MOEBIUS SYNDROME IN THE NEWS
Oregon's Madison McDowell is one big success story--read on:
"In many ways Madison McDowell, daughter of Amber and Matt McDowell of Enterprise, is much like the other fourth-graders in her class.  Maddie loves playing soccer and basketball and riding horses. She belongs to 4-H clubs and enjoys hiking and hunting with her family.  Her curly brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She wears a hot pink T-shirt that matches her pink and brown polka-dot rubber boots.  Recently, in response to teasing from a few students, Maddie stood before her classmates and explained the characteristics of Moebius Syndrome, a rare congenital condition she was born with that afflicts the nerves and muscles in her face, causing paralysis.  She told her teacher, Mr. Keffer, that there was a video on YouTube he could show the class that would teach them about Moebius Syndrome and the people who have it.  Maddie did all this without consulting or asking for help from her parents. In fact, Madison’s mother didn’t know anything about Maddie’s little science lesson until later.  “Most of the kids already knew about it from before, but some new kids didn’t,” Madison said, adding that she thinks kids don’t tease as much when they know more.
At the age of 5, Madison underwent the first surgery to reconstruct the muscles in her face that would allow her to smile. The “Smile Surgery,’’ developed and conducted by Dr. R.M. Zucker, the head of plastic surgery at the University of Toronto in Canada, is the best treatment available so far for children with Moebius Syndrome."

Read the whole thing--the surgery turned out to be very successful, and Maddie and her family continue to do great things.

“I want to keep going back to the [Moebius Syndrome Foundation] conference to share our experiences, to tell other parents that there is help and that it will get better. When we first went we were scared and looking for information. Lots of people helped us. Now we can help others,” [Madison McDowell's mother] Amber said."