Ellen is passionate about changing the world and this month we are doing a blog series with our favorite Yoga expert, Ellen! She inspires us all to be a great person and help others. Follow her on Instagram and check out more about her below!*

For this blog entry, I’m stepping off the mat and talking about my other passion…

I just spent the last two weeks in Madagascar volunteering as a recovery room nurse on a medical mission with Operation Smile, a non-profit that is very dear to my heart. They provide free and corrective surgeries to children born with facial deformities. On this mission, volunteers from ten different countries came together to change the lives of 151 patients, most of them were children. These patients were born with an incomplete closure of their lips or palate, also known as a cleft. Clefts can cause these children to suffer from malnutrition, speech deficit, social outcast, and respiratory infections. Currently, there is an ongoing research for the causes of cleft, but it is believed that there are genetic and environmental factors involved.

Volunteering is my other passion apart from working as a pediatric nurse and teaching yoga. This is my 15th mission with Operation Smile. I have participated in missions in Mexico, India, Bolivia, Rwanda, Vietnam, Philippines, Egypt, Jordan, and Malawi. The goal of Operation Smile is to provide surgical interventions and to train the local medical staff so that someday they can be self sufficient.

I LOVE being a yoga teacher and pediatric intensive care nurse, but there is something about volunteering in medical missions that makes my heart all warm and fuzzy. In missions, I get to do something I love without worrying about customer service or grading scores that patients use to determine the quality of care in hospitals. The core of nursing is to provide compassionate care, without the fear of saying no to requests for soda or utensils while in the midst of taking care of a sick child. I became a nurse because I love taking care of people. I also love human connection. Volunteering in medical missions feeds my passion and being in the presence of a change in someone’s life is humbling and an honor. These missions allow me to treat people who do not think it is possible to fix a cleft or have the financial means to help their child.

During screening, we heard stories from parents hiding their children from society in an attempt to protect their child from humiliation. In Malawi, a father told us he placed a brown paper bag over his child’s head so that people would not make fun of her. When asked why they think their child has a cleft, the answers vary depending on the culture or religion. Malagasy people are superstitious. One mother told me she believed her son has a cleft because her husband ate goat while she was pregnant. These parents travel for days, sometimes by foot, to reach the site where we are providing free surgeries, just to give their children a better life. Things get real pretty fast. It is heartbreaking. The surgery to fix the cleft takes less than an hour and the impact of the results is an improvement on all of the deficits mentioned above.

After surgery, the child is brought into the recovery room so we can monitor them for post-operative complications, such as bleeding, and also to manage their pain. We have the privilege of bringing the parents to see their child for the first time after having their clefts fixed. Witnessing the light in their eyes as they see their child is the moment when I feel that leaving my family for a short time, traveling over 24 hours across the world, and dealing with a travel bug makes it all worth it. There is nothing more raw and human than this moment. The photo below is of me with my hand over my patient as his mom sits across from us. We were both laughing, although she didn’t understand English and I do not speak Malagasy, somehow we both understood each other.

I believe that there is an innate goodness in all of us. I feel blessed to be able to have access to both worlds and a loving family who continuously support my endeavor in helping change the world one smile at a time. My husband, whom I met years after I started volunteering, was born with a cleft lip and palate. Being born in the United States meant his cleft was fixed during infancy, therefore, he never suffered a deficit. Volunteering for Operation Smile allows us to give back to a community who are not as lucky as my husband.

What makes you all warm and fuzzy?

Here is a video recap of our mission. Feel free to watch it. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDDxLsFbQ4E&feature=youtu.be

Love & Light

Ellen =)

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Ellen. A NYC native, Ellen’s relationship with yoga started over 15 years ago. It led her on a journey to Rishikesh, India where she immersed herself into the culture of yoga and received her training. As a Pediatric ICU (PICU) nurse who is focused on providing Palliative Care and End of Life care to critically ill children, Ellen realized a need to marry her passion for yoga with work in the hospital. Ellen also volunteers as a pediatric nurse in international medical missions for non profit organizations who provide free and corrective surgeries to children born with facial deformities.

Her flows are fun and challenging, playing with arm balances and inversion, but never forgetting to maintain attention to alignment and breath. The knowledge and wisdom that was passed on to her by her teachers in India remains close to her heart and is reflective in her practice.

All these experiences have taught her the importance of being mindful, being present and most importantly, being human, all with a practice that is selfish yet selfless, one that allows you to see the world in a new light.

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