Woodland Hills : Surgery to Enable Girl to Smile Set for Dec. 15

Two days before Thanksgiving, 7-year-old Chelsey Thomas of Palmdale was scheduled to undergo surgery that, if successful, would have eventually allowed her to smile her first smile.

Born with a rare medical condition known as Moebius syndrome, which causes partial paralysis of the facial muscles, Chelsey made it all the way into the operating room at Kaiser Permanente’s Woodland Hills Medical Center on Nov. 21. Despite all of Chelsey’s hopes, the surgery was not to be.

A microvascular surgeon from Canada was poised to begin operating when doctors noticed a small fever blister on Chelsey’s mouth. The surgery was postponed because of the risk the virus posed to the operation’s success.

But last week, Chelsey’s mother, Lori Thomas, learned that the surgery is rescheduled for Dec. 15.

“I was really surprised,” Thomas said. “I said, ‘Are you sure Dr. Zuker can come back that soon?’ ” Thomas said, referring to Canadian specialist Dr. Ronald Zuker, who flew to Los Angeles to operate on Chelsey in November.

Thomas said she hasn’t yet informed Chelsey of the date for the rescheduled surgery, for fear that stress or worry over the lengthy operation may cause her to become ill, forcing doctors to again postpone the procedure. But Thomas said Chelsey knows the next surgery attempt is coming up.

“For my part, I think I’ll be more nervous than last time,” Thomas said. “But she should be up and about before Christmas, which we’re very happy about.”

The surgical procedure is a two-part operation in which surgeons will transplant one muscle at a time from Chelsey’s thigh to her cheek. Most of the operation takes place beneath microscopes.

If the Dec. 15 surgery is successful, doctors must allow the patient several months for recovery before working on the other side.

“They said she’d be smiling before her birthday in June,” Thomas said.