GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – A medical journey of more than 6,000 miles turned out better than an Iraqi mother named Salwa dared to hope.
“I have no words to show my feelings,” she said Thursday through a translator, standing in a room at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital a few feet from her son, Hasan, 7. The military is withholding their last names for their protection when they return to Iraq in the next few weeks.
“I want the world to know that the world is still a good place. I thank God from the bottom of my heart,” the mother said.
On Tuesday, Hasan underwent a four-hour procedure in which surgeons replaced a leaky pulmonary valve and closed a hole in his lower heart chamber.
The surgery should allow Hasan to resume a normal life, no longer being too exhausted to play. “He's going to be fine,” pediatric surgeon Neal Hillman said. “The prognosis is very good.”
It would not be so without the work of Michigan Army National Guard troops who befriended Hasan and his mother early in 2007 in a Baghdad police station, where the troops were assigned to help train the police.
She was desperate to find medical help for her son, born with a heart defect that left him too weak to take more than a few steps at a time. His lips and fingertips were blue because of a lack of oxygen in his bloodstream.
The troops recalled that Salwa returned to the station again and again to ask for help.
Members of the Cheboygan-based 46th Military Police Company huddled to see what they could do. “We all talked as a group and decided, 'We've got to do something for this kid,' ” said Cpl. Paul Bishop, 40, of Hillsdale.
They contacted the office of U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., which passed the case to Dr. Robert Connors, president of DeVos Children's Hospital.
He enlisted Healing the Children Michigan-Ohio, which brings in children from around the world who cannot get the medical care they need in their home country. The medical services here are donated. It then took six weeks to locate Hasan in Iraq.
The boy had surgery in India several months ago but, according to Hillman, a valve installed in the procedure was leaking.
