A baby is born with congenital problems in Penjamo and with his parents he lives an odyssey to be healthy again Groups of immigrants in the USA un
A baby is born with congenital problems in Penjamo and with his parents he lives an odyssey to be healthy again
Groups of immigrants in the USA united to help and give a better life to Emmanuel, whose parents, Mario and Diana did even what seemed impossible tu cure their son
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Guanajuato/Gto News
Desperate to take care of the health of their son, the parents of a baby originally from Penjamo moved heaven, sea and earth to find a way to perform an almost emergency operation on their little one suffering of a congenital heart disease.
Mario Alvarado, father of baby Emmanuel, said that his story began in the seventh month of gestation when the ultrasounds showed how the right side of the baby’s heart did not work properly, as a result of which the arteries that carry oxygen to the lungs did not develop.
“First he underwent surgery in Guadalajara 2 days after he was born to place a valve and he could recover that function. In the postoperative stage, his diaphragm paralyzed, he had paralysis of the vocal cords and severe laryngomalacia, due to being intubated for just over two months”, tells Mario.
He said that he was later discharged, but he was a baby dependent on a device that helped him breathe 24 hours a day, with this the maximum oxygen saturation was 80 percent, while a concentrator supplied him with 3 liters per minute of air.
This resulted in the development of pulmonary hypertension due to the pressure, they performed a catheterization in Guadalajara and made more complicated his state of health.
“The issue was reviewed by a group of cardiologist surgeons, since the pressures that this part of his body had put him at risk again, but there was a doctor who took it on, she made sure she told us that the child’s morbidity percentage was going to be very high and it was almost impossible for Emmanuel to survive”, tells Mario.
Mario said that after this, he and his wife Diana began to look for information about heart disease in support groups on social networks, in hospitals through the Internet with emails to investigate, find out and know where to go.
This is how several days passed searching for information until the Boston Medical Children’s responded and asked for information, but the cost of the intervention was very high, that is how they began to campaign for fundraising and contacted Yesenia Rojas and Angel Pacheco who were involved in the matter.
“We did this for several months, we did events, raffles, many works to raise the necessary money, migrant leaders got involved, we were on the TV4 program Me Voy Pa’l Norte, we met with the media in Penjamo and that’s how we started the work, but my wife kept sending the files until the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital responded”, tells Mario.
Emmanuel’s father said that by having contact with this institution, in addition to the information, they accepted the case, but there they needed to physically check and assess the child, which represented another difficulty, since they did not have the necessary documents to leave Mexico.
He said that at the embassy they were told that in order to obtain a humanitarian admission permit or “humanitarian visa” they would have to have a scheduled appointment at the hospital, but at the clinic they insisted on seeing the minor to have a more accurate diagnosis.
“The time for my son was less and less, my wife saw how his health was declining day by day, so that is where with the help of the migrant leaders, we came to Tijuana to see the possibility of obtaining a permit or see how we could enter the United States legally so as not to expose our son”, tells Mario.
Yesenia Rojas, a migrant leader who lives in Orange County, California, but is originally from Ocampo, Guanajuato said that the contribution of various migrant leaders was to guide the parents in carrying out procedures to obtain a “ humanitarian visa”, passport and the documents required by the specialists.
“All this helped us a lot, once we were at the border with the immigration special cases supervisor he told us how we had to do it, with the support of Congressman Lou Correa and the lawyers we have worked to help the families. We also contacted them with Governor Diego Sinhue Rodriguez Vallejo, the Secretary for Migrants and International Laisons, with sponsors, specialists, characters like Art Guevara and benefactors who could support them”, said Yesenia.
Yesenia Rojas said she was surprised by the strength, courage, and perseverance of the baby’s parents, since in each situation, they never gave up and above all, they kept the faith that their son would come out of this disease with good health.
Once Mario, his wife Diana, and Emmanuel were able to enter the United States, doctors at the hospital quickly analyzed his oxygen saturation, the results of clinical examinations, and realized that the boy was already in the last stages of his disease, from that day on they were not allowed to leave.
Mario, said that Emmanuel was admitted to the intensive care area and they performed a catheterization to see what option he had for surgery and 8 days later, they had already performed open heart surgery.
“Due to the complexity of the surgery, the director of the Los Angeles Children’s cardiology department operated on him. He took the case and it took my son another 8 days to recover and just this Monday, November 14, we were discharged, almost a month after we put him in”, said the baby’s father.
Mario said that the specialist managed to enable the right part of his heart, which in Mexico the doctors said was unthinkable, in this American clinic they succeeded and the right part of his heart already works to such a degree that it no longer depends on a tank to breathe and now registers a saturation of up to 92 percent oxygen.
Among other achievements, they were able to cover the tracheostomy that was performed on his throat and he is already breathing on his own.
“It was a very advanced technique, they literally told us that the doctor excavated the affected part with the help of a scalpel to enlarge the ducts and enable them. They said there was no way to lower the pulmonary pressure, he also achieved it by giving him nitric oxide to be able to carry out the surgery in a safer way”, Mario remembers.
In the end, Mario said that the goal was achieved, which was that his son, little Emmanuel, would continue to live and now his heart beats faster and is in the process of adaptation.
Juan Hernandez, Secretary for Migrants and International Liaison said that Governor Diego Sinhue Rodriguez Vallejo, upon learning of this case, instructed him to attend to the needs and requirements that this family had.
“When Diana Jimenez Gonzalez and Mario Alvarado, from the municipality from Penjamo, asked us for help to arrange urgent support for their son, they knew that the task would not be easy, unless we had the support of our migrants, and they had it”, said Hernandez.
The head of the SMEI had the opportunity to visit little Emmanuel Alvarado and keep an eye on his parents to follow up on this case and offer all the support of the Government of Guanajuato.
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