Chen Tianfu could not hold back tears yesterday after surgeons declared his 7-year-old son's 8-hour heart operation a success.
Chen Xiaorui suffers from an extremely rare congenital heart defect, and it was the first time such an operation had been attempted at Chengdu's No 452 People's Liberation Army Hospital.
"My son's main heart artery and pulmonary artery have grown in the wrong places. His main heart artery is where his pulmonary artery should be, while his pulmonary artery is where his main heart artery should be," said Xiaorui's 36-year-old father, a farmer from Dujiangyan, a city about 60 kilometers from Chengdu.
Xu Weimin is head of the hospital's cardiology department.
"There are less than 10 such cases in the country every year, and Chen Xiaorui's is the first case in Chengdu," he said.
Chen Xiaorui is a first-grader in Shiyang Town in Dujiangyan. He was diagnosed as suffering from congenital heart disease four years ago when he was treated for pneumonia at the Chengdu Children's Hospital. But his family were initially unable to pay for treatment for the defect.
His father Chen Tianfu is a lover of traditional Chinese paintings and his artistic ability earned him the nickname "country painter" in his home village.
"I have dreamed of becoming a professional painter. But ever since my son was diagnosed as suffering from this rare disease, I have given up the dream and instead drawn pictures to earn money to treat his disease," Chen told China Daily.
Chen excels in drawing birds and louts flowers. Every day after he sent his son to school, he would do farm work.
When his son went to bed at night, he would draw pictures of birds and lotus flowers. "I hope my son's life will be as brilliant as a blossoming lotus. That's what I have strived for in the past four years," he said.
"I would sell a picture even though the buyer only offered 30 yuan (US$3.6), because I had to raise 60,000 yuan (US$7,246) for the operation."
When he took his son to the hospital in Chengdu last Friday, his story of selling pictures to save his son moved the staff of the army hospital so much that they decided to give a 20,000 yuan (US$2,415) discount and charge him only 40,000 yuan (US$4,831).
Chen Xiaorui's operation required a blood vessel transplant and staff sought nationwide for a donor before finally finding a 10-centimetre vessel in Shanghai.
The blood vessel was stored in liquid nitrogen and flown from Shanghai at six o'clock yesterday morning.
Describing the operation, Xu said: "We built a bridge between his heart and lung to ensure smooth blood flow."
Last night, Chen Xiaorui was recovering in the hospital's Intensive Care Unit. Staff expect him to be moved to an ordinary ward in a few days.
"We are optimistic that he will grow up to be a healthy boy," Xu said.
(China Daily July 1, 2005)
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