WE HAVE KIDS IN SURGERY RIGHT NOW! THROUGH THESE STORIES WE'RE INVITING YOU TO BE A PART OF THE NEXT LIFESAVING SOLUTION. GET TO KNOW THESE KIDS & PLEASE GIVE WHAT YOU CAN FOR THE NEXT GROUP!

You Cured Kadeeja!

January 31, 2009 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment

Thanks for all of your collective efforts to cure Kadeeja! You’ve done it! Kadeeja received her surgery and has received a wonderful initial post-op prognosis. Liz Rivas and Blanca Garcia wrote the following after visiting Kadeeja in the hospital in Turkey after their recent photojournalistic sojourn through Iraq with the Preemptive Love Coalition.

I pressed my palm to my heart and said, “Basha?”

Meaning “good”, it was one of only three Kurdish words I had remembered from our short time in Kurdistan (northern Iraq).

Her beautiful smile stayed on her face as she nodded, “Basha.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen… Her family had first learned about her heart problem when she was about 5 years old. And now, at 16, her condition had grown pretty severe, and because of the years she had gone untreated, many feared it was too late to operate…

The first three doctors did in fact refuse to operate, convinced that the surgery would just be too much for her failing heart, and she wouldn’t be able to make it through… But a doctor based in Istanbul had an innovative procedure that he felt could work for Kadeeja.

So she was sent to Istanbul for surgery, and just a week later, when Liz and I visited, she was already out of ICU, smiling and talking and anxious to get back home to her brother and sisters. (There are 13 children total in her family!)

Even though we only visited Kadeeja for a short time, it was amazing to see this miracle sitting right in front of us. And to think of the team of people who have joined together to help and to heal…and God’s amazing power to make the impossible, possible…

Kadeeja Smiles After Surgery

Jeremy Courtney lives and loves in Iraq as a co-founder and Executive Director of the Preemptive Love Coalition. He's also the father of two spectacular children, and married to the lovely Jessica Courtney. When not absorbed in PLC work he can be found writing songs and singing about hope and future.

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PLC Named in Chad Cress’s Interview in GOOD Magazine

January 27, 2009 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment

Special thanks to Chad Cress for the shout-out in his recent interview with GOOD Magazine. Check out some of Chad’s amazing pictures and narrative in his recent Q&A with GOOD here.

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PLC’s Buy Shoes. Save Lives. Klash in GOOD Magazine

January 26, 2009 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment

Thanks to all the kind folks at GOOD magazine for the generous inclusion of PLC’s one-of-a-kind life-saving KLASH - hand-made by the Kurds of Iraq.

PLC's Life-saving Klash in GOOD Magazine (Nov/Dec 2008)

Klash in the Oct/Nov 2008 issue of GOOD Magazine

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Hussein’s Story

January 8, 2009 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment

Hussein, a 3 year old with bright brown eyes, has been one of our more urgent cases and one we’ve been trying to raise funds for very quickly. You may have seen the banner “Save Hussein”. Here’s his story:

November 2nd- Hussein is often short of breath, and although his adorable smiles in these pictures do not show it, he will occasionally simply run out of energy and cry as his mother holds him awhile. His case is quite urgent; the diagnosis is DTGA, meaning he will undergo an operation to switch his great arteries of his heart. His mother is very anxious for him to get the surgery done. As we talked tonight about what it will be like for them at the treatment center, such as the food, and the room where they will stay, she humbly and with tears in her eyes said, “I don’t care if I have only tea and bread, just help my son have his operation.”

November 6th- During one of Hussein’s initial exams, while the doctors asked for some family medical history, his mother shared that her oldest daughter had died of a heart problem in Iraq, as the doctors there could do nothing for her. We can’t really imagine what she must be going through as Hussein is now also approaching treatment.

December 17th- Hussein undergoes a 7 hour surgery, but the surgeons weren’t able to complete the artery switch. Stress is high for his mother and she hasn’t been sleeping at night.

December 18th- Hussein’s 2nd surgery is successful. As soon as his mother sees him recovering in the ICU she notes how pink his skin is and how high his oxygen levels were reading. His heart is finally working properly!

December 24th- Hussein is blooming before our eyes! He’s playing with his mom and making great progress in healing. Now that Hussein is on his way to full recovery, the relief and joy in his mom is so evident.

January 13th- Hussein and his mother finally depart the treatment center and make their way back home to Iraq. What a long road this has been for them and their family. They return to Iraq with very joyful news and a very healthy son!

Thanks for helping us “Save Hussein”. For this 3 year old- it meant everything.

Filed under: Amazed, Heart Surgery, News, Our Kids, surgery updates

Welcome to the Coalition, Anadolu Sağlık Merkezi

January 7, 2009 by Jeremy · Leave a Comment

The Preemptive Love Coalition is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Anadolu Sağlık Merkezi. Located in the suburbs of Istanbul, Turkey, ASM is a new, state-of-the-art, not-for-profit hospital system affiliated with Johns Hopkins Medicine and supported by the Anadolu Group, one of Turkey’s leading conglomerates.

The doctors, administrators and staff at ASM are eager to pursue a long-term partnership with PLC to eradicate the backlog of over 3,000 Iraqi children on a waiting list for heart-saving surgery.

Because of the quality and capacities of this hospital, PLC will now be able to send more than twice as many children a month as we are currently able to send. (Of course, we’ll also need to more than double the funding that we have available to take full advantage of this opportunity as well.)

We hope to send our first group of kids to surgery at ASM in early February 2009 and then will hopefully steadily increase the number of children going to surgery there as our financial and personnel resources expand.