ZEELAND, MI -- Adan Mejia Zavala was only 2 months old when a doctor in his native Honduras advised his dad to get a coffin ready for his burial.
A strep infection had taken hold in the lining of Adan’s nose, and the doctor was afraid the tiny infant wouldn’t survive. He did, but he was left with a hole in his face where his nose once was.
Fourteen years later, Adan is finally getting a nose.
The infection that nearly cost him his life set in motion a chain of events that eventually led him to a family in Zeeland that took him in as one of their own and arranged for the highly specialized medical care he needs.
Adan now is at home in two worlds. In Comoaqua, Honduras, he lives with his parents, Mayra and Adan, and his 16-year-old brother, Alfredo.
In Zeeland, he lives with his second family, Sherri and Craig Gebben and their daughters, Kelsie, 15, and Courtney, 13.
“He is family. He is definitely family,” Sherri Gebben said. “All of us are really tight and close.”
Adan nodded in agreement. “I call her Mom,” he said.
Adan is at home in a third world, as well – in the rooms and corridors of Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. The doctors at the hospital’s Ian Jackson Craniofacial and Cleft Palate Clinic are donating their time and services as they reconstruct his nose and upper jaw through a series of surgeries.
The process is expected to take years, but Adan is already enjoying two big milestones. After an operation in April, he was able to breathe through his nose for the first time in years. He also was able to blow a bubble with his gum, for the first time in his life.
From Honduras to Zeeland
Adan’s medical journey began when he became very sick as an infant. In the hospital, tubes were placed down his nose in an attempt to determine the cause of his illness. As the tubes were removed, they tore the tissue lining his nose. A life-threatening strep infection set in.
“To save him from the strep infection, the doctors basically cut out the whole center of his face,” Gebben said. “They took his upper jaw bone out.”
A photo of Adan shows how he looked before the illness and surgery, with the smooth facial features of a healthy infant. Later photos show the tiny bump of a nose that remained after the operation.
The problems were not just cosmetic. The removal of the upper jaw bone left an opening between Adan’s mouth and nose area, which made eating difficult. The food “goes up through my nose and comes back out,” he said.
“He learned to push food to the side of his mouth to eat,” Gebben said.
As Adan grew up, he played soccer in the street with the other boys and had had a close friend at school. But he also endured teasing for the disfiguring surgery.
“When I met new people, that was hard,” he said.
First attempt at facial reconstruction
Adan came to the U.S. for the first time in 2007 when he was 9. Healing the Children, an international health organization, arranged for surgery at Holland Hospital to rebuild his nose.
Sherri Gebben and her husband, Craig, a mortgage loan officer, became Adan’s host family. Sherri quit her job in food service at Holland Hospital and switched to cleaning houses so she could take him to his medical appointments.
The operation on Adan’s nose appeared successful at first. But an infection destroyed the transplanted cartilage, despite several attempts to replace it, and the nose gradually shrank.
After 10 months, Adan returned to his parents in Honduras. The Gebbens immediately started working to bring him back for more medical care. They made a connection with a missionary in his hometown and stayed with her while they met with Adan’s mom and dad and tried to make the arrangements.
At one point, the Honduran couple asked the Gebbens if they would adopt their son. The Gebbens asked Adan what he thought, and he said, “No.” He did not want to be adopted.
“We said if we did it, it would be just a paperwork thing to get him here,” Sherri Gebben said.
As it turned out, adoption would have made the process more difficult. Honduras blocks foreign adoptions because of fears of child trafficking.
Still, trying to get a visa from the American embassy was a long and frustrating process, involving several trips to Honduras.
“Meanwhile, we we’re watching his nose. It started sinking in,” Gebben said. “Stuff started seeping up the side. His lips were getting pulled up. The skin was the only thing that survived.”
The Gebbens contacted the American ambassador, the local mayor and governor and the wife of the Honduran president as they tried to cut through the bureaucracy.
“There’s no way you promise something like this and not follow through,” Gebben said.
The couple finally succeeded in getting a short-term visa for Adan in October and he was able to come to Michigan. They obtained a five-year visa in February.
Key to their success was a letter from the Beaumont craniofacial clinic stating that it would provide the reconstructive surgery and follow-up care, Gebben said.
Since Adan arrived in Zeeland, he has settled into life with his American family. He attends Zeeland Christian School. He takes classes in the Spanish immersion program, although he says the Spanish taught there is very different from the “street Spanish” he knows.
He likes American pizza, dislikes ice cream and misses his mother’s cooking. Asked what his favorite food was in Honduras, he said, “Everything.”
One constant is soccer: At home, there is always a game going in the street in front of his house, he said. In Zeeland, he hopes to play on a school team or travel team this fall.
Through the missionary friend in Honduras, Adan talks to his parents via Skype every Sunday. He plans to go home for a visit at Christmas.
At the end of the school year, his classmates presented him and the Gebbens with $300 – raised by recycling pop cans – to help with medical and transportation costs.
“You would have thought Adan was a superstar,” Gebben said. “They all just swarmed around him.”
Gebben said others in the community have donated funds to help with expenses. Many have been touched by Adan’s story and the doctors and medical staff willing to help him.
“It brings hope to others, doesn’t it Adan?” she said.