A Magazine from Akron Children's
Martin Joseph Kurowski — or Marty Joe — is a busy 2-year-old. He loves to run, climb and play with his toys. To look at him, you’d never know all he’s overcome.
Marty was diagnosed in utero with clubfeet and a cleft lip. “You want the best for your baby, and there’s so much anticipation,” his mom, Cortney, said. “When you find out something is wrong, it’s stressful. I felt guilty — like I did something wrong — and was in a negative space for a while.”
Cortney and her husband, Andrew, live in Oberlin, Ohio. Her doctors wanted to set her up with specialty care appointments in Cleveland, but Cortney made other plans. “I grew up near Akron, and my sister lives there,” Cortney said. “From my online research, Akron Children’s is where Andrew and I wanted to go. We were confident in the orthopedic and plastic surgery teams who would care for Marty.”
Cortney found Dr. Mark Adamczyk, an orthopedic surgeon and director of the Akron Children’s Clubfoot Clinic, who was recommended by a clubfoot group online.She also discovered Dr. Ananth Murthy, craniofacial surgeon and director of Akron Children’s Pediatric Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
After the diagnosis, Cortney joined online groups and did research. “I wanted to tell our families what was happening, including Marty’s potential treatment plan,” she recalled. “We shared his diagnosis with immediate family on Easter but waited to tell others. Our baby registry included a stipulation kindly asking for no footie pajamas and only bottles/pacifiers that were specified. We revealed the reason for that request at the baby shower, sharing Marty’s clubfoot and cleft diagnosis.”
Marty entered the world June 10, 2023. “I had gestational diabetes and had to be induced early, so I chose Andrew’s birthday — which was also his grandmother, Martha’s, birthday,” Cortney said. “Marty Joe is named after Martha and my grandmother, Josephine.”
The Kurowski family makes special memories on a Disney vacation in 2024.
Marty’s been on the move since he started walking at 14 months.
At 3 days old, he had his first appointment with Dr. Adamczyk. Casting and bracing — called the Ponseti method — are the standards of treatment. Casting gently and gradually moves the foot to the correct position, while bracing keeps the foot in the right spot.
Dr. Adamczyk told Cortney and Andrew that clubfoot care is a sprint and then a marathon. “The sprint is the casting,” he said. “The marathon is the daily grind of bracing, but parents stick with it because they don’t want to interfere with their child’s progress.”
Marty got his first set of foot casts at 17 days old. “Kids with clubfeet often get new casts every week,” Dr. Adamczyk said. “Marty’s feet were flexible enough that he only needed two sets of casts to correct the positioning.”
In July 2023, he “graduated” from casts to special boots connected by a horizontal bar. “Marty had to wear the boots and bar for 23 hours a day,” Cortney shared. “We broke that one-hour break into two, 30-minute segments because he battled blisters. He didn’t understand what was
happening. It’s so hard to put your baby through pain, even though you know it’s for his own good.”
Despite being born with clubfeet, Marty started pulling himself up at 6 months and walking at 14 months.
Marty only wears the braces at night now — and he’ll continue until his fourth birthday. He shouldn’t need additional clubfoot treatment after that. “The risk of recurrence is quite low, especially for a kid like Marty because his feet were more flexible,” Dr. Adamczyk said. “Cortney and Andrew have done so well with Marty. If you saw him running around today, you wouldn’t even know he had clubfoot.”
While Dr. Adamczyk and team cared for Marty’s clubfeet, Dr. Murthy got to work on the cleft lip and palate. Marty had an incomplete bilateral cleft, meaning both sides of the lip. The cleft palate only affected the soft palate — the back part of the roof of Marty’s mouth — and not the whole palate.
Babies often have their cleft lips repaired at 4 to 5 months and the palate at 7 to 8 months. Because Marty’s cleft palate was minor enough, Dr. Murthy could do both surgeries at the same time.
“He’s one of those rare patients where I’ve repaired the lip and palate at the same time because he didn’t need anything done for the hard palate,” Dr. Murthy explained. “We performed the surgery at 6 months, and that way, we didn’t have to put Marty to sleep twice. We got it all done in one surgery, and it went great.”
In addition to changing Marty’s appearance, the surgeries helped him feel better. “He was colicky in the early days, and we wondered if he had allergies. He also hated being in the car,” Cortney said. “But as soon as he had the cleft repairs, those issues went away.”
Cortney calls Dr. Murthy a magician. “You’d never know Marty had a cleft lip and palate,” she said. “I see other kids in the online forums, and their outcomes aren’t as good. I wish every child could have a Dr. Murthy.”
Marty with his boots and bar, before the cleft lip and palate surgery.
Marty visits the Craniofacial Clinic in Akron Children’s Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Center annually. It’s a parade of providers — including plastic surgery; ear, nose and throat; audiology; feeding and nutrition; speech therapy; nursing; social work; orthodontia and genetics — to check on Marty’s progress. “Kids born with a cleft lip and palate need treatment throughout childhood and adolescence as they grow,” Dr. Murthy explained. “It’s important to monitor their development as a team because everything is connected.”
Cortney said it’s empowering to look back. “Some minutes and days are slow, but the time goes so much faster than you think,” she said. “I’m so grateful for the Akron Children’s teams we’ve worked with, and I’m so proud of Marty. He’s an amazing little boy.”
Marty Joe might not know he was born with cleft lip and palate or bilateral clubfoot. But he does know some important things: like how to howl like a wolf, melt hearts with a smile and stomp in puddles like a pro. Your donation helps us give more kids like Marty Joe the childhood they deserve.
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