This wonderful story is in the Houston paper because the Iraqi boy came to Houston.
These stories should be headlines around the country.
Kadhem Jawad Kathem, 7, was born with a heart defect that made him too weak to attend school or play.
Posted on 07/15/2005 1:01:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The enormous impact of the good deed — and a parent's overwhelming relief — were eloquently expressed by Kadhem's father immediately after the operation. In fact, Fraser said he's never received a thank-you from a parent quite like the one he got.
Kadhem's father took the doctor's face in his hands and covered it with kisses. He took Fraser's hand and kissed it.
Then he fell to the floor and kissed Fraser's feet.
In the end, a 7-year-old Iraqi boy's long, dark eyelashes may have saved his life.
Kadhem Jawad Kathem is doing well after arriving in Houston last week and undergoing a five-hour operation Tuesday at Texas Children's Hospital to "replumb" his congenitally malformed heart, his surgeon said.
Purple-lipped when he arrived because of his heart's inability to adequately circulate blood through his lungs, Kadhem is showing normal blood-oxygen levels and will likely be well enough to go home in a month.
"I am very grateful to everybody, to the American troops back in Iraq, to all Houstonians and I'm very grateful to the doctors who did the surgery" said the boy's father, Jawad Kathem, a 33-year-old mechanic from southern Iraq. Kathem, who speaks Arabic, spoke to the Associated Press through a translator.
In January, Kadhem met Maj. Brian Stevens, a civil affairs officer serving in Iraq with the Fort Worth-based 56th Brigade Combat Team, 36th Infantry Division, Texas National Guard. Stevens had arrived in a town in southern Iraq — the exact location is confidential — a month earlier, beginning a yearlong deployment to build schools and hospitals.
Kadhem's mother made a wrenching plea for her son, too weak to attend school or play. She gave Stevens X-rays and medical documents to take to a military doctor at the base.
It was "those eyelashes" that captivated soldiers, said Chief Master Sgt. Gonda Moncada, Texas National Guard spokeswoman. "Obviously, many (Iraqi) children would benefit from surgery. We can't help them all."
The military doctor, a cardiologist, evaluated Kadhem and determined he needed help — quickly. After searching the Internet, the cardiologist found Dr. Charles Fraser Jr., an expert in repairs of severe cardiac malformations at Texas Children's. Moncada said the cardiologist contacted Fraser directly, via e-mail, and asked, "If we can get the kid into the States, will you do the surgery?"
Trip to Texas took work The boy had been born with a heart defect called Double Outlet Right Ventricle, or DORV, in which the aorta is connected to the wrong ventricle, and there's a hole between the right and left ventricles. His survival to age 7 was somewhat unusual, said Fraser. Without surgery, he would deteriorate and ultimately die.
Fraser, chief of heart surgery at Texas Children's, the nation's largest pediatric hospital, agreed to perform the operation.
Because there are no commercial flights out of Iraq, the soldiers would need to fly the boy and his father to Kuwait aboard a regularly scheduled military flight. Such a feat happens rarely, Moncada said, because "you don't know the hoops we have to jump through." The government, she said, is concerned with civilian safety aboard military aircraft.
The soldiers persisted and eventually arranged the trip. Anonymous private and corporate donors paid for Kadhem's travel and hospital expenses. Fraser said he and the other doctors involved waived their fees.
"All of us have children," Lt. Col. Stephen Bentley, a member of the division that orchestrated the boy's medical care, said by telephone from Iraq during a hospital news conference Thursday. "It is very satisfying we were able to do what we did."
Kathem told the AP he struggled for months to obtain a visa from the U.S. embassy in Kuwait. All the while, his son's condition worsened.
From Kuwait, the boy traveled by commercial jet to Houston. While he went through tests and waited for his operation, Kadhem, who doesn't speak English, communicated with thumbs-up and thumb-down gestures. His fragile condition didn't keep him from developing a passion for video games at the hospital.
Children with such a condition in the United States might undergo multiple surgeries, but Fraser knew this might be Kadhem's only chance for surgery and that he might not have access to high-level follow-up care back home. (The cardiac hospital in Baghdad didn't have the ability to perform the operation, according to the Texas National Guard.)
Exuberant show of thanks Fraser performed a procedure designed to minimize the boy's chances of needing a second operation, a modified, one-step version of a procedure known as the Fontan, which reroutes blood to the lungs.
The repair gives the boy a promising long-term prognosis, Fraser said. He'll have more energy and won't require a second operation. However, he will need to be followed by a cardiologist and will have to take aspirin daily for the rest of his life to prevent blood clots.
The enormous impact of the good deed — and a parent's overwhelming relief — were eloquently expressed by Kadhem's father immediately after the operation. In fact, Fraser said he's never received a thank-you from a parent quite like the one he got.
Kadhem's father took the doctor's face in his hands and covered it with kisses. He took Fraser's hand and kissed it.
Then he fell to the floor and kissed Fraser's feet.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
leigh.hopper@chron.com
This wonderful story is in the Houston paper because the Iraqi boy came to Houston.
These stories should be headlines around the country.
Kadhem Jawad Kathem, 7, was born with a heart defect that made him too weak to attend school or play.
Yet in contrast, those whose insanity has necessitated our peoples' presence over there would strap a bomb to such as this child and send him down to the bus stop to wreak death and carnage . . .
Our soldiers are wonderful ambassadors for us.
Thanks
U.S. Army soldiers assigned to Task Force Eagle distribute food and water during a humanitarian assistance mission for flood victims outside Bagram, Afghanistan, July 4, 2005. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Harold Fields
A beautiful story. Thank you for posting it.
Bump
I see that the State Department is still out there winning hearts and minds.
I's a good thing that the military got involved.
Hopefully, Sec. Rice can bring some sanity there.
These stories should be headlines around the country.
***
Agreed. Unfortunately, our anti-Bush, pro socialist liberal traitorous press won't publish it.
Thanks for posting. A wonderful story.
A smile this morning.
Ping
Bump!
COOL STORY!!!
Amazing that this story slipped by the Houston Comical editors.
Really touching. Good for those soldiers and G-d bless them.
I love all of our soldiers!!!
THEY are heroes.
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