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 Health & Beauty | April 2007 
Mexican Boy Lands in Ark. for New Heart
 Jon Gambrell - Associated Press
| | Adrian Flores Saucedo, 8, of Piedras Negras, Mexico, who suffers a viral infection that is eating away at his heart tissue, plays with a toy at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, Ark., Thursday, April 19, 2007. After more than 60 days in a Texas hospital's intensive care unit, Saucedo arrived Thursday in Arkansas with hopes of finding a replacement for his diseased heart. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston) |
After more than 60 days in a Texas hospital's intensive care unit, an 8-year-old Mexican boy arrived Thursday in Arkansas with hopes of finding a replacement for his diseased heart.
Adrian Flores Saucedo and his mother flew by jet from San Antonio, where he's been in bed at Methodists Children's Hospital of South Texas. Residents of the Texas city raised about $500,000 for the boy, who suffers a viral infection that is eating away at his heart tissue.
"In many children, it just gives you a common cold, but in certain settings, it will cause an inflammation of the heart," said Dr. Elizabeth Frazier, head of the cardiac transplantation program at Arkansas Children's Hospital. "It permanently damages the heart muscle; it actually kills the heart muscle."
Arkansas Children's Hospital agreed to accept Adrian after several hospitals rejected him as a patient. The Little Rock hospital's 25-bed heart unit already has more patients than beds after also taking in cases from Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But Frazier said admitting the boy wouldn't put too much strain on their program.
Pamela Arellano, a spokeswoman for Methodists Children's Hospital, said no hospitals in San Antonio do heart transplants and she didn't know why other U.S. hospitals rejected Adrian. But she acknowledged that concerns for transplants extended beyond simply saving a child's life, but also whether Adrian could receive adequate care and medication on his return to Mexico.
Currently, the boy and his family are in the United States on a humanitarian visa, but they plan to return home if Adrian receives a new heart, which could take days or spill over into months.
Frazier said a doctor who cares for transplant patients in Monterrey, Mexico, more than 200 miles from the boy's home in Piedras Negras, would provide follow-up visits for the boy if he receives a heart transplant. Piedras Negras is about 140 miles from San Antonio.
"We will work with the Mexican government, which had already contacted us and will support him in whatever way is needed, be it financial, transportation, visas or whatever is required," Frazier said. But San Antonio and "the whole community had gone above and beyond for this child and his family and they were really running into blocked doors."
After arriving Thursday, Adrian quietly played with toys in a room at the hospital's pediatric intensive care unit. His mother, Christian Lizeth Saucedo-Valdez, stood by, her shoulders slumped from fatigue.
Saucedo-Valdez said she has not explained to Adrian why he remains in the hospital, fearing she might scare him more. Instead, she tells him everything will turn out fine.
But the money the family has received for Adrian's care surpassed anything she thought could happen, with envelopes with small bills and checks coming from Mexico, Texas, and as far as California and Virginia.
"We feel so content," Saucedo-Valdez said. "So many people have given money to help us pay for this operation." |
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