Henry
Eighteen-year-old Henry and his mother, Flora, traveled a long way from their home in a remote, mountainous town in La Paz. Henry’s mother arrived at Puente de Solidaridad office dressed in the traditional style of Bolivian women from the La Paz region with a large skirt, long braids, and a wide-brimmed hat. They came seeking assistance for Henry’s ailing heart. He looked small and thin for his age, due to years of unattended health problems. They hoped that with this visit, they could finally find a solution.
Henry’s heart story began with a first crisis when he was just eight months old. He was found to have high bilirubin levels and was admitted to the hospital for one month for observation. Around this time, doctors completed the first echocardiogram and identified an underlying cardiac issue. Doctors informed Henry’s parents that he was too small for surgery and that the issue might resolve itself naturally. So, Flora took her infant son back to their remote village and due to distance and economic limitations, they never returned for Henry’s heart check-ups. In the meantime, their family grew. Henry now had three other siblings and his father became sick. Henry’s father was suffering from kidney failure, had to undergo regular dialysis and could not work to support the family.
Henry was thin and small compared to other kids. He wasn’t able to run or physically exert himself. He had dizzy spells and his symptoms got worse at night. These symptoms were getting worse and worse and so Flora made the long trip with him to the hospital in La Paz. There they were introduced to institutions like Herzeverein and Puente de Solidaridad that could provide help with this much-needed surgery. Flora and Henry then traveled to the Puente offices in Cochabamba. Henry would live with his grandmother in Cochabamba while awaiting surgery while his mother returned to La Paz to take care of her ill husband and three other children.
With accompaniment and support from the Puente de Solidaridad team, the medical staff at the Clinica de Los Angeles, and with funding support from generous donors, Henry was finally able to obtain long-overdue surgical care. In December of 2022, Dr. Carlos Brockmann performed the surgery to correct several issues in Henry’s heart. We are hopeful that this operation will have a profound positive impact for Henry and for his entire family.