Air Force charity brings a smile to Kadena family

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Joe Kreidel
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  Two-year-old Jimmy Baker has sneaked all the croutons off his mom's salad while she and his dad tell me about Jimmy's surgery. He's been dipping them in ranch dressing and has shown a real talent for getting half the dressing on his upper lip. His parents, Josh and Joleen, don't mind - they're just happy he's eating.

Jimmy, born Sept. 18, 2007, was the first baby in memory at US Naval Hospital, Okinawa, to be born with a cleft lip and palate - a gap in the roof of his mouth and upper lip. Because a cleft is usually undetectable during standard prenatal checkups, no one knew of the complication until Jimmy was born. When Jimmy emerged after an arduous delivery by emergency c-section, Joleen said the room went quiet.

Three weeks after Jimmy's birth, the Bakers travelled to Tripler Army Medical Center on Oahu for their initial consultation with a cleft palate team. Jimmy was having trouble eating and had lost 28 percent of his birth weight.

"He couldn't close his mouth to breathe," said Joleen, a native of Carencro, La. "He would just breathe everything in and food would get stuck up in his CP [cleft palate]."

Still too young and too small for the reparative surgery, the doctors told the Bakers that Jimmy would have to return to Hawaii at three months old, this time for surgery and a three-week stay. Though the military had covered and would continue to cover Jimmy's medical bills, the additional costs - two extra plane tickets, rental cars, etc. - were beginning to add up and it appeared that Josh, a senior airman and flight engineer with the 353rd Special Operations Group, and Jullian, the Bakers' four-year-old daughter, would be unable to accompany Jimmy and Joleen to Hawaii for the surgery.

Four days before Jimmy and Joleen were to depart for Oahu, Josh's first sergeant learned of their predicament and suggested they seek assistance from the Air Force Aid Society. By nightfall on Jan. 3, 2008, the Bakers had turned in their paperwork requesting funds for plane tickets for Josh and Jullian, a rental car for the duration of their stay in Hawaii and one month of childcare.

At 7:30 the next morning, Joleen received a phone call from the AFAS.

"They called and said they were giving us a medical grant over $3,500, which meant there's no payback required," Joleen said. "I couldn't believe it. I was crying on the phone and I kept asking, 'Really? Seriously?'"

Three days later, on Jan. 7, the Bakers left for Hawaii as a whole family.

Waiting in the hallway after the surgery Jan. 9, Josh and Joleen could hear an angry baby screaming down the hall. It's not our Jimmy, they thought. The voice is all wrong.

But the screaming baby they thought belonged to someone else was headed right for them in a bassinet being pushed by Dr. Benjamin Cable, Jimmy's doctor. Dr. Cable, a U.S. Army physician, was smiling. The surgery had gone better than expected and Jimmy's new reconstructed lip had deepened the pitch of his cry.

Shortly thereafter, Jimmy smiled for the family for the first time without a gaping hole. It's that smile that is planted in Joleen's memory.

"After all the stress and worry, being up every two hours at night, the difficulty feeding him, the postpartum depression - to see that smile," she said, shaking her head at the memory, "to be able to share that with Josh - it was an incredible moment."

Editor's note:
Kadena's Air Force Assistance Fund campaign, an annual effort to raise money for the charitable affiliates that provide assistance to Air Force families, runs through May 7. For more information about the AFAF, the charities it supports, or to make a donation, speak with your unit representative or visit http://www.afassistancefund.org/.