To whom it may
concern:
My name is Meg
McKechnie. I am a senior nursing student at Belmont University in Nashville,
TN. I am writing on behalf of friends of mine who are citizens and
residents of El Salvador, Héctor Abdulio Moreno Martínez and Mirna Teresa
Linares de Moreno, in regards to their son, Abner Isaac Moreno Linares, born
01/04/2012. The family speaks only Spanish. Abner has a history of cholangitis
and biliary atresia. His doctors in El Salvador say he is in need of a liver
transplant in order to survive, which cannot be provided in country.
I have contact
information for Abner's family, PCP, and the children's hospital in El
Salvador, as well as his medical records (in Spanish), photographs, and videos
of the child showing his decline in the past few months. His parents sent it to
me with permission to give it to anyone who might be able to help.
Héctor
qualifies as a donor for Abner. At this point, I believe the family’s only hope
is to procure an emergency visa for both father and son to travel to the States
for treatment. I am tirelessly working to coordinate that end of the situation.
Four requirements must be met in order for the family to apply for the visa:
1. Official
letter from U.S. hospital and doctors, accepting patient for treatment and
providing estimated cost and length of medical treatment;
2. Evidence
regarding ability to pay for the treatment;
3. Proof of
social, economic and professional ties in El Salvador that will compel the
applicant to return to his/her home country following completion of the medical
treatment; and
4. A
professional diagnosis of the illness and evidence that it cannot be treated in
El Salvador.
Requirements 3
and 4 are easily attainable. Requirements 1 and 2 are much more difficult.
Our experience
thus far has been an inability and unwillingness of US hospitals to accept
Abner and Héctor as patients until funding has been established. We are working
to expand the already significant network of families and churches across the
United States willing to invest in the cost of long-term post-transplant drugs.
However, the family is poor and simply cannot pay for the transplant themselves.
Their only hope is for a hospital or organization to donate the cost of the
procedure and immediate follow-up care.
If you had any idea how many times I have sent that letter-- or some
permutation thereof, with differing endings depending on what I was begging
that particular person or organization for-- in the last three days...
A friend sent me a text late Thursday night asking if I was awake. I
laughed a little... I was at practicum, which for me is night shift at Vandy's
pediatric hematology and oncology unit, so yes, I was awake and would be until
well after the sun rose the next morning. She told me about Abner and asked for
my help.
We talked and schemed and prayed-- oh, how we have prayed!-- and at
some point both of us probably promised God that this kid could have pieces of
our livers if that was what he needed. And all the while we have been so
acutely aware of the ocean of obstacles between this child and a chance at
life. His parents are poor. And they live in the third world. There is no way
they can do this by themselves.
So I did a few hundred Google searches and spammed half of the northern hemisphere with emails, begging for help. I found a lawyer in Texas who coordinated a liver transplant for a little boy out of El Salvador just a few years ago, and he connected me with an organization in El Salvador that might be able to help coordinate the bureaucracy on that end. I stalked Abner's daddy's facebook and wept as I read his status saying that he is confident God will make a way for his son, while in the same breath saying that no matter what happens, he will give all glory and praise to Him-- and asking his facebook friends to pray that he will have the strength to continue in his faith "no matter what happens," because God will still be God (and all of this weeks ago, before anything was in motion on this continent). Then I felt the weight of a father's hope last night as I personally chatted with this man, and he thanked me for being a part of God's answer.
I have laughed; I have danced; I have cried; I have called friends on the other side of the continent so that I could laugh and dance and cry with company. My heart lingers somewhere between the anguish of impossibility and the hope of eternity. On one hand, to call my resources insufficient would be the greatest understatement of all time. In the United States, the transplant could cost as much as half a million dollars. But then, there are some hospitals with international charity surgery departments, and there might be hope there. We also have not ruled out the option of considering a different country where the surgery might be cheaper. Any way you dice it, we have found that we will either need $75k to cover the cost of initiating treatment and the downpayment for the surgery in the US (while we find organizations to cover the rest), or that same $75 to have the transplant done in another capable country (which while cheaper, is scary, because many of these places have much lower survival rates, and the idea is to save this baby...). So I haven't given up.
So I did a few hundred Google searches and spammed half of the northern hemisphere with emails, begging for help. I found a lawyer in Texas who coordinated a liver transplant for a little boy out of El Salvador just a few years ago, and he connected me with an organization in El Salvador that might be able to help coordinate the bureaucracy on that end. I stalked Abner's daddy's facebook and wept as I read his status saying that he is confident God will make a way for his son, while in the same breath saying that no matter what happens, he will give all glory and praise to Him-- and asking his facebook friends to pray that he will have the strength to continue in his faith "no matter what happens," because God will still be God (and all of this weeks ago, before anything was in motion on this continent). Then I felt the weight of a father's hope last night as I personally chatted with this man, and he thanked me for being a part of God's answer.
I have laughed; I have danced; I have cried; I have called friends on the other side of the continent so that I could laugh and dance and cry with company. My heart lingers somewhere between the anguish of impossibility and the hope of eternity. On one hand, to call my resources insufficient would be the greatest understatement of all time. In the United States, the transplant could cost as much as half a million dollars. But then, there are some hospitals with international charity surgery departments, and there might be hope there. We also have not ruled out the option of considering a different country where the surgery might be cheaper. Any way you dice it, we have found that we will either need $75k to cover the cost of initiating treatment and the downpayment for the surgery in the US (while we find organizations to cover the rest), or that same $75 to have the transplant done in another capable country (which while cheaper, is scary, because many of these places have much lower survival rates, and the idea is to save this baby...). So I haven't given up.
Because I know that this has been done before,
and even if it had not, I know that God is big enough.
So
I keep emailing, and keep asking, and keep calling, and keep knocking, in hopes
that persistence might yield an open door.
Here's how you can help.
We need a hospital that can do the transplant pro-bono, OR an
organization that can cover the cost along with a hospital willing to do the
procedure.
We need a pharmaceutical company willing to donate the cost of the
medications that Abner will need for the rest of his life.
We need prayer. Oh,
do we need prayer.
We need people to know, and we need people to care. Maybe
you don't know anyone with connections at a hospital, but perhaps someone you
know happens to know someone with a compassionate heart and the right
connections. So I need you to share this story. Email it. Post it on facebook.
Send it to your pastor. I need you to care about Abner as if he were your
own child, because someone else once asked, "Who is my neighbor?"
and I do believe Christ's response, after sharing a story of a man who went out
of his way and sacrificed of himself to help another in need, was "Go and
do likewise." I need you to ask yourself how far you would go to
fight for one of your own, and then I need you to do that. Abner needs you to
do that.
Because right now, the army fighting for him consists of a ragtag
group of college kids at Belmont, and ladies and gentlemen, I hereby declare
that we cannot do this by ourselves.
There is a video of Abner taken recently
that shows the urgency of his situation. It is not easy to watch; you should
probably not let children view it. His protruding liver and major abdominal
vessels are clearly visible; he has massive edema in his abdomen and scrotum,
but his limbs are wasting because of the malnutrition that results from liver
failure.
If you would like updates on Abner and his situation, just let me
know, and I'll make sure you get them. You can always contact me here by
commenting on this blog. Or you can email me at meghan.mckechnie@pop.belmont.edu
The name "Abner" means "the Father is a
light." Amen and amen.
Please... do not forget him...
Much love.
Meg
*****UPDATE, 2/6/13*****
We have started a fundraiser to pay for
Abner's transplant. We need to raise the money for his transplant, and quickly!
Donate here:
