LRS Care: JianHui and his Mother's Path to Healing

Little Red Scarf CARE serves to provide financial means and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, they provide the family with post-operative care and help their child sustain a healthy lifestyle. The following is a translated story about one such child, JianHui, and the transformation of his mother from desperation to hope.
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JianHui is a very lovely, sociable child at the young age of ten months. Six days after he was born, he caught a severe cold and continuously cried while his face and lips turned blue. As the crying became more faint, his family became worried and quickly took JianHui to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with congenital heart disease. However, his family refused to believe the doctor and ignored the problem until JianHui was about eight months old, when he suffered a shock from a cold-induced fever. The family panicked and took him to the provincial women and children’s hospital in Lanzhou, where he was, once again, diagnosed with congenital heart disease.

JingHui's family finally, though reluctantly, came to term with the results and asked God why this suffering was placed upon them. The mother blamed herself for the cruel disease imposed on her first child. Every night, she would wake up during her dreams with a start. She feared that this newly discovered disease in her family, along with their already-present poverty, would surely make them the object of sneers and judgment in the village.

After the Spring Festival, the healthy JianHui suffered another shock, and his mother took him to Lanzhou for another check, where they learned that his ventricular septal defect (a hole in the heart) had grown to be about 10 mm in size. To improve his long-term health, the doctor suggested surgical treatment, to which the family agreed because they could not rely on a doctor being present every time JianHui was in need of care. However, the high cost of the operation -- thirty thousand yuan (~$4,750 USD) -- worried them tremendously. When they got married, the husband and wife had already obtained a debt of thirty thousand yuan, all of which still had not been repaid, making it nearly impossible for them to receive a loan again.

Looking at the couple whose eyes were filled with tears, the doctor recommended them to Little Red Scarf, where, after filling out an application, JianHui’s parents received the endowment funds. This instilled them with a sense of hope and encouraged them that Little Red Scarf would give them the ability to repay their debts and allow their son to recover soon. Afterwards, the mother lifted up JianHui, filled with joy as she truly believed he could recover immediately.

The surgery and postoperative rehabilitation were both very successful. JianHui only needed 13 days from his admission to discharge, and the little one is loved by all. His mother can finally rest her mind peacefully, and her heart was changed silently.

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The original story was written by LRS staff Jie Yun, translated by TFish staff Shishi Ma, and edited by EV intern Ally Nguyen.