An 11-month-old infant baby from Saudia Arabia was encountering a life-threatening situation caused by her huge abdominal tumor. Furtunately, she was saved in Guangzhou Fuda Cancer Hospital in China.
She is Lana, one year old now. When she came to China, she was only 11 month old. She had her one-year-old birthday celebration in Guangzhou Fuda Cancer Hospital, accompanied by those caring doctors and nurses there.
She is from Saudia Arabia, a country far in the Middle East. Her parents are ordinary citizens. Lana is their first child. She was once a very lovely girl with beautiful eyes and cute little face. Her parents treated her as an apple in their eyes. However, God seemed to be playing a trick on them when Lana's abdomen started to grow increasingly bigger in size. It seemed that there was a balloon blowing in Lana's abdomen. Six months later, Lana started to suffer from vomiting, which deteriorated so severely that she vomited everything she had. Lana was crying constantly.
Lana's parents took her to local hospital for treatments. Examination showed that there was a huge tumor with a large amount of ascites in Lana's abdominal cavity. The doctor inserted 3 catheters into Lana's body. One was from her nose to her stomach, for reducing the pressure on the stomach and the intestines and relieving the ileus. The other one was in subclavian veins which could provide nutrition outside the stomach and intestines. The third one was in the abdominal cavity to drain the ascites.
What shocked Lana's parents was that the ascites from Lana's abdomen was hemic and with cancer cells. The doctor made a preliminary diagnosis of teratoma, which was considered as malignant and incurable. To relieve Lana of her great pain which was causing her to cry constantly, the doctor injected morphine for Lana.
To everyone's dismay, during the abdominocentesis, Lana's small intestines were damaged, which caused intestine leak. The intestinal contents flowed into the abdominal cavity and led to peritonitis. This was no doubt another disaster for Lana's family. In fact, once this kind of peritonitis occurred, if operation could not be given in time, the patients would die anytime and quite unexpectedly. Still, due to Lana's giant tumor in her abdomen, the doctor couldn't conduct an operation but keep the cannula in her abdominal cavity to drain the ascites.
Such a little child suffering from such a huge tumor not only brought tremendous pain to her parents, but also aroused great sympathy among her relatives and the media as well. While looking at Lana's beautiful big eyes, her increasingly emaciated small body and her huge inflating abdomen, one always finds his heart torn with sorrow. Fortunately, a ray of hope appeared when some of Lana's relatives heard that a little child suffering from malignant teratoma was saved in Fuda Cancer Hospital in China.
However, Lana's parents have never been to such a faraway country called China before, and they were never sure there was such a good hospital called Fuda Cancer Hospital there.
To see is to believe. They made every effort to find the patients who have been treated in Fuda Cancer Hospital. Finally they believed that the news was true. Thus, they started to contact Fuda Cancer Hospital in China. They had a local reporter who sent Lana's medical reports with her photos to Fuda Cancer Hospital by e-mail.
Seeing Lana' photos and reading her medical reports, all leaders and doctors in Fuda were shocked. Although they had treated many patients with huge abdominal tumor and some children with malignant teratoma in their neck, they were still not certain whether they could save Lana.
They watched Lana's photos over and over again, getting increasingly concerned and worried. It was the first time that Chief President Kecheng Xu, Executive President Lizhi Niu and Dr. Feng Mu had ever felt rather powerless. They never hesitated when it comes to saving patients' life. However, this time they were dealing with a small infant who was in critical condition. Thus, they were considering if they should accept Lana this time, as they were not sure they could successfully treat her.
While contacting with Lana's father and the local reporter through email, Professor Xu said honestly that he would like to recommend a good Chinese hospital to Lana, as he was not sure he could treat Lana in Fuda Cancer Hospital.
Unfortunately, in the middle of Otocber 2011, a bad news came to Fuda, saying that Lana's condition was deteriorating day by day, and no hospital was willing to accept her. Lana's parents said sadly, “the only thing we can get here is morphine. No one can help us, but Fuda Cancer Hospital is our sole hope now. At any rate, we decide to go to Fuda.” Saudi embassy in China also called Fuda and hoped Fuda could lend a helping hand. Presidents and doctors in Fuda were deeply touched. Though this is a small baby from other country, but the most precious word in the world was “love”. All the doctors in Fuda who always ragarded “cherishing life” as their sacred mission, finally made their minds to rescue Lana at any cost.
It was on Otocber 27 2011 that Lana came to Fuda Cancer Hospital. Fuda arranged a ward in the eighth floor for Lana. The head of the department Doctor Haibo Li was assigned to be in charge of Lana's treatment. At that time, Doctor Li had planned to take part in the international cryotherapy conference in Austria, and both the visa and airline ticket were prepared, but for the sake of Lana, he chose to stay in Fuda. In addition, Fuda dispatched special nurses to take good care of Lana.
All the doctors have never seen such a sick child like Lana before. They were sad to look at Lana's bald head caused by the side effect of chemotherapy. Her skin was dry, withered and yellowish. Her limbs were as thin as a lath, while her abdomen was as huge as a drum. Worse still, her temperature reached 39℃. Her parents said: “she almost had a fever every day in the past several months.” This 11-month-old child's weight was 11kg, of which one third was probably the tumor. She had a stomach tube in her nose and cried all the time in a feeble voice. Obviously, the baby could die at any time. Her parents constantly asked the doctor to inject morphine for Lana, saying that “even in the airplane, we need to inject morphine for her every several hours.”
The result of the preliminary examination upsetted everyone, for it showed that Lana had anemia and her leukocyte was very high with severe malnutrition, dehydration and abnormal acid-base balance. This was the typical symptom of dyscrasia which no clinical doctors would feel positive about.
However, Lana's eyes were still so beautiful and her little mouth was moving slightly, displaying the strongest desire for life, which brought hope for doctors and nurses in Fuda. Based on their experiences in rescuing patients with critical diseases, the doctors in Fuda believed that if sufficient supports could be given to Lana, it might has a favourable turn. As doctors, they were fully conscious that they were in a situation in which even a moment of hesitation could be fatal, for it might cost a life that was irredeemable. Professor Xu made it very clear to doctors and nurses that “in order to save Lana, there is no need to consider our gain and loss. We should spare no effort to save her.”
Dr. Li specializes in chest surgery, and he has treated many congenital cardiac patients, among which some were infants. Dr. Li has large amout of clinical experiences in child nutrition. Therefore, it's no surprise that Lana could show much alleviated symptoms one week later after underging nutritional supports prescribed by Dr. Li. Lana's skin became smooth and elastic, and her blood test did not indicate any abnormality.
The greatest challenge lies in Lana's abdomen tumor. All examinations including Ulstround, CT, Magnetic Resonance indicated that the abdomen tumor was occupying eighty percent of abdominal cavity and the intestinal canal was compressed below the telophragma. Eighty percent of the tumor was solid, whereas twenty percent cystic. Puncture of the hydatid fluid was given. The fluid turned out to be clear without blood. The tumor of margin was clear. What's more, one month later after admission, Lana's conditions did not deteriorate. Instead, she was smiling and waving her small hands. At her one-year-old birthday party, her doctors and nurses were amazed to find that she was calling “Daddy” and “Mon” distinctly.
After one month close observation and intensive care, doctors in Fuda were gaining more confidence. They were thinking Lana' conditions were probably not as poor as they had expected. In particular, Professor Xu said that it's very likely Lana's tumor could be benign juding from his 40-year clinical experiences. With Professor Xu's thorough preparation and care arrangement, a battle on Lana's tumor was started.
On December 10th 2011, it was a shining day. Having arranged the best paediatric surgeons and oncologists, the most experienced anaesthetists, the most advanced Siemens children's anesthesia machine, sufficient blood supply and emergency medicines, Fuda started the surgery for Lana at 9a.m. Professor Xu was right over there, watching closely and guiding every steps: incising of the enterocoelia, seperation of the intestinal canal, exposion of the tumor, draining of the fluid and removing of the tumor…As tumor was removed piece by piece, the amount of the removed tumor in the plate was increasing…8 hours later, almost all of the tumors were removed, measuring approximately 2.5 kg.
Judging from their clinical experiences and with great unconditional love for Lana, all the doctors in Fuda believed that Lana's tumor was curable. With non-yielding spirit and proficient medical skills, Fuda finally saved Lana's life. Lana was reborn in Fuda.
After the operation, Lana recovered very well. She turned into an adorable little baby again. Her inherent beauty as a Mideast kid were attracting doctors, nurses, other hospital staff and even other patients to come to visit her. She was like a popular star in Fuda. The representatives of Saudi Embassy came from Beijing China to see Lana on purpose. He was happy to find that Lana was in such a good condition as to smiling to him and waving her small hands to him.
Utmost sincerity can move the mountains. Lana was finally brought back to life. Perhaps it was because that God always takes good care of the kind-hearted people. Lana's tumor was proved to be benign. She will grow into a beautiful lady. Both Saudi Arabia and China will be proud of her for her non-yielding spirit, for her strongmindedness. Holding Professor Xu's hands, Lana's parents said with exciement: “Lana is the daughter of China and the daughter of Fuda!” President Xu replied, “Lana embodies the friendship between China and Saudi Arabia.”
In September 2011, one of Lana's photos was sent from Saudi Arabia.
In the morning of December 26, 2011, Lana was in Fuda.
These nurses have been together with Lana for about 2 months.
so happy