Una preciosa historia

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Nurse Loses Heart to Disabled Foundling

Just after midnight on Feb 28 Chen Man, a nurse at Shandong Chengwu Chinese Medical Hospital, received a phone call from her colleague telling her,"Xiao Man, someone has abandoned a newborn baby in the corridor, come and see!"
Chen arrived on the scene to find a baby girl, barely five pounds in weight, with an ulcer on her back, wrapped in a soiled quilt. "I could see from her eyes that she could live, even though she couldn't move. It seemed fate had delivered her into my hands and that I was destined to care of her," Chen recalled.
Chen Man is 22, unmarried, and works as a nurse. Her encounter with this seriously ill abandoned newborn baby girl changed both their lives.

Rumors

"Is this for real? It might actually be her own baby that she's passing off as adopted." This was a common assumption in Chen's neighborhood. It was one of the reasons why her parents were dead set against her adopting Chen Nan, and why her boyfriend broke up with her.
Matters came to a head one day when Chen's father took the baby to a nursing home. Chen was distraught. It seemed to her the bottom had dropped out of her life. "In the end I went to the home and brought my baby home, vowing that I would never give her up no matter what others thought or said. It seemed to me the only thing to do," Chen said.

Bad Prognosis

Chen registered the baby in the hospital under the name Chen Nan, her own family name and the character whose pronunciation is the same as that meaning difficulty and strife. She hoped this name would help the baby overcome her bitter start to life. Chen Nan has a neurological disease known by the lay term of tethered cord syndrome. A surgeon told Chen that even if the infant underwent and survived an operation, she would still be incontinent and in a wheelchair for her entire life. He recommended that Chen give up the idea of treatment and avoid a lifelong burden. But Chen was convinced that there was hope for Chen Nan.
On May 6, Chen found out that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Hospital in Beijing had successfully treated other infants with Chen Nan's condition. Two weeks later, Chen and her parents traveled with the baby from Shandong to Beijing, having borrowed 20,000 yuan for the surgery. After a six-hour operation, Chen Nan's condition had stabilized. When Chen published her adopted baby's story online, sympathetic netizens donated 20,000 yuan, enabling her and her parents to clear their debt.
"I'm moved by her resilience. The operation was a complete success, but full recovery is still unlikely," the surgeon at the Chinese PLA General Hospital told Chen. But, as Chen told him, "I'm not afraid of difficulties. I expect, and will pursue, a miracle."
With the passing of time, the baby has started to smile at Chen, who is more resolved than ever to keep and raise Chen Nan. "I will try my best to bring her up healthy and happy," Chen said.
(Source: Jinghua Times / Translated by womanofchina.cn)

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