By Elizabethe Holland
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/16/2007
One year ago, a tiny, malnourished 15-month-old boy from Baghdad came to St. Louis in need of surgery and medical care that he couldn't receive in his war-torn country.

On Sunday, the boy will head home to Iraq looking and feeling nothing like the child who likely would have died had his parents decided against accepting help from strangers across the world.

While in Iraq, the boy, Karar, was tentatively diagnosed with Hirschsprung's disease, a disorder in which nerve cells are missing from the wall of the bowel. As part of his treatment, he was given a colostomy, in which an artificial anal opening is formed from the colon. But when Karar began suffering complications, his Iraqi doctors were unable to provide the care he needed.

The Missouri chapter of Healing the Children, an organization that operates on the premise that geography should not determine whether a child can receive medical care, learned about Karar and worked to bring him and his mother, Lubna, to St. Louis last September. (Lubna has asked that the family's last name not be published due to fear of retaliation in Iraq.)

The organization has shepherded the two ever since, helping to arrange for needs of all sorts, including housing and medical care, the latter of which was donated by Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center in St. Louis and the Ranken Jordan pediatric specialty hospital in Maryland Heights.

In Karar's year here, he has been transformed into a healthy, energetic "little ham," said Kathy Corbett, executive director of Missouri's Healing the Children.

Dr. Marty Keller, Cardinal Glennon's chief of pediatric surgery, oversaw Karar's treatment, which involved six operations. The most significant surgery involved removing the boy's colon and training his small bowel to do the work of both. Karar, who was confirmed to have Hirschsprung's disease, no longer has to use a colostomy bag and has responded wonderfully to the operations, Keller said.

"I want to tell him thank you so much," said Lubna, who gave Keller cookies and a photo of her son at Karar's final visit with the doctor. "Karar is a big boy now. ... My son is healthy -- not like before."

Corbett's group has been working to ensure that a specialized formula Karar needs reaches him in Baghdad via delivery to the city's heavily fortified Green Zone.

"Logistically, it's been a little crazy, but we want to assure his health and not just say, 'Goodbye,'" Corbett said.

It will take Karar and his mother two days to reach home. Karar hasn't seen his father since he left Iraq but knows his father's face, through a photograph. Karar's father, a factory worker in Baghdad, is "beside himself" at being able to see his son again, Corbett said.

Corbett said it's difficult to see Karar and Lubna depart, especially since they are returning to a country at war. "But we try to focus on the fact that he's going back with newfound health and hope," she said. "We are sending back a healthy child to a family that is waiting anxiously."

Earlier this week, many of those who volunteered to help Karar gathered for a farewell party at HavenHouse St. Louis. For the past 10 months, Karar and Lubna have lived at the low-cost facility for families who travel to St. Louis to receive medical care for their children.

The party brought together people of Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths, Corbett pointed out.

"It was a coming together of different people who had taken different roles, all focusing on this little boy," she said, "and all wanting to get that last hug from Karar."

close window