Mojisola Anipole

Mojisola Anipole, wife, mother of two beautiful children, designer and fighter.

Mojisola Anipole, a 35 year old woman born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, designs and sells custom clothing. She comes from a loving household;  she met her husband Wale while they both attended Engineering School at the local University. Together they share two beautiful children, Feyikemi and Tanitoluwa, ages 5 and 7. With the support from her immediate and extended family, Moji has summoned up the strength to fight through the obstacles of living with a craniofacial condition and has learned to always see light in the darkness.

In her teenage years, Moji was diagnosed with an ameloblastoma, a rare, benign tumor most commonly appearing in the lower jaw. At that time her tumor was resected and she started moving forward with her life, believing she would never have to see the inside of a hospital again. Unfortunately in 2013 to Moji’s surprise, a recurrence of the tumor had her in surgery yet again. Doctors at Lagos State University Teaching Hospital had the job of resecting a larger portion of the original surgical site, completing a mandible resection with multi-segment fibular reconstruction. Moji then thought this would finally be the end of her surgical journey, only to experience a postoperative complication one month later, moving doctors to perform yet another surgery on January 17th, 2014. Now, her third surgery, Moji underwent the repairs to the soft tissue deficit in order to cover up the inside of her mouth and cheek area but sadly to her misfortune left her with an exposed bone/micro plate and after an attempted local repair to the tongue flap failed, she subsequently had complete loss of the fibular flap. After the torturous months of trying repair the damage from her postoperative complications, her condition became so dangerous that Moji looked into all possible outlets to help her.

Moji connected to a support group via Facebook that shared information and resources on treatments for ameloblastoma. After communicating with multiple sources she found Dr. David Hirsch, one of our medical partners, who brought her to the United States on an emergency basis in order to remedy her dire medical situation.

On August 21, 2014, Dr. Hirsch and Moji first connected and she underwent  surgery in NYC with another attempt to repair the removal of the fibula flap with exposure of the remaining jaw and also new placement of the customized mandibular reconstruction plate, as well as reconstruction with a new micro-vascular right fibular flap. Less than 6 months later, on January 14, 2015 Moji saw Dr. Hirsch for another surgery to revise the radial forearm free flap, chin scar and for the placements of mandibular dental implants.

After her successful surgeries here in the United States, Moji returned to her home in Lagos, Nigeria and spent the next few years with her family recovering. A follow up CT scan in Lagos, in December of 2017, showed a mass in the left base of her skull. The results were sent over to Dr. Hirsch and our medical team at Lenox Hill Hospital where they discovered this mass to be shockingly large and needing to be removed immediately.

Moji arrived back in New York City in May, 2018 where she reconnected with Dr. David Hirsch to perform another surgery to excise the skull base mass as well as to perform a biopsy of the mass. She also required osteotomy of the mandible and local flap. After the initial surgery Moji received a palatal obturator, a prosthesis that occludes an opening in the roof of the mouth, to help improve her speech.

NextGenFace provided Moji with the care that she required to recover in NYC including occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy. Mojisola Anipole is a fighter and from her teenage years to her adult years she has been fighting through every obstacle that has hindered her. Now as she moves forward, she plans to live her life to the fullest. She plans to go back to school to pursue a Master’s degree in Engineering as well as be a mom and wife, her most treasured roles.

NextGenFace strives to provide exceptional care for extraordinary families  with the help from our outstanding surgical, medical and psychosocial teams.