| |
 |
x |
| |
|
Sandi Fenwick, COO, Felix Musyoka Kioko,
Esther Mbinya Kioko and Ted Shaughnessy celebrate the treelighting
at the hospital's Yule Fest celebration.
x |
|
 n
Nov. 25, 6-year-old Felix Musyoka Kioko was zipping around 6 East
in one of the hospital’s plastic taxi cabs. Outside the door
to his room, he came to a quick halt to smile for the camera, then
sped off past the nurses’ station. A week later, the energetic
boy from Nairobi, Kenya, flipped the switch to light up the giant
Christmas tree in the Main Lobby. Thanks to the generosity of a
local group, Felix’s future looks bright, as well.
Felix and his mother, Esther Mbinya Kioko, came to Children’s
from Kenya for a surgical procedure to repair the boy’s congenital
heart defects, which included a hole in his heart, a narrow valve
and a narrowing of the right ventricle. Uncorrected, the condition
would have eventually lead to heart failure. The catheterization
procedure and surgery he received are unavailable in Kenya, but
were fairly routine for Peter
Lang, MD, associate in Cardiology, and Richard
Jonas, MD, cardiac-surgeon-in-chief.
Felix’s treatment at Children’s was arranged by the Needham
Rotary club and paid for by Gift
of Life New England, a Rotary Club program that pays for
cardiac patients from around the world to receive specialized care
in the United States. Felix and his mother have stayed with a host
family, Needham Rotary Club members Ted and Marilyn Shaughnessy,
since their arrival in early November.
The local couple didn’t just open their home, says Esther,
but helped them throughout their stay. “They shared meals with
us and showed us Boston. They even came to hospital appointments
with us,” she says.
Esther learned of the Gift of Life program from an uncle who is
a Rotarian in Uganda. She decided to make the trip with Felix while
her husband, a lawyer in Nairobi, continued working back home. Although
Esther used to work as a teacher, her husband’s salary has
been their sole source of income since the Kenyan government stopped
paying teachers’ salaries four years ago. The family spends
half of its earnings on Felix’s medical bills.
But Esther is confident that her son’s medical treatment will
be much more manageable when they return home. “He is doing
very well now,” she says, watching him excitedly jump up and
down. —CM
Related link:
Gift
of Life New England
|
