We had a frail and depressed 16-old girl who had her lips repaired on Monday under local anesthesia, as she is diagnosed with VSD. It has been our hope that she can receive free heart surgery under the Shanghai Rotary Gift of Life program which is supported by Rotary, with surgery performed at Shanghai Chest Hospital. The team has kind of adopted her in true compassionate spirit.
After her cleft surgery, anesthesiologist Craig McClain
talked to the hospital's cardiologist and obtained a copy of her
echo-cardiogram. We faxed the cardiogram to Frank Yih at Shanghai,
who in turn requested Dr. Chen, the pediatric heart surgeon at Shanghai Chest Hospital to review
the case immediately.
I was truly excited to receive Frank's phone call this
afternoon telling me the good news regarding Liu Fangjin. Dr. Chen has tentatively
approved Liu for surgery subject to examination, and Frank Yih, in support
of the Interplast Ganzhou mission, has given Liu priority for admission
into the Gift of Life program.
I broke the news immediately to Madame Liu Hongru, the senior Family Planning lady from Beijing
representing Madame Miao, so that her people can contact the girl's family and begin preparation for the trip to Shanghai. Madame Liu will also inform the hospital. They are all thrilled.
I made an announcement during our team dinner tonight and
needless to say the whole team was elated...even more so when I told them that
it is very likely that Liu and her aunt might be traveling with our team and
staying at Asionics, with all travel and living expenses paid by Frank Yih and
HuaQiao Foundation.
Interplast - Healing bodies, Changing Lives. We will
have completed about 80 surgeries by tomorrow noon.
Little did we anticipate that we are very well on our way to saving a life.
Dear Bill,
This is fantastic. What synergy between organizations. I can still see her crying when Paul told her that they would need to do her surgery under local anesthesia because of the heart defect.
Amy
Posted by: amy laden | April 15, 2005 at 08:39 AM