She needs a new heart to go home

I was sitting in my living room, notebook on my lap, just mulling over stuff... as I'm wont to do on Sunday afternoons when I'm just lazy and sapped of spirit - in anticipation the upcoming working week.

As I counted the things that were wrong with my life, being slightly angry at how I have been held back, held down and wondering how much happier my life would've been if I had been dealt a better hand of cards.

Then I came across this article during my daily dose of news websites. After reading it, all the things I had been fretting about seemed so small, so trivial, so insignificant compared to what this brave little girl goes through each and every day. I realised I'm a whiner, a coward and an idiot.

So in typical sean-the-man fashion, here's my gem of wisdom for the day:

"Be happy, be grateful, for the value of your lot in life is measured by what you make of it. Eat less, laugh more, work out and sleep in. And pick up that phone to call your parents."

Little Ms Tee Hui Yi, I hope you get your new heart very soon and I hope the length of your next visit to KLCC will be to your heart's content. My prayers (unorthodox though they may be) are with you, and god (in whatever guise) bless.

NSTOnline 21 Jan 2007
Rina De Silva
http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/nst/Sunday/National/20070121081313/Article/index_html

KUALA LUMPUR: Tee Hui Yi looks every inch your average teenager but looks can be deceiving. Tee is certainly no ordinary 13-year-old.

And the mini travelling bag which she dragged around at the KLCC park contained a 9kg portable battery to power a mechanical heart which can be seen peeking out from underneath her T-shirt.

Tee is a patient at the National Heart Institute (IJN), and she would have been more than happy to share her remarkable story if anyone had approached her.

"No I don’t feel embarrassed. It is OK," she said while taking a one-and-a-half hour walk around the park.

The walk is part of Tee’s rehabilitation exercise since she was implanted with the mechanical heart on Sept 29.

The device will buy her some time until she gets a new heart. She was diagnosed with end-stage heart failure when she was two years old after suffering from a viral infection.

From then on, she became a regular face at the Batu Pahat Hospital and the IJN.

Tee is the second mechanical heart recipient after 16-year-old Mohd Fikri Nor Azmi. Fikri received a new heart on Dec 16, 2005.

Before starting her walk, she had chatted with reporters while having her breakfast of rice, egg and sambal.

"Which paper are you from? May I know your name?" she asked with great interest.

But behind the friendly smile is an anxious girl waiting desperately for a new heart.

"Please, cari (find a) donor," she said.

Read the rest of the article from the link above.