Wednesday, 20 August 2008

Long Beach group aims to heal another heart

Press-Telegram Long Beach
By Greg Mellen Staff Writer
08/19/2008

LONG BEACH - When David Kem of Long Beach volunteered to help organize a benefit for a Cambodian girl who had been brought to the United States for life-altering open-heart surgery, it was because it seemed the right thing to do. He certainly didn't expect anything in return.

"I just heard about her story and followed it in the paper and thought, `Wouldn't it be great to help?"' Kem says.

Now, Kem may have received a gift beyond payment.

A week or so after the benefit, in a bizarre coincidence, Kem received devastating news from Cambodia. His infant nephew, born in December, was suffering from a mysterious heart ailment.
At the time, Peter Chhun, the founder of Hearts Without Boundaries, the organization that arranged for Davik Teng to come to the United States, was preparing to take the girl and her mother back to their village in Cambodia after a successful surgery and recovery. He was also looking for another candidate in need of care not readily available in Cambodia.

Kem asked Chhun if he could visit his nephew, Vy Soksamnang, and his cousin, Pang Ratha.
Like Davik, Pang and her son live in a bamboo hut in a village and are very poor. Vy's father, Meas Bunno, works as a guard along the border with Thailand and is rarely able to see his family.

After visiting the family, Chhun arranged for the boy to be seen by the same cardiologist in Siem Reap who helped with the diagnosis of Davik.

The cardiologist, Dr. Lyda Luy, found Vy had a ventricular septal defect, or hole in the heart, the same condition that afflicted Davik.

Now, Chhun, with the help of Susan Grossfeld, whose husband is a cardiologist, is working to see if he can broker a deal with Rady Children's Hospital of San Diego.

"The baby has a congenital heart defect that without surgery will shorten his life," said Dr. Paul Grossfeld of San Diego, who reviewed Luy's report.

In the case of Davik, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles donated its facilities and staff for the surgery. A colleague of Chhun and her cardiologist husband at Childrens Hospital paved the way for that deal.

While in Cambodia, Chhun was visited by 13 children, all suffering from heart ailments of differing severity.

Chhun said when he visited Vy and his mother, Pang Rantha, he thought Luy and his team at Angkor Hospital for Children could repair the defect.

In Luy's assessment, the doctor said he feared if the boy was sent to Phnom Penh for surgery, surgeons would elect to do too much.

In a note to Chhun, Luy wrote that children with similar problems have been recommended for aortic valve replacement in addition to repair of the hole.

In a country like Cambodia, where the extensive care required after major surgery is simply not available to the poor, valve replacement is not only unneeded, but unnecessarily dangerous and risky for children like Vy.

Luy says he has refused the risky treatment because, "I believe these kids can do surgery to close VSD without valve replacement." Those children also need help that may never come.

Chhun stresses that negotiations with the Rady Children's Hospital of San Diego are in very early stages and nothing is certain.

"I just hope and pray we can find a place for this boy," Chhun says.

As for the unlikely connection with Kem, it's just the latest twist in an already unusual tale.
To Chhun it was fate that led to the discovery of Davik in her remote village and it's the same with Vy.

"Something, somewhere told this (Kem) to help us," Chhun said.

And the repayment could be special indeed.

In the meantime, Kem is hoping the luck, or fate, or whatever it is, holds out.

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