Four-year-old Nomin is all smiles as her mother carries her into surgery that will repair her defective heart.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SAMARITAN’S PURSE
Heart repairs Young girl becomes 1,000th patient to receive life-saving heart surgery by SCOTT NOBLE
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REFRESHED | May 2014
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our-year-old Nomin had a congenital heart defect—Tetralogy of Fallot, to be precise. The defect is rare and is caused “by a combination of four heart defects that are present at birth. These defects, which affect the structure of the heart, cause oxygen-poor blood to flow out of the heart and into the rest of the body,” according to the Mayo Clinic website. In Nomin’s case, Tetralogy of Fallot (pronounced ful-LOE) prevented her from walking on her own. Her skin had a blue tinge. Her hands were extremely cold. While other children in her village in Mongolia were running around and playing—typical behavior for kids her age— Nomin had to sit on the sidelines, unable
to participate. Her chances of living to adulthood were slim. Nomin and her family come from a poor area in Mongolia. They have no running water, and they live on the side of a mountain in a yurt, or ger, a rounded tent made of wool. The family faced daily struggles to obtain necessities that most people take for granted. Add to that the heart defect that threatened to take Nomin’s life.
A bleak future
With Nomin’s future and the future of her family looking bleak, she received the breath of hope that would eventually save her life and strengthen the faith of those around her: she was selected by