04:20 PM PDT on Wednesday, October 5, 2005

By JOSEPHINE CHENG / Evening Magazine

Imagine telling a young child: Growing up will kill you. It’s the truth for one 10-year-old boy, and this is the story of how a dentist from Issaquah and his wife got an entire community together to save the boy’s life.

Alfonso loves baseball.

Alfonso Escalera-Figueroa is from Bolivia and loves American baseball, but life has thrown him one heck of a curve ball.

A childhood bout with tuberulosis warped Alfonso’s spine into a question mark. His backbone, bent 128 degrees, would eventually crush his lungs.

Already, breathing was a strain and one-third of his lung capacity was gone.

Alfonso’s story began in a Bolivian orphanage. His widowed mother placed him there because she was too poor to care for a sick child.

This is where Issaquah dentist Sherwin Shinn and his wife Jerri, a retired nurse, met Alfonso – one of hundreds of orphans they saw on their dental relief mission.

“Sherwin and I bonded with him from the minute we saw him,” said Jerri.

“Just this little body lying there in the dental chair, and these dark eyes looking up at us. They're just shining, just full of hope and yearning,’ said Sherwin.

The Shinns took photos of Alfonso.

A childhood bout with tuberulosis warped Alfonso's spine into a question mark.

Then, back home, they showed the pictures to classrooms throughout the region.

The seventh graders at Arbor Middle School were among the students of several schools who launched a letter-writing campaign.

They asked American Airlines to fly Alfonso to Seattle and the asked Swedish Hospital to perform the complicated and risky operation – all for free.

It would be his chance for a miracle to be healthy.

Like a gift for his 11th birthday, Alfonso traveled from Bolivia to Seattle for an operation he so desperately needed.

Because the operation was considered very dangerous, Alfonso stood a one-in-three chance of being paralyzed for life.

Sherwin and Jerri Shinn anxiously await the outcome of the surgery.

Finally, the day of the surgery arrived. There was so much to gain – and so much to lose.

Hand-in-hand in the waiting room the people who had become Alfonso’s extended family prayed for divine help.

Doctors carefully removed three collapsed vertebrae and screwed in metal rods.

The operated lasted 11-1/2 hours.

After the surgery, Sherwin and Jerri watched with fear and hope for any movement – a sign that Alfonso was not paralyzed.

At last, they learned he was okay and the children who had written the letters to make the surgery possible also got the good news.

For months afterward, Alfonso had to wear a heavy, itchy bodycast, and he couldn’t play his beloved baseball – he couldn’t do much of anything, but he did want to visit the children who allowed him the chance to be one of them and thank them.

The final step was getting the bodycast removed.

A last hug before getting on the plane back to Bolivia.

Alfonso emerged a whole inch taller, and what was left of his hump will disappear as he grows.

At last, he was ready to go home to his family in Bolivia, which means saying goodbye to his American friends, especially Sherwin and Jerri Shinn, who first dared to hope for a miracle.

The Shinns go to Bolivia each March to work at the clinic and visit Alfonso. Dr. Shinn says Alfonso is growing stronger every day and, unless you look closely, you can't see the hump he once had. Dr. Shinn also says that Alfonso now volunteers at the original orphanage where the Shinns found him as a 5-year-old. He help to fee the babies and plays with the children. Plus, Smile Power is providing Alfonso with an education and Dr. Shinn says he now speaks English so well that they use him as a translator.