LRS Care Profile #5: Maimai

Name: #5 Maimai
Household: 5 people—Maimai (7 years old), older sister (8 years old), father, mother, and grandfather
Annual Income: $2580
Daily Income: 43.8 yuan
Needs: Mother’s full-year medication and hospitalization cost around $1900
Donation Needed: $2400 

Mother and Daughter Both Suffer from CHD

Maimai and her mother both suffer from congenital heart disease (CHD). Her mother missed the optimal surgical period because of her impoverished family conditions. In April of 2011, Maimai’s family found out about Little Red Scarf through a newspaper advertisement. Three-year-old Maimai successfully completed surgery with the help of LRS. 

Maimai Recovers, Her Mother Still Suffers 

Now Maimai is 7 years old, and she is as tall as her older sister. Maimai is healthy, fit, and outgoing, able to enter the classroom like other kids her age. Maimai’s mother is 33 years old and at the prime of her life. But because of CHD-caused high pressure in her pulmonary arteries, she lost the chance for surgery. She needs to lie in bed if she has a cold, not able to do any work, or to even wash her own face. When she talks her lips have a purple hue, and she needs to take a deep breath after every sentence. 

Scrounging to Pay for Treatment

From last winter to now, Maimai’s mother was hospitalized 4 times for a failing heart, spending over 7,000 yuan. To pull together the hospitalization costs, the family sold some crops, but mostly borrowed the money. The mother is using the cheapest kind of medicine, which is not even specialized for treating high blood pressure. The medicine costs 400 yuan each month, which is 4,800 yuan each year. Because Maimai’s mother’s illness is very serious, her father cannot work far away from home, so he only does miscellaneous work near their home, earning 14,000 yuan a year. With income from their crops the family earns a total of 16,000 yuan a year (which doesn’t leave much to live on with the mother’s treatment costs). Each family member earns an average of 3,200 yuan, and each day has an average income of 43.80 yuan. 

Please support Maimai’s mother and allow her to live longer, giving young Maimai and her sister the opportunity to experience a few more years of maternal love.