Woodland Hills : Surgery Scheduled for Girl Who Can’t Smile

The little blond girl who never smiled will be rolled on a gurney into an operating room in Kaiser Permanente’s Medical Center in Woodland Hills two days before Thanksgiving.

Dr. Ronald Zuker, a Canadian surgeon, will operate on her, using delicate implements, microscopes and tiny needles.

He will labor for about eight hours installing a muscle taken from her thigh into the lower left side of her cheek. He will then attempt to hook up a healthy nerve to her new muscle.

If she’s lucky, a couple of months after surgery, 7-year-old Chelsey Thomas of Palmdale may finally manage her first grin.

“She can’t wait,” said Chelsey’s mother, Lori, who has waged war against the rare neurological condition known as Moebius syndrome that has afflicted her daughter since birth, paralyzing her facial muscles.

“She asked me every day: ‘When can I have my surgery?’ As soon as she found out, she wrote it in her calendar,” she added.

No, Chelsey didn’t draw a smiley face. In the square for Tuesday, Nov. 21, she just wrote: “Surgry.”

Chelsey’s story made national headlines, newscasts and even morning talk shows in August when the Thomases’ insurance carrier, Kaiser Permanente, agreed to cover the cost of the estimated $70,000, two-part surgery that might give her the ability to smile.

Although Chelsey’s mother had already contacted Zuker, an experienced microvascular surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario, Canada, the details of when--and where--the surgery would take place were not settled until this week.

Moebius syndrome affects fewer than 1,000 people in the United States, experts have said.