote on the CURE blog. “When we see children with knees like this early, we can often cast the knees and improve them …
“When young, the surgery is much less involved. At age 14, surgery is a true challenge.”
Because no one had addressed Aldrin’s condition, the doctors had a bevy of problems to deal with. Stretched skin on the front of the leg. A malformed femur. A contracted tendon.
I’ll spare you the grisly details of Mead’s work. Suffice it to say that he called moving the legs so that they functioned properly a “noisy journey.”
It involved slicing and dividing, sawing and hammering, screwing and sewing. But in the end, a young boy had legs that properly functioned.
Aldrin isn’t quite out of the woods yet. He’ll need lots of physical therapy.
If he sticks with the work, though, he’ll be able to walk and stand properly. “When he had surgery, it was okay because their staff gave us encouragement, and they take care of us very well,” Aldrin’s mother said.
“They encourage me and gave me strength that God knows and has an idea of what is best for him. God is in control just like in your doctors and whatever is good for Aldrin.”
Good for them, and good for Tebow. May the Almighty bless them all in their worthy work.
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