Little Nur's only hope is a new heart

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http://www.yourhealth.com.sg/content/little-nurs-only-hope-new-heart

When The New Paper visited Madam Norleen Osman's one-room flat in Ang Mo Kio a week ago, the child sleeping in the middle of the room started to cry.

When Madam Norleen, 33, propped up the little girl on her lap for the interview, she would not stop screaming.

The housewife felt the need to apologise on her only daughter's behalf. She and her 28-year-old husband also have three sons, aged 16, 14 and one.

"I'm sorry," she said. "She's on morphine right now. She's very cranky."

Four-year-old Adlea Ry'Kyla Muhammad Ghazali, known affectionately by her loved ones as Nur, was diagnosed with myocarditis in 2010, when she was admitted into KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) for vomiting blood.

Myocarditis, simply put, is an inflammation of the heart, commonly caused by a viral infection.

Nur was just a year and seven months old then.

Now, only "six per cent" of her heart is still functioning.

The stark truth facing her parents: Unless Nur gets a new heart soon, she will die. Said Madam Norleen: "The doctors aren't even talking about years or months. They're talking about weeks."

Nur's only hope is a heart transplant in a country where paediatric heart transplants are not available.

Associate professor Wong Keng Yean, senior consultant of KKH's cardiology service in the department of paediatric subspecialties, told TNP that there is currently "no heart transplant programme for children as young as Nur available in Singapore".

More HERE and HERE.