The Heart Project - Ting's Story
Last year, a little girl was found by the side of a road in Inner Mongolia. Summer had almost arrived, but after the long, cold winter, the girl’s birth parents had wrapped her carefully in a warm blanket to protect her. Inside that blanket, also painstakingly wrapped, was a plaintive note: “Please save our poor child. We are too poor to afford the cost of surgery.”
The police arrived quickly and took the tiny baby to the orphanage in Baotou, where her caregivers estimated her age to be only two days old and gave her the name ''Ting' (Graceful). Orphanage officials soon realized that they too were unable to provide the care that Ting needed. Ting’s heart condition seemed far too complex to be handled locally.
So the Baotou orphanage director asked HTS to accept her at our new China Care Home in Beijing where some of the best heart surgeons in China might be able to help.Ting arrived at the China Care Home last July, a month old and weighing only 2.7 kg (just under six pounds).
After extensive evaluation, Ting was diagnosed with pulmonary stenosis, (a defective pulmonary valve that doesn’t open properly), severe pulmonary hypertension, and a rare double outlet right ventricle defect in which both of the great arteries of the heart (the aorta and the pulmonary artery) are connected to the right ventricle instead of separate ventricles.
Ting, who has been hospitalized several times with pneumonia, is still too little to endure the challenging surgery that will save her life. The cardiac surgeon says she must weigh at least 10kg (22 lbs)
But Ting is too frail to return to Baotou to wait. So her ever-watchful nannies at the China Care Home are determined to make her plump and ready. With their efforts, we estimate that Ting will be strong enough for surgery before summer.
That gives us a few months to raise the US $25,000-30,000 it will cost to save Ting's life. It seems a small price to pay for the life of one precious child.
You can contribute to The Heart Project here.