Fatima was born in Syria with craniofacial anomalies and grew up as her country fell apart.
She has undergone eight surgeries in four countries. The most recent, a year earlier in the Middle East, left her with a plastic tube protruding from her nostril.
When she arrived in the United States, she didn’t speak a word of English. Today, at 16, she is learning it quickly. And when she tries to say something about her homeland, she puts it this way: “My country is good”. Her mother looks at her with tears of pride.
Now she is in the care of plastic surgeon Ernesto Ruas at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Florida. She is still waiting for reconstruction of her nose, but she is no longer waiting alone.
