Dentists, Doctors Help Deformed Young Man to Start His Life Anew

Benjamin Ponce is a personable, affable young man with a ready smile. He is always neatly dressed and a diligent, hard-working employee--just about everything a person needs to be to get ahead in the world.

But until recently, Ponce’s future was not at all promising. Life can be hard when practically no one understands a thing you say.

Twenty-one years ago, Ponce was born with a cleft palate and cleft lip, deformities that left gaping holes in the roof of his mouth and on his upper lip.

Despite surgery in Mexico to close the lip when he was 4, the cleft palate was not repaired. Ponce, who has been in the country four years and lives with his mother in Santa Ana, grew to manhood with severely impaired speech.

Then one afternoon last December, Pat Andrews needed something for her new boat that took her to Schock Boats in Newport Beach, where Ponce works as a maintenance man.

Future Was Bright

The young man didn’t know it right away, but his future was about to take a dramatic turn for the better.

When she saw him, Andrews knew at once that Ponce was needlessly hampered by his birth defect. Andrews knew this because her son-in-law, Huntington Beach pediatric dentist Richard Mungo, had also been born with a cleft palate. In fact, so had Mungo’s 2-year-old son, Vincent.

Since that fateful day, Benjamin Ponce has moved closer and closer to life’s mainstream, thanks to the donated efforts of Mungo and other medical and dental experts.

As a result, Ponce already is speaking more clearly. Even greater improvement is not far off.

“Instead of being held down to some menial job the rest of his life because he cannot speak properly . . . this gives him the ability to really fit in to society,” Mungo said. “Maybe someday he will own a boat store of his own.”

Because of Mungo’s own experience and that of his young son, the problems posed by cleft palate have “always been something that is very dear to me,” the Huntington Beach dentist said.

Mungo lost 60% of his hearing as a child because of chronic ear infections, just one of many complicating side effects that can be associated with a cleft palate. His son’s cleft palate has been closed surgically and Vincent is making excellent progress in speech therapy, Mungo said.

“No one person is a total specialist in cleft palates. It takes an entire team to coordinate. . . . You have an aesthetic problem; the bones of the face are distorted too. The teeth are displaced.

“Ponce could formulate words, but with the palate open in back, all the air escaped through his nose and it would sound very nasal and articulation was poor.

“We needed a plastic surgeon, an orthodontist, a lot of dental care.”

When he sought help for Ponce, Mungo found “everybody was very, very receptive.”

In late June, Dr. Janet Salomonson of Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey used bone from Ponce’s hip to fill a gap in his gums, providing stability for his teeth. The three-hour surgery was a complicated procedure that involved not only filling the space between separated bone, but realigning and reattaching muscle and soft tissue.

The healing should be completed soon. When it is, Salomonson will operate again and close the gap in the roof of the mouth.

X-rays were donated by Dr. Daniel Levin of Huntington Beach and Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, where Mungo is head of the division of pediatric dentistry.

Being Fitted for Braces

Huntington Beach orthodontist Patricia Punim is fitting Ponce for braces to straighten his teeth.

And Mungo is providing Ponce’s dental work, including fillings for long-neglected cavities and caps, brightening a smile that more readily flashes now than ever before.

Ponce’s co-workers at Schock Boats even passed the hat among themselves to help offset some expenses, and they transported him to appointments because he does not drive.

Most of the medical and dental attention, save a small portion covered by insurance, has been donated. Mungo’s wife and office manager, Kris, estimated the value of the donated services so far to be about $20,000.

“Our reward is just giving this guy a chance . . . giving him this little help through life,” Richard Mungo said.

Initial closure of a cleft lip, such as that performed on Ponce at age 4 in Guadalajara, Mexico, is typically performed at about 3 months of age now, Mungo said.

Several Operations Needed

Generally more than one operation is required and must be performed at various stages of a child’s physical maturation, Salomonson said.

“If he (Ponce) chooses, we will work on the lip and nose,” Salomonson said. “That’s kind of icing on the cake. That will smooth out that notch (on his nose) and get the nasal cartilage in position.”

Surgery enables people born with cleft palates and lips to “blend right on into society and function very nicely,” she said.

About one in 700 children is born with a cleft palate or cleft lip, according to Salomonson. There are 300 cleft surgeries a year performed at Rancho Los Amigos.

“Cleft palate therapy has come a long way,” Mungo said. “They do it earlier now and follow with exercise.”

Delighted by Operation

For his part, Ponce was frightened a bit by the idea of surgery. But since the operation in June, he has been grateful and delighted. He will also begin speech therapy to learn how to speak with his newly configured mouth.

“You have to learn to talk all over again,” Anderson said. “Your muscles have to learn.”

Suffering from such a severe handicap as long as Ponce did might leave many young men withdrawn and emotionally battered, Mungo said.

But Ponce’s employer, Marie Schock, said he never allowed his handicap “to get in the way of making friends. He’s just a happy person.”

However, she said, “he pointed a lot” because of the difficulty he had speaking.

“He has a lot of personality,” said Mungo, who credits Ponce’s outgoing nature to his supportive, loving mother.

Ponce’s mother, Josephina Perez, is grateful that others have taken an interest as well.

Perez said she remembers being “really glad someone would help” when her son was first operated on in Mexico about 17 years ago.

But “the second time, it was twice as good, especially since it was for free,” Perez said through an interpreter.