Hundreds attend spaghetti dinner to help 9-month-old with birth defect

YOUNGSTOWN — Since childhood, 21-year-old Anthony Dapruzzo has been highly adept at computer programming and electronics.

More recently, a big part of the program has been donating computers and doing all he can to help his infant brother financially and emotionally.

“I’m just here for him. I just want to see him succeed in life. We have a very close bond,” explained Dapruzzo, referring to his 9-month-old brother, Derek Markley Jr., who was born with a cleft lip and no palate and requires special feedings and care.

Dapruzzo put his desires into action by being among the hundreds of family members, friends and others who attended a Sauce and Song spaghetti dinner fundraiser Sunday at St. Patrick’s Church, 1410 Oak Hill Ave., on the South Side.

The church, in conjunction with the Youngstown State University Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, hosted the event to help defray costs associated with corrective surgeries, including one next month, the child will need for the condition, noted his mother, Megan Markley of Kinsman.

Funds also will go toward a collapsible wagon that Derek will need when he’s about age 8 and his bone structure is strong enough to allow him to undergo a complete palate repair. That operation will entail having part of a hip bone grafted to make a new palate, which will render him unable to walk for six weeks to three months, Markley explained.

The benefit dinner’s initial $500 goal was easily exceeded, noted Karen Becker, Phi Kappa Phi’s president, who decided that the organization’s service project would be to sponsor the gathering.

Complete cleft palates are pronounced, abnormal separations of the roof of the mouth and/or the lip that can extend the whole length of the palate. In some cases, the person may have no developed palate, according to the National Craniofacial Association’s website.

“He was first born with a cleft lip, and I knew a few months before he was born that he would be that way,” Derek’s mother recalled.

Soon after his birth, Derek received but rejected an orthodontic device in his mouth to help improve the shape of his nose in a procedure called nasoalveolar molding, or NAM. The device acted as a makeshift palate, explained Markley, who left Youngstown-based Integra Excavating LLC after five years to care for Derek after having worked in the business’s human-resources department, as well as an accountant, an employee-rights advocate and in other capacities.

Consequently, a hook was placed in Derek’s nose complemented with tape near his lip to keep his nose properly elevated and prevent it from continuing to open, Markley pointed out. The boy’s mother added that during his first surgery Nov. 22, a gap between his upper lip and nose was sutured.

Complicating the picture for Derek and his family was an ancillary condition he developed called silent aspiration, a swallowing disorder in which food and fluids can enter the lungs or airway without any coughing or other discernible signs of difficulty, she continued.

Markley also is a natural-health practitioner, so she made packets of organic thickened milk free of preservatives, with the consistency of pudding, to nurse him and prevent him from aspirating. Derek’s mother also gives him daily massages from his neck down to help him relax and improve his circulation, she added.

Despite predictions from some in his team of doctors, Derek, who also has very sensitive skin, continues to thrive. He is happy and content most of the time, she said.

“He’s defied all of the odds, every one of them,” Markley added.

Derek’s next surgery is scheduled for March 4 at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland. He is to undergo a procedure to reopen his lip, attach certain muscles, elevate his nose and close the lip, Markley explained.

“The first few months [of his life] were exhausting, so we were grateful at month four when he was able to take a bottle and keep it down,” said Marsha Bucciarelli of Brookfield, Derek’s grandmother.

Despite all of the challenges Derek has dealt with in his short life, the infant has a sharp sense of curiosity and acute awareness of his surroundings, Dapruzzo observed.

“He’s very smart. I see a lot of myself in him, and it’s beautiful,” Dapruzzo said.

The fundraiser also included a 50/50 raffle of 104 gift baskets, as well as a performance courtesy of YSU’s Pella Penguins, a co-ed a cappella group.