Published Friday, 3 December 2021

The Ollett family don’t need to imagine it – they lived it. Artemis had recently been diagnosed with Sagittal Synostosis and was scheduled for surgery in Adelaide. Making the journey half way across Australia was hard enough with a baby requiring craniofacial surgery, let alone during a pandemic. What was meant to be a three-week round trip ended up taking the Ollett family 7 and a half weeks. ‘It was such a huge amount to take on mentally, not to mention the amount of money,’ Artemis’s mum Madeline told us.

However, the Ollett family’s journey started long before Artemis was even born. ‘When we had our pregnancy scans at 30 weeks, they didn’t check Artemis for craniosynostosis so he wasn’t diagnosed,’ Madeline told us. In fact, Artemis wasn’t diagnosed until he was 13 weeks, when they flew over for an appointment in Adelaide with Dr Flapper. Until then, mother’s instinct had told Madeleine something was wrong, but she didn’t know for sure. When Artemis was born, everyone had told them he was fine, but both parents noticed what looked like a bony ridge on the suture running along his cranium. This is common for babies with Sagittal Synostosis, where premature fusion of the sagittal suture restricts the transverse growth of the skull. In order for the skull to expand along with brain growth, the forehead and back of the head compensate by growing further out, resulting in an elongated, narrow head shape.

Madeline’s research showed that Artemis’s head resembled those of children with craniosynostosis. During their 6-week check-up a nurse commented on this and urged them to seek further medical advice. Until then Madeline had felt like her concerns weren’t being heard. ‘It’s terrible that you have to keep crossing the hurdles to get someone to recognise and acknowledge that something is wrong,’ she said. Although they felt relief when Dr Flapper diagnosed Artemis, they also felt completely unprepared and shocked. They had never heard of sagittal synostosis before and they had no family or friends with the anomaly.

Months later, Artemis was scheduled for surgery in Adelaide with Dr Flapper, which meant navigating border restrictions, quarantine and the stress of travelling with a small child. As if this wasn’t enough, they were faced with another hurdle in Adelaide when they were preparing for surgery. Artemis’s bloods were considered too thin to proceed with the surgery and there was a high chance that he could bleed out. ‘There are no words to describe the emotions I felt knowing that he could bleed out. That was the scariest feeling,’ Madeline said. After a few more tests it was decided it was OK for Artemis to proceed with surgery as planned. ‘We didn’t sleep a wink the night before,’ Artemis’s dad Joshua told us. ‘Such as small person who is so vulnerable, and they have no idea what is going on.’

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I greatly appreciated the help and support of Dr David David, he is one in a million, and did not press my daughter to have surgery before she was ready.

- Jenny

My Mum was a supporter and really enjoyed reading and hearing about the work you do to improve people’s lives. I have carried on supporting your work because I know it was important to her. 

- Rob

The end of September also saw the conclusion of our Indonesian online lecture series, ‘Advanced Cleft and Craniofacial Management’, which ran over five months. Most of the 21 sessions were delivered by Professor David and Dr Ben Grave, with wonderful guest presentations given by Speech Pathologist Kat Bray, and Anaesthetist Dr Cormac Fahy. In total, 1,775 minutes of content was recorded (about 30 hours). These live presentations were given from our office on Melbourne Street via Zoom to Indonesia, where a cohort of surgeons and other multi-disciplinary team members, organised by Dr Magda Hutagalung and Dr Lobredia Zarasade from Surabaya, participated as students.

The result was a wide-ranging exploration of many important aspects of craniofacial surgery, from the practical (the management of facial clefts, craniosynostosis, how to handle complications post-surgery) to the philosophical (the ethics of surgery, the responsiblities of surgeons to make a patient ‘look good’ in addition to fixing functional problems). The students across Indonesia also provided several cases for Professor David and Dr Grave to look at, and these always proved great starting points for discussion. We are extremely grateful to Dr Magda and Dr Didia for their help and expertise.