Sep 01, 2008 - 04:07:49 CDT
At 9:30 every night, Ali Al-Azawi goes to the Ronald McDonald House phone in Bismarck and dials an international call.As soon as Iman Hamid Hammood's husband picks up to talk to Hammood, Al-Azawi can go home. It's 6:30 a.m. in Iraq.
In the United States, Al-Azawi is her voice, acting as interpreter for Hammood and her son, Mohammed Raad Adnan, age 9. The mother and son are in the United States for medical treatment for Mohammed.
Dressed in an Incredible Hulk T-shirt and cargo shorts, Mohammed could be any young boy. He giggles when other people try saying a word in Arabic, then repeats it for them. He crouches around his mother and Al-Azawi as his picture gets taken. He smiles at his mother as they talk.
Mohammed holds up five fingers on one hand, then four fingers on the other to indicate his age. He can say his age in Arabic, but hasn't mastered it in English. Yet. He's learned a few words since he came to the United States. When Al-Azawi tells him what someone said, he tries to use those new words.
Mohammed can't get the surgery he needs at home for a urology birth defect. But one of the outcomes of the War on Terror is a process that made it possible for children like Mohammed to come to the United States. That help also took a Bismarck doctor who served in Iraq.
"We were waiting and one day we got a call, and he got approved and we go to the United States,"Hammood said through Al-Azawi.
Medical care is part of the rebuilding efforts in Iraq by way of clinics set up by the military. One of those is Smith Gate Clinic, a burn clinic for children that has received support from the Bismarck community through Bismarck physician Dr. Craig Lambrecht, who helped out at Smith Gate while stationed in Iraq with the North Dakota Army National Guard.
"They (soldiers) have families at home; they're gone for a year," Lambrecht said. "They're family people. They see happy kids like Mohammed, with incredible problems. They (the kids) have an emotional impact."
Lambrecht is a proponent of the clinic and the medically needy children of Iraq. When a child comes into a clinic with a life-threatening or life-altering condition, sometimes a surgeon can fix it. Other times, doctors like Lambrecht are called to try and line up doctors to provide the treatment for free at a facility that can best help the child's particular need.
This will be the sixth Iraqi family to be helped with a medical need through the Medcenter One Smith Gate Fund, which also supports the burn clinic in Iraq. Surgeons from Medcenter One will perform the boy's corrective surgery Sept. 4, the first time a child has come to Bismarck for care.
Mohammed has a birth defect that caused his bladder to form outside his pelvis. Without the surgery, Mohammed would not have been able to go to school. Ultimately, he could get an infection that could kill him, Lambrecht said.
"He's so well socialized, but going into adolescence, there would have been implications," Lambrecht said.
Hammood and her son tried for three years to get approval to come to the United States for this surgery. It takes time to get a family in a war zone approved for travel, Lambrecht said. He and an official at the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait helped the family get the necessary documents.
It helped that Mohammed's mother, and not his father, accompanied him. Paperwork for Iraqi men takes longer to be processed and the government would prefer the mother, rather than the father, to come, Lambrecht said.
Mohammed is the second oldest of five children. Hammood also has two daughters, ages 5 and 1, and two sons, ages 10 and 6. His family has lived for many generations in a small village in Iraq of about 300 people, about an hour from the nearest town.
Hammood and her husband, who is a taxi driver, live on a farm with their children and her husband's three brothers and their wives and children. That's between 15 and 20 people living in a home.
Here, they have gone to the zoo and eaten out at restaurants since arriving in Bismarck in late August, and a boat trip on the river is planned.
Of her son, Hammood says, "It's important I cook for him and wash his clothes and that he's having fun."
They've had to adjust to some things: Hammood called Al-Azawi one night because she was scared about two male volunteers who watch the Ronald McDonald House at night. Mohammed discovered the spray nozzle on the sink and surprised one of the house supervisors.
But some people have helped remind them of home. Al-Azawi had them over and cooked an Iraqi meal for them. Rola Koleilat, wife of local surgeon Nadim Koleilat, has spent time with Hammood.
Then there is an Iraqi woman who lives in Bismarck and has no family in the United States. She found out Hammood was in town and came to visit her. She has visited or called her every day since.
The Medcenter One Foundation also is accepting items to help the family while they are in town. They could use international calling cards, toiletries, grocery store gift cards and other store gift cards to help with items like clothing. Donations would also help cover the $70 per week lodging fee at the Ronald McDonald House and money for meals for Hammood while Mohammed is in the hospital.
To donate to the family, send a check to the Medcenter One Foundation and write "Mohammed" on the memo line of the check; send the donation to Medcenter One Foundation, 300 N. Seventh St., Bismarck, N.D. 58506.
The Medcenter One Foundation Smith Gate Fund is taking donations to help the clinic and families like Mohammed get treatment in the United States. A donation can be made to the Foundation for the Smith Gate fund by specifying "Smith Gate" on the payment.
(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@bismarcktribune.com.)
unbelievable wrote on Sep 2, 2008 3:05 AM:
Craig Lambrecht wrote on Sep 1, 2008 9:59 PM:
questionable wrote on Sep 1, 2008 9:58 PM:
Annie wrote on Sep 1, 2008 7:24 PM:
Annie wrote on Sep 1, 2008 7:20 PM:
i agree, i think is i good we are helping this child but at the sacrifce of our own people. just a note. husbands job changed insurnace we have to have 2500 deducatable before anything is covered, that pretty much means, i can't afford to go to the doctor or get all my meds i need. i think we should help our own people 1st. JUST A THOUGHT "
unbelievable wrote on Sep 1, 2008 1:46 PM:
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