Wei Hao is currently being fostered by an expat family in Tianjin who have committed to fostering him until he is adopted. His adoption paperwork began 2 months ago and we hope that by the winter of 2009, he will have a permanent, loving family to call his own. Just as he was beginning to adjust to family life, life threw us a curve ball.

The few months before he was fostered in Tianjin, he seemed to be healthy and happy despite his swollen stomach. The doctors said the size of his stomach was not a problem but it clearly was not getting any smaller. After moving to Tianjin, WH began to have health problems and had to be admitted to the hospital for inpatient care. WH began to lose his appetite, get fevers, his stomach seemed to become even larger and his liver function was poor.

After several readmissions, blood tests, CT scans, and ultrasounds, the doctors suspected the cause of his failing health was portal vein thrombosis and scheduled a vein angioplasty. Portal vein thrombosis means that there is a narrowing or blockage of the portal vein which as a result causes pressure in the portal vein to increase (portal hypertension). The pressure causes the spleen to enlarge and can cause fluid accumulation in the abdomen if the liver is also congested which all occurred in WH’s case.

Before the angioplasty was performed, the doctors gave him an x-ray angiography which showed that blood flow through the portal vein was absent as suspected. An x-ray angiography takes x-rays of the veins after a special dye (visible on x-rays) is injected into the portal vein.

The angiography showed that there was indeed a blockage (either a stricture or a blot clot) and so they performed an angioplasty which is a procedure in which a balloon is used to open narrowed or blocked blood vessels. The third time they blew up the balloon and then removed it from the vein, the vein was unclogged, untwisted or stretched enough that the blood began right away to flow normally.

After the angioplasty, WH’s liver seems to be functioning better and his stomach and liver have both slowly decreased in size. The most recent blood tests show that he is improving. Hopefully he will continue to feel better and and will return to a normal life of Teletubbies, learning to walk (or at least having the confidence to walk on his own), and playing the piano.

As his medical needs continue, we are always happy to receive donations for Wei Hao’s ongoing medical and living costs. His costs come to approximately RMB2,800 per month if he is well and if his liver is functioning as it should. In September and October 2008, his tests, inpatient care and the angioplasty have totalled RMB28,000.

Please find some more information about the initiative below. The below text is from excerpts from an email sent out to the friends of the Foundation for Human Enrichment.

UFCO is working together with a team of doctors headed by Laurie Leitch of the Foundation for Human Enrichment. Laurie is the Director of Research for the Foundation for Human Enrichment and also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Trauma Resource Institute (TRI), a non-profit trauma training organization that provides training in trauma stabilization nationally and internationally. She has particular interest in “at risk” populations including survivors of catastrophic events. She provided treatment after 9-11, as well as treatment and clinical training in southern Thailand after the tsunami, in Louisiana following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita where she made 10 trips to New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and in Rwanda with post-genocide counselors and prisoners.

Dr. Leitch’s research has included social program and clinical evaluations for national foundations, the federal government, and non-profit organizations. She has conducted two studies of the effectiveness of somatic intervention after natural disasters. One was published in September 2007 in Traumatology and the other has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Social Work. Her specialty is cross-cultural training and research with populations who have experienced complex trauma.

The primary focus of this project is to provide training for healthcare providers, school personnel and others who are in key positions to help children heal from the potentially devastating effects of the trauma they have experienced. It is known that thousands of people have died, many more thousands were injured and thousands of children have been orphaned. We know that many more children have been traumatized by the experiences they have endured during and following the earthquake.

There are 6 planned phases for CHERP.

Phase 1 took place in early July 2008. Dr. Laurie Leitch came to Sichuan to meet with Chinese researchers to collaborate on the design and implementation of this project. Phase 1 was important as the first assessments were made of the condition of earthquake survivors before the trainings and treatment. Without this first assessment, it would be impossible to know if the trainings were helpful to the survivors.

At the end of July 2008, Phase 2 brought a team of 10 to the affected areas in Sichuan. Lisa and her team successfully travelled to the earthquake-affected area of Sichuan Province with Beijing United Family Hospital’s Dr. Blinn to provide culturally-appropriate psychological (trauma) first aid training, in conjunction with our Chinese hosts, to facilitate psychological stabilization in these early stages of intervention. Stabilization and re-establishment of equilibrium in the nervous system can often allow individuals to access their own resilience and healthy coping methods. Because some may need more intensive interventions that require additional training and skills, it is important to bring the team back for Phase 3 in September 2008.

Phase Three will entail Laurie and another team The Phase Three team is from the Trauma resource Institute (TRI) and will provide 3-day TRM trainings in Sichuan. The Trauma Resiliency Model is a skills-based, biologically oriented intervention which offers practical stabilization skills to practitioners as well as survivors. TRM training can be offered to clinical responders as well as others who are working with survivors of natural disasters such as teachers and parents of suffering children. Phase 3 will include training for those working with adult survivors as well as children.

Though we have funded the first few phases of CHERP, we are still in need of fiscal support for the rest of project. If you would like to donate to CHERP, you can make a donation via our paypal link on our website. Please specify that your donation is to go towards the Sichuan project. Our mailing address is also available below for checks. If you are in Beijing, we can accept cash. Please also send us an email to foundation@ufh.com.cn to confirm your donation.

United Foundation for Chinese Orphans
c/o Charlene Sessoms
Chindex International, Inc.
4340 East West Highway, Suite 1100
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
USA

**As UFCO is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered in the United States, your donation will be eligible for a US tax deduction.

Thank you,

Sarah
UFCO Operations
foundation@ufh.com.cn

Recently the WSJ contacted us again to see if we could collect donations for another individual. This individual is named Mr. Wang. I am including an excerpt Mr. Alan Paul’s column, “The Expat Life,” giving a brief explanation of how this man was burned.

“Mr. Wang had been in a basement room when a spark from a welder’s torch fell and ignited the fumes of the waterproofing material he was applying, alighting his clothes and leaving him a molten mess. A fellow worker pulled him from the basement and an hour later an ambulance took him to the hospital. As a day laborer, he had no health or disability insurance. His employer put up money to have him admitted — Chinese hospitals generally demand an advance — but this was the end of their goodwill.”

Although he has undergone surgeries for the burns in the past, there are still more surgeries that he needs. UFCO has agreed to collect donations, distribute funds and help arrange medical care for Mr. Wang with the help of a volunteer specifically working on his case. If you would like to donate funds for his medical care, please send an email to foundation@ufh.com.cn and put “Mr. Wang” in the subject line. If you pay directly through paypal, please indicate the donation is for Mr. Wang and also email me separately.

Thank you,

Sarah

Immediately following our meeting, UFCO’s board of directors voted to pay the RMB100,000 (USD14,286) necessary to save the child’s life. The mother was to be the living donor, donating a portion of her liver so that her son could live. Although we knew they would need much more than that beginning RMB100,000, we decided to give the amount necessary to undergo surgery and try to raise funds for future costs.

On June 20th, 2008, little Gui Hao underwent a successful surgery. The child is in ICU and his mother is in an inpatient room recovering. They have used up the RMB100,000 and are in need of more financial help. It costs around RMB10,000 (USD1,429) a day while the baby is in the ICU and for his first year of recovery, his medications will cost around RMB70,000 (USD10,000). His mother’s surgery cost RMB20,000 and that is currently owed to the hospital. Today we were able to pay an additional RMB40,000 into their account but this will be used up quite quickly if the child stays in ICU.

We need the help of everyone reading this. The mother today told me, with tears in her eyes, that she would be willing to give up her child for adoption if it would guarantee he would grow up healthy, with his medical costs covered. I told her we would do our best to raise funds to help them continue to care for their child so that he wouldn’t be separated from his family.

If everyone who reads this story this month were to donate RMB1,000 towards the care of this family, we would be able to give over an additional RMB100,000 towards this child’s first year of post-surgery medication. Let us show his mother that she doesn’t need to give up her child in order to give him a chance for a healthy life.

Please send me an email to foundation@ufh.com.cn with the subject “Gui Hao” if you want to donate or if you want to help raise funds for this child.

A story was in a Beijing newspaper on June 3rd, 2008 and you can go to the following link to read it (it’s in Chinese but you can find a translation site to help you): http://news.idoican.com.cn/bjwb/html/2008-06/03/content_5868474.htm#

Thank you!
Sarah

We are now looking for a foster family who can commit to caring for Wei Hao until he can be adopted. His needs are not much different from any other 2 year old. He loves to play and he loves attention. If you are a family who will be staying in Beijing for the next year and would like to know more about how you can foster him, please send us an email to foundation@ufh.com.cn with the subject line “Fostering Wei Hao.”

Wei Hao on June 1, 2008

She was found at the gate dressed in clean clothes and wrapped tightly in a new blanket. Inside the blanket was a piece of paper on which was written her date of birth as well as a small bag of formula which her mother had tried to feed her. It was clear that whoever had left her outside of the home had done everything in her power to save Yu Jia and felt that leaving her to be cared for by the kind people who take in so many other orphans would possibly save her life.

Yu Jia was left outside a local foster home in the hopes that someone would or could save her life. She was already close to 3 months old but because of her unexplained (at the time) illness, she was unable to digest milk and as a result was malnourished and extremely underweight.

She was found at the gate dressed in clean clothes and wrapped tightly in a new blanket. Inside the blanket was a piece of paper on which was written her date of birth as well as a small bag of formula which her mother had tried to feed her. It was clear that whoever had left her outside of the home had done everything in her power to save Yu Jia and felt that leaving her to be cared for by the kind people who take in so many other orphans would possibly save her life.

The couple who run the foster home were not sure if she was going to make it through the night. The next morning, they found that she was still breathing and immediately called UFCO on their way to Beijing United Family Hospital to see if we could help.

Yu Jia was admitted to BJU on May 15, 2007 with the tentative diagnosis of obstruction of the bowel. Her intestines were blocked so that gas, fluids, or solids were unable to move through her intestines normally. For the past three months she had been slowly starving to death.

As an inpatient, she received daily fluids through via IV as well as oxygen and other treatments necessary to stabilize her. After a two week period that included several other complications with her health, she began to recover although she was still extremely malnourished. As the days passed, she grew stronger and more active and eventually reached a point where the doctors felt it was safe enough for her to undergo the necessary surgery. During her third week as an inpatient, Yu Jia underwent surgery in which the surgeon removed the blocked section of her bowel. A week later on June 16, 2007, she was discharged and returned to the foster home. Though they searched for her parents, they knew that it was highly unlikely they would ever return for Yu Jia considering the strict abandonment fines.

When she was admitted, the doctors and nurses working on her case gave her quality care regardless of the fact that no one thought she would survive. She will turn one year old this month on February 26th. She is healthy and happy and waiting for adoptive parents. Her bill was over RMB500,000 but the donation of 1% of Beijing United Family Hospital’s annual gross revenue allowed Yu Jia to get another chance at life.

Some children cannot be treated at BJU and require specialized medical treatment in local hospitals or overseas hospitals. Your donations will fund medical care for other orphans who find their way to us.

First week at BJU

During a critical period

Discharge day

Just one month after her discharge

December of 2007

UPDATE: In May of 2008, we received a terrible email telling us that Yu Jia had passed away suddenly. She was about to be adopted and was doing wonderfully. She suddenly grew ill and did not make it to the hospital in time. We want to send our thoughts to be with those who cared for her and are dealing with their grief.

This is a story about a little boy who wouldn’t give up.

On October 22nd, 2007, UFCO received a phone call from a woman who told us about a little boy who had been abandoned by his parents and was living on a cart in a hospital. He had jaundice though no one knew what it was that was wrong with him. The board agreed UFCO should get involved and on October 27th, he arrived in Beijing and was admitted to Beijing United Family Hospital for further testing. Although no one was sure if we could help him medically, we knew that at the very least we could find a safe, caring foster home that would take him.

The test results showed that he had biliary atresia and the doctors thought that a Kasai Procedure could help alleviate his symptoms until a possible liver transplant was needed. About a week later it was confirmed that his liver in fact had been so damaged that he needed a liver transplant as soon as possible. They had also found a tumor on the liver. One week later he was admitted to the Er Yan Suo Children’s Hospital and underwent additional tests.

During that time there was consideration of using a living donor who had offered to help as he had the same blood type O as Wei Hao. Unfortunately that plan did not work because of a new law that had been passed in May of 2007 stating that living donors had to be related to the patients in order to donate. The doctor told us that it would take about a month to find a cadaver liver and the surgery would cost around RMB250,000. We didn’t have any other options so we told them to start looking.

On November 25th, he was transferred to Wu Jing Zong Hospital as a top transplant surgeon agreed to do his surgery (and to do it at a discounted price). We waited many weeks. Two trained and loving caregivers lived in a room with him and played, fed and held him as we all waited for news that his liver had arrived. Some days there would be news of a liver only to later find out the liver was too small or too damaged. There were also days that he had a fever and the doctors told us if he didn’t receive his surgery during that week, he could die.

When Wei Hao first came to Beijing he was developmentally very behind. He had very little range of motion, barely cried and never played with anything. Even when you held him it was hard to get a smile out of him. The doctors were even afraid that his prolonged jaundice and liver damage had affected his mental abilities and ordered him to be tested at another hospital. He tested at the mental developmental stage of a 4 month old despite being 15 months old.

During the months of December and January Wei Hao began to change and developed his own personality! He loved standing on the bed with the help of his ayis and he loved “rou song” (dried meat) sprinkled on his “zhou” (porridge) and wouldn’t eat it without it. He loved being held and having his back patted while he slept. He would make these sounds of contentment as they patted his back and if they stopped, thinking he had falling asleep, he would begin to cry. He had been without for so long that he needed these little things to make him feel safe and calm.

On February 1st, a Friday, Wei Hao was admitted to the operating room. A liver that fit him just right had finally arrived! His surgery took 19.5 hours and the next day he went directly into the ICU. Wei Hao was doing well for the first 5 days following his surgery but on the 6th day developed a fever.

Because he is so young, there are not a lot of tests that they can do on him. The doctors were concerned that either a blood vessel was blocked or his body was rejecting the liver. If a blood vessel is blocked, there is not much they can do as performing another surgery is out of the question. If his body is rejecting the liver, there are ways to fix that problem. The results from the tumor on his liver have come back– he has a type of hepatocellular carcinoma that could spread despite already taking out the infected liver. All we can do at this point is continue to take it day by day. If Wei Hao’s story has taught us anything over the past 4 months, it’s that nothing is certain.

Those that thought a little boy abandoned by his parents, and left on his own for 3 months, wouldn’t survive were wrong.

Those that said this same little boy was too underdeveloped for his age that he might never catch up were also wrong.

And those that said he couldn’t live another week without a new liver were thankfully wrong.

*From the time we heard about Wei Hao, there has been a blog that told of his story. Many overseas and local Chinese have posted words of support and love for Wei Hao on this blog and they have also sent donations and committed to supporting him on a yearly basis. The donations received for Wei Hao so far total around RMB140,000. The costs incurred for his care total RMB170,000 and they continue to rise as each day in the ICU costs us another RMB6,000.

If you feel moved by Wei Hao’s story and would like to donate a monetary gift to go towards funding Wei Hao’s continuing medical treatment, please send a donation via paypal (the link is on our home page) or you can send a check to the US address (also found on our website under “How you can help!”). If you are in China and prefer to wire a donation please send me an email at foundation@ufh.com.cn and I will send you our Bank of China account details. All donations are eligible for tax deductions so please let us know if you need an official thank you letter.

Thank you,

Sarah on behalf of UFCO