part of the family

we have all grieved for people we didn't know very well;
for the things they could have been and for the people they leave behind.

today i am grieving for a child i never even met, with a family i'm not related to.

when i arrived back into Da Nang on thursday afternoon, she was already in Saigon. while we were busy holding orientation for the new volunteers on saturday, she was going into surgery.
baby Tam lived at the Red Cross baby orphanage just outside the city. GVN doesn't work there anymore, but some volunteers went to hold a birthday party for another child. when they got there they realised that one of the babies desperately needed help.

Tam had blue baby syndrome, she was not getting enough oxygen into her blood and as a result her lips, fingers and toes were blue and the rest of her a skin very pale. she needed surgery but there was no one to get it for her. no one to care enough to fight for her or find the money.

GVN fought for her though. emails were sent out and money asked for from all directions. the surgery itself cost US$3,250, the total cost of her care would come to roughly $6,500. a very, very small price to pay for such an enormous operation but the money came in by and by.
GVN's biggest problem was getting permission to take her to the hospital to have the surgery - for some reason unknown to us volunteers, negotiations had to be made.

but after a few days, two of our volunteers accompanied the baby, our physiotherapist and a carer for Tam down to Saigon to have an assessment and then surgery. the surgery went perfectly and by the end of the weekend we were all celebrating a job well done by everyone.

but this morning we were told that 18 month old baby Tam passed away due to a lung infection. because she didn't get surgery months and months ago when she needed it first, she was simply too weak to fight off the infection. she tried her very best to hang on all those months but the struggle proved too much in the end.

so this morning as Herdis wept for the baby she had found and tried to save, as Anne, Mark and Phuc felt the overwhelming disappointment for the baby they had journeyed with and celebrated for, as we all experienced the sadness in the air, we grieved in frustration for what could have been done sooner, for who Tam will never be and for our friends who's hearts are broken today.