Three year-old Bunlak Song is comforted by his sister, Bunkek Song, after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport of Cambodia on March 6, 2011. Bunlak Song was brought to the United States by Hearts Without Boundaries, a Long Beach, Calif.-based non-profit group, to help repair his heart. (Jeff Gritchen / Staff Photographer)
By Greg Mellen,
Press-Telegram Staff Writer
Posted: 08/11/2011
LONG BEACH - A tentative surgery date has finally been set for an impoverished Cambodian boy in need of an open-heart operation.
Children's Hospital Los Angeles has set Sept. 6 as the likely date for the surgery for Bunlak Song, according to Peter Chhun, whose nonprofit is sponsoring the boy.
Bunlak is scheduled to meet with surgeons several days before the surgery. He also will likely need dental work done before the surgery as well, according to Chhun.
The 3-year-old boy, from a small village in Cambodia, suffers from a large hole in his heart called a ventricular septal defect and several other less severe heart defects.
Because of the defect, which shunts blood backwards through the heart and sends oxygenated blood into the lungs, Bunlak suffers from high tension in his lungs, called pulmonary hypertension. Left untreated, it becomes irreversible and the boy is nearing that threshold.
In the United States the defect, which is one of the most common heart ailments in infants, is typically treated in the first year of life.
Bunlak has been unable to receive treatment in Cambodia and was brought by Chhun and his nonprofit, Hearts Without Boundaries, to the U.S.
The boy is the fourth heart patient the group has sponsored. The other three, Davik Teng, Soksamnang Vy and Socheat Nha, all had successful surgeries and have returned to their homeland.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com,
562-499-1291
By Greg Mellen,
Press-Telegram Staff Writer
Posted: 08/11/2011
LONG BEACH - A tentative surgery date has finally been set for an impoverished Cambodian boy in need of an open-heart operation.
Children's Hospital Los Angeles has set Sept. 6 as the likely date for the surgery for Bunlak Song, according to Peter Chhun, whose nonprofit is sponsoring the boy.
Bunlak is scheduled to meet with surgeons several days before the surgery. He also will likely need dental work done before the surgery as well, according to Chhun.
The 3-year-old boy, from a small village in Cambodia, suffers from a large hole in his heart called a ventricular septal defect and several other less severe heart defects.
Because of the defect, which shunts blood backwards through the heart and sends oxygenated blood into the lungs, Bunlak suffers from high tension in his lungs, called pulmonary hypertension. Left untreated, it becomes irreversible and the boy is nearing that threshold.
In the United States the defect, which is one of the most common heart ailments in infants, is typically treated in the first year of life.
Bunlak has been unable to receive treatment in Cambodia and was brought by Chhun and his nonprofit, Hearts Without Boundaries, to the U.S.
The boy is the fourth heart patient the group has sponsored. The other three, Davik Teng, Soksamnang Vy and Socheat Nha, all had successful surgeries and have returned to their homeland.
greg.mellen@presstelegram.com,
562-499-1291
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