Karen Chiriboga is a young, 25-year old mother. She anxiously awaited the birth of her fourth son. However her baby´s life was in danger at birth because a sizable tumor was detected in his chest. Thanks to an opportune reaction from The Enrique C. Sotomayor Gynaeco-Obstretics Hospital and the Dr. Roberto Gilbert Children´s Hospital, little Jeremias is receiving free of charge treatment which has saved his life.
Due to a lack of financial resources, Karen, since she found out she was pregnant, has done irregular pre-natal control at the Guasmo Maternity, an area where she lives with her husband and children. She recalls being well attended to, but when an eco was performed "they told me the baby showed some unidentifiable deformity", she says.
Filled with fear and anxiety, but upholding her faith in God and a mother´s love, Karen persevered with her pregnancy.
At the moment of birth, due to the uncertainty regarding her baby and for the greater security of both, she was derived to the Enrique C. Sotomayor Hospital, belonging to La Junta de Beneficencia de Guayaquil, where she gave birth to little Jeremias.
After giving birth the Doctors detected the baby had a huge chest tumor and was immediately transferred to the Roberto Gilbert Hospital to be attended to by specialists.
The young mother experienced health complications on finding out the terrible news. Her eyes welled up with tears recalling she first met her son ten days after birth, when surgery had already been performed. Her husband would tell her "there is little hope for the baby who is almost in agony."
Karen recalls that on arriving at intensive care "I approached a crib without knowing it was his, but my maternal instincts told me that little warrior was my son, whereupon I began telling him we loved him and that he had to live. It was then he gave me his first smile which moved me to tears".
The probabilities for Jeremias to get better today are greater. At four months of age he has already been through two surgeries and a procedure to extract liquid from the tumor to apply bleomedicine on it, an antibiotic which stops or slows down cancer cell growth in the body.
