Doctors Create “Miracle Jaw” Out of Leg Bone-Chop for Zimbabwean boy
12 April 2015
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UT-San Diego |Zimbabwean’s life has been transformed in past two years thanks to the generosity of many.
SURE, reconstructive surgery has given Blessing Makwera a blinding smile and the ability to eat whatever he wants.
But it is his voice that makes the most difference, the 22-year-old from Zimbabwe said.

Before a team of San Diego surgeons used a bone from his left leg to replace the part of his jaw that an explosion had torn off, talking was so painfully difficult that he would just give up.
“When you’re in class and the teacher can’t understand what you’re saying, it kinda lowers you down. But if people can understand what you’re saying, you can start to enjoy talking,” Makwera said.
That sense of joy came out recently during a check-up with Dr. Thomas Vecchione, the Hillcrest (a San Diego neighbourhood) plastic surgeon who is part of the team responsible for this young man’s transformation.
Makwera said far more than “thank you” as he chatted with Vecchione and Dr. James Chao, the reconstructive and plastic surgeon who crafted his new jaw from a harvested piece of his left fibula.
He described his desire to become a mechanical engineer, his newfound love of running, his temporary home in Boise, Idaho, and his phone conversations with loved ones back on the family farm in Zimbabwe.
He said the simple joy of being able to make his thoughts and feelings understood is just so … fun.
“It’s something that I’m still trying to wrap my mind around, even today,” Makwera said, flashing a smile at the doctors.
Planning to help Africa some day
They smiled back. Vecchione offered to introduce him to his son who just landed a coveted engineering job with electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors.
“Tesla? I would love to work there some day,” Makwera said, launching into his master plan to someday help Africa develop more renewable energy.
Everything, it seems, is on the table now that people can understand what he’s saying post-injury.
Faced with the onslaught of words and smiles, Vecchione said Makwera has the one thing he needs to succeed. “Enthusiasm is the key to life, and you’ve got enthusiasm,” the plastic surgeon said.
Makwera’s still-imperfect but vastly improved voice is modulated by a mouth full of implanted teeth and meticulously rebuilt soft tissue in and around his palate, cheeks and tongue.
Those areas were damaged by an unfortunate encounter with a land mine detonator in 2008. The explosion took his teeth and most of his lower jawbone. He struggled to form words or eat even the softest foods.
Eventually, the non-profit group Operation of Hope Worldwide in the Orange County city of Lake Forest learned about Makwera’s plight.
It brought him to the United States and began looking for a health provider willing to donate reconstructive surgery. Sharp HealthCare and a team of associated surgeons answered the call to donate everything needed to rebuild what the detonator took away.
Three surgeries were required to harvest and implant bone, repair soft tissue and eventually have Dr. Joel Beger, a maxillofacial surgeon, implant permanent teeth.
Mechanical engineering dreams
Sharp and the contributing surgeons have not tabulated the value of their donated work, but it is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In between operations, the patient has been able to live with an Operation of Hope volunteer in Boise.
The arrangement has allowed Makwera to avoid traveling back and forth to Zimbabwe during his course of treatment, which includes months of recovery after each surgery.
He has tried to make the best use of his recuperation time by enrolling in a Boise community college. His mechanical engineering dreams may be helped significantly by his recent discovery that he is a great long-distance runner.
Jennifer Trubenbach, the president for Operation of Hope, explained that one day, Makwera decided to participate in a Boise marathon with the woman who has been his host there. Although he had not trained for the run, he did well.
“He eats two hot dogs the night before and he runs the marathon the next day and beats her by an hour,” Trubenbach said.
More recently, Makwera has tried out at a university in Idaho interested in having him join its track team.
This from a guy who is missing his left fibula.
Chao, the surgeon who crafted the bone into Makwera’s new jaw, assured the aspiring runner that he would be able to return to regular physical activity once his leg healed completely.
The other bone in the lower leg, the much larger tibia, can handle a full load.
“That was pretty surprising,” Makwera said. “I thought it was going to be hard for me to even use the leg, and now I can run 26 miles no problem.”
After harvesting the left fibula, Chao made mitered cuts to help it flex and take a boomerang shape before attaching it with titanium plates to what was left of Makwera’s jaw bone.
More surgery still needed
Delicate microsurgery was needed to connect a vein inside the bone that is about the width of a human hair. The surgery succeeded, enabling Makwera’s vasculature to supply the bone with enough blood to heal and remain alive.
Vecchione, the plastic surgeon, said the case was in the top ten of his career in terms of overall complexity. Chao agreed.
“We needed to get the soft tissue, the muscles, the teeth and the bone all in the same place, all functioning together,” Chao said.
The two physicians believe a fine-tuning surgery is still necessary to manipulate scar tissue preventing the left corner of Makwera’s mouth from taking a more natural shape.
There also will be a little more work to make his tongue, which was damaged in the blast as well, more mobile.
“The key is to try to release the tongue as much as we can. If you can move the tip of the tongue a little bit better, you can get better definition in your speech,” Vecchione said.
For his part, Makwera said he is amazed that these doctors are continuing to help him two years after his first surgery.
“I am surprised that someone can do all of this and make everything functional. I’m just grateful to these guys for what they have done and what they are still doing,” he said.

2 Replies to “Doctors Create “Miracle Jaw” Out of Leg Bone-Chop for Zimbabwean boy”

  1. then you some poo saying ‘ i dont want to talk or see a white man’?? oh how backward and lost this old bull shit has become. these white guys volunteered to just help, can that happen in zimbabwe, can kasukuwere, mugabe, munangagwa volunteer to help those families dying of hunger in tokwe mukosi or in buhera??? hanzi handidi kuona white face, nxaaaa thats why we are suffering these white guys i believe given a safe political landscape, zimbabwe will be fine but the problem is the old donkey and his ass lickers

  2. then you some poo saying ‘ i dont want to talk or see a white man’?? oh how backward and lost this old bull shit has become. these white guys volunteered to just help, can that happen in zimbabwe, can kasukuwere, mugabe, munangagwa volunteer to help those families dying of hunger in tokwe mukosi or in buhera??? hanzi handidi kuona white face, nxaaaa thats why we are suffering these white guys i believe given a safe political landscape, zimbabwe will be fine but the problem is the old donkey and his ass lickers

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