Dr. Michael Epstein looked once. Looked twice. Blink, blink. The plastic surgeon from Northbrook was on a Healing the Children mission in Nicaragua at the time of his double-take, screening candidates in need of life-changing procedures. A girl named Daisy, nearly three years old, was waiting in line with her mother last December.
Daisy was adorable — from the nose up.
“When I first looked at her, it looked like she didn’t have a mouth,” Epstein, 57, recalls.
A venous malformation had formed on Daisy’s upper lip. The massive tumor drooped, covering her entire mouth and most of her chin. The mission’s original plan called for Epstein and other volunteers to return to Nicaragua in April and perform operations. The plan got postponed.
“Later,” Epstein recounts, “we identified the kids we wanted to bring up here for surgery. Daisy was one of them.”
Jeff Degner, a director of the local Healing the Children chapter, escorted Daisy — minus any of her family members — to the United States in late May. A family on Epstein’s block in Northbrook served as the patient’s host family. Epstein made some phone calls. He contacted the administrator at Highland Park Hospital, a NorthShore University HealthSystem hospital. He contacted Dr. Bruce Bauer, Epstein’s co-surgeon during Daisy’s surgery in June. He rounded up other volunteers.
“All of the people involved stepped up to the plate, didn’t bat an eye when we asked for their help,” Epstein, founder of MAE Plastic Surgery in Northbrook, says. “The hospital, the nurses, the host family [the Fourniers], the anesthesiologist, Dr. Bauer … everybody, so many people. Bruce Bauer, he made it look easy. He was terrific. It was a huge relief, having him by my side.”
The surgery lasted two hours. It cost Daisy’s family nothing. It would have cost at least $25,000 had it not been a Heal the Children gift.
“Imagine what Daisy had to go through,” Epstein says. “It had to be scary for her, coming up here without her parents, unable to speak any English. She was brave, well-mannered. I saw a video of Daisy’s return home. She was in an airport in Nicaragua. I saw her father’s reaction to the surgery. He couldn’t believe how great his daughter looked. He broke down, started crying.
“I still get emotional, thinking about that video.”
It is one of Epstein’s favorite stories, Daisy’s Journey. He had told it countless times before our get-together at Max and Benny’s in Northbrook, where he ordered coffee, a Grecian omelet, an English muffin and a plate of sliced tomatoes. Had he told it to me all over again, right there in a the restaurant, his enthusiasm would not have waned a lick.
“I had done mission work before, and I loved it,” he says. “I’d been looking to do it again, for years, and then I expressed my interest to a neighbor of mine. The neighbor knows Jeff [Degner]. Jeff called me and asked if I’d be interested in going to Nicaragua. I said, ‘Sure.’ The whole experience moved me. I got so much out of it.
“The surgery,” he adds, “changed this little girl’s life forever.”
At Buddy’s Pizza in Detroit, back in 1984, Epstein and his date ate dinner, with the TV broadcast of a Detroit Tigers-Boston Red Sox baseball game serving as wonderful background noise. Epstein was a fourth-year medical student at Wayne State University at the time and a rabid Tigers fan. It was Michael and Jackie’s first date. Detroit would win the World Series that year. Michael and Jackie would get married two years later. Life-changing. They have two children, both in their 20s. One is an artist, the other interested in pursuing a career in a medical field.
Art. Medicine. Add the two up, and the sum is … plastic surgery.
“I love days when I operate,” Epstein says. “I consider those fun days. Plastic surgery gives me the license to be creative and perform life-altering procedures. Not too long ago, a girl, in her teens, underwent a rhinoplasty. It changed her. It put a little hop in her step.”
Six or seven years ago, Epstein wanted more music in his life. His son, Danny, was taking guitar lessons in Deerfield. Dad signed up for drum lessons in Deerfield. He purchased a full drum set and housed it in a music room in his basement. The doctor took more lessons. The doctor continued to practice.
“I wasn’t making much progress as a drummer,” says Epstein, who uses strings — tennis strings — to produce different sounds when he has time for another one of his diversions. “I then found School of Rock in Highwood. Things took off for me, though I still have a long way to go.”
Epstein and other Healing the Children team members plan to get on a plane bound for Rivas, Nicaragua, in September. There’s work to be done down there. Other children need to undergo operations.
Can you see Dr. Michael Epstein, arriving in an airport next month? Can you see a girl named Daisy, running and smiling toward the doctor?