Helen
Helen’s family lives in Tarija in the southernmost corner of Bolivia near the Argentinian border. Helen’s father, Santo, earns around $150 dollars a month installing and mending barbed wire fences for the vast cattle ranches in the region. Helen has hydrocephalus and requires a special liquid diet. Earlier this year she was hospitalized with pneumonia, and doctors determined she also needed surgery to patch a large hole between her heart chambers. Her parents traveled across the country to Santa Cruz seeking help. As Santo stated, “as a father, one will fight to the end for a child.” Six weeks after surgery, Helen was being treated for liquid retention, but responding well overall.