Hope and Healing: The Inspiring Journey of Zainab Abdulaziz Al-Faraj and Her Half Heart

2023-10-03 12:22:12

A Saudi medical team supervised her treatment

Yes, with half a heart, the child Zainab Abdulaziz Al-Faraj was born from Qatif Governorate in a very rare condition with an incidence rate of 0.002% worldwide, beginning for Zainab and her family a story full of hope after pain, filling it with many mixed feelings between shock and acceptance, happiness and sadness, anxiety, struggle and patience.

A coincidence brought together “Deira Bay” with Umm Zainab, as she interacted with a post on the newspaper’s account on the social networking program “Instagram” that told the story of the citizen ( “Hisham Al-Ahmad,” the right-winger )

To write about the wonders of God’s kindness to her daughter Zainab, whose heart anatomy astonished doctors, leaving them at a loss to deal with it for treatment.

Giving birth with mixed feelings…

Afrah Al-Nimr, mother of 5-year-old Zainab; Zainab gave birth approximately 5 years after giving birth to two completely healthy sons; She prepared for pregnancy psychologically and healthily. She did not take medications or painkillers and was keen to stick to a diet, but gestational diabetes struck her in the sixth month of pregnancy, and the rest of the tests, including tests and x-rays, were fine, while she was waiting for the birth at the beginning of the ninth month to avoid complications of gestational diabetes.

In September 2018, while she was visiting the hospital, it was noticed that her fetus’s heart rate had decreased. The doctors decided to perform a caesarean section, and God blessed her with her beautiful child, Zainab, in happy moments that overwhelmed her and the family… It was limited, perhaps within 24 hours, as Afrah felt that her daughter was having difficulty breathing and breastfeeding, so she was admitted to intensive care for tests. Kamila began with feelings of anxiety and tension that ended with the shock that her one-day-old daughter, Zainab, was born with half a heart and many rare heart defects.

3 operations initially…

The doctors told Zainab’s family at that time that she needed 3 open-heart surgeries to be able to live with half a heart, and that these surgeries were not a radical treatment, but were only intended to improve her health condition… They also sadly informed them that she would not live her life normally… Painful moments, many thoughts, and questions that the family went through with a number of… Consultant Cardiologist; Some people told them to leave Zainab to God’s mercy without operations due to the low probability of her success, while people’s words depicted another sadness and greater wound by saying (Leave her, your life will not be normal… Leave her to – may God have mercy on him – and you will give birth to others).

First operation

The baby Zainab was transferred to King Abdulaziz University Hospital in Jeddah, which specializes in pediatric heart surgery. May God bless Zainab’s family with an elite group of the most qualified doctors there and encourage them to be patient with her treatment. The first operation was performed and many difficult complications occurred for her. For 5 months, they were between home and intensive care, and their world was different from everything else. Every night, Umm Zainab drowned her carpet and pillow with tears and melted with sadness at seeing the deep surgical line in the hollow of Zainab’s chest and stomach, according to what she narrated. Zainab is between life and death, and no one knows whether she will survive these operations and their complications or not.

Process follow-up…

During her medical journey, the child Zainab underwent a second operation in which she faced difficulties and complications, as the heart stopped twice and she was resuscitated each time. Zainab spent the first year of her life in hospitals, and in care and recovery rooms. Then she had a third operation and it went well, but Zainab was admitted to the hospital 3 months later with complications. Others, with very long events and situations that cannot fit within pages.

Signs of hope

The first treatment plan was completed with 3 heart surgeries and three catheters to change the blood circulation, so that she could live with half a heart during the first 3 years of her life – thanks to God – and His grace. She is currently enjoying health stability as a normal child who lives her childhood and her life with love, with many caveats in order to stabilize her health while taking medications for life. And the necessity of following up on her ongoing examinations with the cardiologist due to many possibilities, including her need for other operations or the need for a new heart transplant in case her heart health deteriorates in the future (God forbid). The comprehensive analyzes of Zainab and her parents confirmed that the disease is a genetic defect that has nothing to do with pregnancy or genetic diseases, so there is no connection. Relationship between parents.

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Husband, father and support…

Zainab’s family lives in Jeddah, and due to their alienation and distance from their family in Qatif, they need a lot of solidarity and solidarity, and they were the best example of that. Abdulaziz, Zainab’s father, took full responsibility for the children, while Zainab’s mother devoted herself to caring for Zainab and spending all the time with her in the hospital during treatment periods to take care of her health.

Job challenge

Suffering did not stand in the way of Afrah Al-Nimr, Zainab’s mother. She completed her studies in business administration after studying some medical secretarial work, which helped her read medical reports after her birth. She now works as a financial accounting employee at a university. Due to her circumstances and her frequent stay in the hospital, holding on to the job was one of the difficult challenges. .

With prayer and arming yourself with knowledge…

And you think that the matter is difficult, and beyond your endurance and ability… until if you are placed facing him in front of him, windows that you do not know open for you, and his hardship becomes easy, and the hard one becomes soft… Umm Zainab says: “I became attached to supplication and monologue, and I educated myself, and studied her illness in all its details, and I pledged myself to I increase my energy to improve her health and care for her so that she can live a happy life and in better health at the age that God decrees for her because I have realized that caring for her gives us the stability of her health.”

Hope page

Umm Zainab took it upon herself to provide aid and assistance to those who may be suffering from a situation like Zainab’s or perhaps similar to it, or who may be suffering in their health life and in need of a glimmer of hope, so she opened a page on the social networking program “Instagram” and colored it with pictures of Zainab’s life and deposited in it the medical information she possessed about the nature of the disease. Her daughter fell ill, and she wrote her story, with all its strengths and weaknesses, in a beautiful summary of the educational, educational, psychological, and visual aspects, so that it would be an experience rich in benefit, beauty, struggle, and hope.

Umm Zainab says: “I know that sharing the experience with people in all its details is not an easy thing, but rather requires determination and patience, and what kept me going is that Zainab’s story became a window of hope for many people and a touch of optimism, and (a hand patted) on the shoulder of every family to encourage them not to give up and to continue.” Searching to find the appropriate treatment, taking patience and trusting in God as a method.”

She adds: “This page was not only beneficial to people, but it added a lot to me and improved my psychological health because I found many cases living like Zainab’s case, and this was for me an outlet and consolation for every setback. Also, through my page I found many similar cases around the world, and the largest case is from the country (the Emirates). United Arab Emirates) is a 40-year-old woman who later needed a heart transplant.

thanks and gratitude

Afrah Al-Nimr, the half-hearted mother of Zainab Al-Faraj, concluded her interview with the Deira Khaleej newspaper with her and her husband’s great gratitude to the team of Saudi doctors who participated in treating her daughter’s condition. She was keen to provide us with their names, praising their humanity and high efficiency in treating this rare condition, and they are:

The surgeon, Dr. Othman Al-Radi, performed 3 open-heart surgeries on Zainab.
Dr. Jamil Al-Atta, Dr. Saud Bahaidrah, and Dr. Nayef Al-Qashi – performed cardiac catheterizations, two exploratory catheterizations, and an emergency therapeutic catheterization.
Follow-up of the treatment progress: Dr. Jamil Atta and Dr. Zaher Al Zaher.

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