Life-changing journey brings Montana family to Shreveport for last 18 years

By Madison Edwards

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    SHREVEPORT, Louisiana (KTBS) — Kian Mattson was born with a unilateral cleft lip and palate, a split in his lip and the roof of his mouth.

His mother found out about Dr. Ghali E. Ghali’s specialty with pediatric patients, and has made the trip from Billings, Montana, to Shreveport since he was 4 months old. Now he’s 18 and has completed his last surgery, a rhinoplasty.

“It feels good to finally have the road near its end,” says Kian, after removing his surgical bandages.

That road began in 2005 when Tara Mattson brought Kian for his first surgery, and a bond was immediately formed.

“His first words to us will always be in my memory,” says Kian’s father Mike, “Please do not worry and I’ve loved that man for 18 years.”

Surgeries of this nature take an extremely long time, and that’s why they’ve been making the trip from Montana to Shreveport for most of their son’s life.

“It requires a minimum of six surgeries,” says Ghali. “Lip surgery is typically done first, and the roof of the mouth and the palate is typically closed somewhere around 12 to 24 months of age, but it’s that special relationship and that special contact that we had with this boy and his parents that ultimately led to them always wanting to come back to Shreveport.”

“Speech was a bit of a challenging start when I was younger because I also had hearing problems. It was more challenging to kind of understand some language development,” Kian said.

Kian and his family have advice for any child going through the same journey. Kian says not to depend on other people’s validation to validate yourself. and his father says to persevere.

His mother had this to say: “Don’t stop until you hit a brick wall. Every time my husband came home from work, I’m like, no brick wall yet. I’m going to keep trying. I’m going to keep trying. I felt like I was shooting very high. I know I was. And I wasn’t going to settle. I just had my aim set and I never did hit the brick wall. So here we are.”

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