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The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday October 10, 2001 - B1 OFFICIAL MEDIA SPO N SO R O F T H E OAKVILLE WATERFRONT FESTIVAL L Focus A 4 JmOaJwU / (nWaterfr Fall Has Arrived! Believe it or n o t the time has come to get your fall wardrobe together. We have fabulous fall fashions arriving daily for all the best looks this season. Come and see us! U pscaleR esaleL ad iesW ear^ ^^ 115Trafalgar Rd. ju s in .o fumkw 538-34741 O PEN 7 DAYS A W EEK By Consignment Oakville Beaver Focus Editor: WILMA BLOKHUIS 8 45 -3 8 2 4 (Extension 250) Fax: 3 3 7 -5 5 6 7 Oakville reaches out to Dominican teenager Team effort makes hip surgery possible By Wilma Blokhuis SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER A 15-year-old orphan girl from the Dominican Republic should not have to spend the rest of her life on crutches thanks to the Oakville Rotary Club and other local residents. Eighteen months ago, Polly was walking in a pair of platform shoes along a bumpy, dirt road in the Dominican Republic, when she twisted her ankle and fell hurting her hip. A botched surgery by a doctor in a Puerto Plata hospital left the teenager with shredded cartilage and bone frag ments in her hip joint. She was in con stant pain with every step she took and facing a life on crutches. And then fate, in the form of Oakville Rotary Club member Judy Warrington, intervened. Warrington met Polly during one of her three trips escorting student volunteers to the Dominican Republic on behalf of the Oakville Rotary Club. She also collects and sends books on behalf of the Oakville Rotary Club. On her last visit to the Dominican Republic in March 2001, Warrington set about bringing Polly to Oakville for the hip-saving surgery. The Oakville Rotary Club agreed to cover expenses, every thing from airfare to Polly's medical needs. Polly arrived in Oakville on Aug. 6 the day after her birthday -- accompa nied by the woman Polly calls mom, 60year-old Paulina Tremblay, who runs the orphanage, El Jardin de los Ninos (Garden of Children). A six-hour successful surgery was performed at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital on Sept. 11 "The surgery was done on the day the World Trade Center was hit by terror ists," said Warrington. "What kind of mindset would cause people to do such things. I was in the hospital all day and witnessed the opposite. "Polly was scheduled for a threehour operation, but it took six hours," Warrington said shortly after the opera tion was completed. Photo by Brent Foster Judy Warrington and Paulina Tremblay give a good luck kiss to Polly, an orphan from the Dominican Republic, prior Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. The surgery had to repair the dam sandpaper." her right knee. Once out of hospital, age caused by the first operation. But all that pain should now be in Polly will stay at Warrington's home. Originally two pins were used to hold Polly's past. "This is an amazing community we together Polly's damaged bones. It is "Everything went the we hoped it live in," said Warrington, shortly after believed the pins were inserted incor would. Polly was so excited. The opera Polly arrived in Oakville. "People have rectly and damaged some vital tissues tion was a success." been calling and asking if Polly needs It means the teen can throw away her anything." and blood vessels, leaving Polly in con crutches, walk without pain, and live a stant pain. Since Polly's arrival in Oakville, the "Unfortunately, either they were normal life. Halton Quilters Guild has donated 17 "I'm so happy everything has worked children's quilts to the orphanage, and badly inserted or they shifted, and the operation was a disaster. A few months out," said Warrington. the Knox Presbyterian Church Vacation Polly is expected to remain in Bible School has donated school sup later, they removed the pins. The carti lage is shred, fragments of bone are Oakville until the end of year. plies. Polly has lived at El Jardin de los "We hope to be able to send her home moving in that joint every time Polly moves, it has not healed properly at all, by Christmas," said Warrington. Ninos since she was four years old. and Polly is in pain all the time," said Following her surgery, Polly was "Her mother was young,,uneducated Warrington before the Oakville surgery. waiting for a lightweight fibreglass and very, very poor, and as happens with "Every step she takes is painful. To her it brace to replace the half-body cast cov many Dominican women, just couldn't feels like the hip bone is rubbing against ering her from above her waist to below care for her children, so she abandoned to her hip-saving surgery at Oakville them," said Warrington. "When Polly was four and her sister seven, her grandfather turned to a lady for help. The girls were being raised in a house of men - cousins, uncles, and a father who slipped in and out - and their future was grim. "The lady Polly's grandfather turned to for help with his two little grand daughters was Paulina Tremblay." Often referred to 0 the `La Mere Theresa du Quebec,' Tremblay does not like the word orphanage. "It's my home and these are my chil dren," she says of the 30 young charges she's raised since opening El Jardin de los Ninos in 1985. "It's not an orphanage because these (S e e `F o rm e r' p a g e B 2) The Body Shaping Fitness Studio ForWomen. 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