LRS: Story of Cuiping

Little Red Scarf is in Lanzhou, Gansu, and Yunnan provinces. We provide financial support and encouragement to children suffering from congenital heart disease. In addition, we provide families with post-operative care and help the children sustain a healthy lifestyle

This cute and carefree little girl is called Cuiping. She is 10 years old this year and suffers from congenital heart disease. She lives in a small mountain village. Her family consists of four people: her father, mother, sister, and Cuiping.
 
Cuiping’s father is 46 and has a hearing disability. Anyone who is trying to communicate with him needs to yell very loudly so he can hear. When talking with Cuiping’s family, we found out that her father contracted otitis media, a type of ear infection, at age 12. At that time his family’s economic situation did not allow him to be properly cured, so he is left with this disability. What makes us even sadder is that all four members of Cuiping’s family have some level of disability. When Cuiping’s uncle put before the four neatly lined-up disability certificates, I did not know how to react because I’ve never seen an entire family suffering from disabilities. Cuiping’s mother is 42 years old this year and has a mental disability (psychological disorder). 

The girl in photo is Cuiping’s older sister, Cuiling, who is 20 years old this year. Because of mental disability, she could not ever enroll in school. She has always been at home helping her parents with some doable farm work, such as herding sheep and weeding. Regrettably, Cuiping will never be able to reach her dream of going to school. Even if her congenital heart disease is cured, she will be barred from school by her mental disability.

Cuiping’s uncle told us that, when he was visiting a friend’s home during the Lunar New Year holidays, he mentioned about his niece with congenital heart disease and how, because of the economic hardships of his brother-in-law’s family, the child has been suffering for five years without money to pay for treatment. His friend told him that one of his relatives underwent congenital heart disease in Lanzhou in August and was helped by a charity that sponsored the surgery costs. The friend immediately called his relative to confirm the information.
 
Cuiping’s uncle said that after his friend confirmed with him, he immediately called Cuiping’s other uncle and told him the good news. The first thing he said on the phone was, “We found a savior, the children has hope of being cured.” When he returned home, he met up with the other uncle and other relatives and told them the good news and that if they can put together part of them money, the child can then undergo surgery because the charity will pay for 1/3 of the costs. The payment is also eligible for reimbursement with the New Cooperative Medical Scheme. That way, the family actually needs to pay very little. The relatives thought the idea was good and put enough money together to pay for the hospitalization down payment. Then, they took Cuiping to Lanzhou.  During the emotional descriptions by Cuiping’s two uncles, we found out that the Little Red Scarf child they were talking about was LY-361 Zihan, who was funded by LRS in August of 2015.
 
This is Cuiping’s house. 5 years ago, the government helped families of people with disabilities build houses. Their relatives helped build three brick rooms, putting on a loan of thirty thousand yuan.
These past few years, their relatives helped them breed sheep, breeding a total of 13 and selling 5-6 per year, so the family will have a fixed income each year. Now, Cuiping’s family is part of the government’s Subsistence Security System that helps the worst-off families, earning 3,300 yuan a quarter. Through the uncle, we learned that Cuiping’s family makes around 11,000 yuan per year.

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Before the surgery, every family needs to prepare blood for the surgery to meet a certain requirement. Two days before Cuiping’s surgery, her uncle called us and told us, “The child needs blood for the surgery, I already donated 400cc, but her father cannot donate blood because of his health condition. If we cannot find blood for surgery use, the surgery will need to be delayed. What should we do? We are really out of ideas.” Taking Cuiping’s family’s special circumstance, our staff members communicated with the doctor to see if we can find blood from some other source. Because her family is so special, Cuiping’s head doctor Dr. Ruisheng Liu helped her solve this problem.
 
On February 23rd, 2016, Cuiping underwent surgery. The operation went very well, and the child was moved to a regular ward the day after. When Cuiping left the ICU, she seemed to be in a good condition.
Seeing how well the child did, Cuiping’s uncle kept thanking us and Little Red Scarf.
 
Three days after the surgery, we sent Little Red Scarf post-surgery nutrition supplements to Cuiping in the hopes that she will fully recover soon.
Cuiping’s uncle was so emotional that he was at a loss for words. He told us that they were already very thankful that we could finance their surgery costs and did not think that we will also be sending so many food items to the child. He thanked us over and over and told us that although he did not believe in us wholeheartedly from the beginning and doubted that we may be fraudsters, he is now very sure that Little Red Scarf is a good organization after spending time with us.
 
Cuiping is about to leave the hospital. She and her uncle happily posed for a photo before our camera and recorded a post-surgery thank you video.
We wish all the best for this cute and innocent little girl and her family. We hope that from now on her family will have less hardships and more happiness. ​​

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Original article translated by Li Wang,  translated by Allison Zhang and edited by Yanyan Zhang