Sathia – A real success story!

Sathia – once a severely disfigured girl, now a young woman of promise.

Sathia is a girl whose life to date has not been easy. She was born with a particularly severe facial disfigurement (Dysostosis craniofacialis = Crouzon syndrome), in which the base of the skull is affected by a growth defect, which then also affected the formation of the middle part of the face and the eye cavities.
When she came to our Cleft-centre in Chennai at the age of 15 it was almost too late to save what remained of her eye sight. She was already blind on one eye.
 

Because of her severe disfigurement, Sathia had suffered many years of mockery and ridicule, rejection and often the open contempt of her fellow human beings.

Video about Sathias treatment

She could not integrate anywhere because others considered her to be mentally subnormal based on her appearance. "I still remember", Prof. Sailer says, "how I explained this first case of a Crouzon syndrome patient at our Cleft-centre in Chennai in great detail to the local surgery team and then implemented the operation step-by-step." The intervention took 14 hours, which helped her to regain her self-confidence, her ability to explore and develop herself and show others what she is capable of. 

Video of Sathias operation

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In the meantime, Sathia is now developing into a pretty young lady. She has even found a job: at the Cleft-centre in Chennai she supports the work of the local team with her amazing computer skills. Her new job is something which she obviously enjoys and she is an amazing story of success for us all.