FOX 5 Special Report: Miracles in the OR

Every day, hundreds of children from across the southeast travel to Georgia for surgery. Many of those kids end up in the operating rooms of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Inside the operating room, amazing doctors and nurses help the youngest patients live full, healthy lives.

Well before dawn, as Metro Atlanta commuters just start hitting the road, the surgical staff at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite begin their daunting schedules. In a matter of hours, 40 young lives will be in the hands of doctors and nurses at the Metro Atlanta medical facility.

"Some kids will come in and the first thing they say is, 'I'm scared,'" said Allison Young.

With 12 operating rooms, the Scottish Rite facility is one of the busiest pediatric operating rooms in the south.

Some patients like Fredcidra Tolbert face complicated and risky surgeries. Others, like Maddie Sosobee and Isabella Evans undergo routine operations.

For every child and parent that enters the doors at Scottish Rite, the hope is that the kids will be OK.

Noah Nails was one of the first cases of the day.

"Noah was born without a nostril, on his right side," said Nails' mother Jennifer.

The Acworth 4-year-old had six operations at Scottish Rite from November to March.

"He told me this morning he wants to stay the night so he can order food to his room," said Jennifer Nails.

Noah Nails was born in an orphanage in China. The 4-year-old was born with a facial cleft, a cancerous eye tumor and a partially formed nose. Jason and Jennifer Nails decided to adopt Noah, even though the couple already had three kids and had just adopted another child from China.

The Nails couple said they saw Noah's picture on the internet and fell in love. That was three years and 13 surgeries ago.

"We started out with Noah missing half his nose when he came over from China and we're working the last few years on reconstructing the outside of the nose as well as the inside," said Dr. Fernando Burstein.

Dr. Burstein went on to say, "He never gets down. He's always running around, getting in some kind of mischief."

Dr. Burstein, a plastic surgeon used pieces of Noah's rib and ear to rebuild his nose. In the most recent surgery, Dr. Burstein used a stent to open up Noah's nostril to help him breathe.

"All we're doing today is dilating the nostril, making it a little bit bigger, and then we're putting a stent in it," said Dr. Burstein.

Noah's procedure took just 30 minutes and a still-sleeping Noah was rolled out to recovery.

Just two doors down, 4-month-old Isabella Evans was facing her second surgery.

"When she was born she had a couple of marks on her face and we thought it was just ruptured red blood cells," said Isabella's mother, Nadine.

When the marks on Isabella's face didn't go away, doctors gave her an MRI and found that the Mableton newborn had a fast-growing vascular tumor called hemangioma around her right eye.

"It extends from all the way around her eye socket to right here before her brain," said Nadine Evans.

Isabella was put on powerful steroids, but the tumor continued to grow relentlessly.

"The reason why they have to get it under control is that when she grows, it will grow with her and the problem is that it could take over the eye," said Nadine Evans.

Isabella is too young to remember her first surgery, but her mother did.

"I completely lost it. I was just crying. Because it's your newborn baby! And you're like, 'Oh, my God, my baby's going into surgery!'" said Evans.

In Isabella's surgery, Dr. Burstein used lasers instead of scalpels to cut off the blood supply to lesions and the tumor on Isabella's face.

Hours after their surgeries, Isabella and Noah will be able to go home, but for the staff at Scottish Rite the day had only just begun.