Help Dan Le to hear and speak
Donation protected
Dear friends, family, and associates,
I’d like to share with you a beautiful opportunity to make an incredible difference in the life of the little girl sitting on my lap in this picture.
Her name is Dan Le, and she’s the younger sister of the other girl in the photo, whose is named Lanh. I began sponsoring Lanh back in March of 2009, when she was just 2 ½ years old, through what was then called Christian Children’s Fund (now known as ChildFund International).
Dan Le was born almost four years after I started the sponsorship, and because of my kind support of funds, gifts, and letters to Lanh, the family thought it a pleasant honor to name their new little girl after me.
Last April, I received a letter from Lanh’s mother, who in passing made a comment that the family was very sad to have eventually found out that Dan Le was born deaf… so she will also be mute, since hearing is of course necessary in order to learn how to speak.
Obviously, being a deaf mute can severely impact her chances of having much normalcy, limiting her ability to attend school and therefore to have employment options or a significant quality of life. The family lives in a very small farming village in a remote part of northwestern Vietnam and her outlook is even more dire because of the limited resources available there.
Dan Le had just recently turned 3 years old, and it was very important that sounds get to her brain during these early years of her cognitive development, or it would be difficult for her to learn to speak later in life even if she were able to get some artificial hearing assistance.
I’ve spent the last year working to get a treatment plan in place.
Over the course of the next few months, I gathered information on the history of Dan Le’s condition, and learned that she had recently been fitted with hearing aids; however, in her local community, there were not any specialists that could advise the family on how to assess her prognosis.
I also contacted another nonprofit called The Global Foundation For Children With Hearing Loss, and together we were eventually able to get Dan Le evaluated at the National Pediatric ENT Hospital in Hanoi last September and again with specialists in both audiology and speech evaluation in October (by the way, it’s a bumpy three hour bus ride from Dan Le’s village to Hanoi).
The results of these evaluations indicated that she has a profound congenital hearing loss and can only hear certain limited frequencies of sound, even with the hearing aids on the highest setting.
I’ve now just returned from a busy week in Vietnam, where I was able to continue the evaluations that we started last fall. I flew Dan Le and her mother down to Danang to meet with staff from The Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss who were in Vietnam that week doing clinics for local practitioners. We did a full assessment of hearing and speech to compare these to the baseline results done last October at the Pediatric ENT Hospital in Hanoi.
Later that week, I then met with both parents and Dan Le in Hanoi with the hospital’s audiologist (Dr. Ha) and speech therapist (Ms. Linh). We also evaluated CT Scan and MRI to determine the condition of Dan Le’s inner ear.
It was determined that her hearing hadn’t regressed since last fall, but she is still not hearing a large range of certain sound frequencies, and the doctors said that she would not be able to develop speaking skills solely with the use of hearing aids.
Now for the good news... Dan Le is a candidate for a Cochlear Implant, which as you may know is a device which mechanically simulates the deficient part of the ear, thus allowing for a person to develop (almost) normal hearing capabilities.
I would like to share with you a letter the mother wrote to me in July as I was working to get help for Dan Le (translated of course from Vietnamese into English by ChildFund).
Ky Son, July 20, 2016
Dear Sponsor Dan,
We are happy to receive your letter. As we read it, we feel encouraged and confident. We are thankful for your care for our daughters over the years.
Since Lanh and Dan Le have you as a sponsor, reading what you wrote in the letters, we think an angel has brought you to our family. You give us so much inspiration and hope. We can be more confident to believe in a brighter future. We are ready to fight with her. I believe what has upset me for too long will pass.
I really want her to be able to say "mother" by herself, which is still difficult now. I was born into a mountainous family. I myself did not have good condition for study and cannot afford her treatment. It might be hard to cure Dan Le but we believe everything will be fine.
Because she is unable to hear, the doctor advised that we implant supporting device as soon as possible. Then she will be able to listen and speak. She will then go to school like every other child.
We are thankful for your care and support. Thank you very much.
With love,
Bui Thi Lien
Lanh's mother
I often think of a line from a song that goes, “Above all things, if kindness is your king, then heaven will be yours, before you meet your end”.
After nearly a year of effort, I would like to invite you to join me in giving this little girl the gift of hearing and more importantly of having the ability to speak so she can lead a normal life and grow up to have options that will allow her a joyous life.
The goal will be to provide the cochlear implant surgery at the earliest possible opportunity.
The costs that I’ve received from the Pediatric ENT Hospital are approximately $1000 for the surgery itself, $25,000 for the cochlear implant device (we’ve selected a Cochlear brand Nucleus 6 if you’re inclined to look it up), and then an additional $4000 - $6000 for the follow up care expenses to include mapping, trips for the family to and from Hanoi on a weekly basis following the surgery for the first six months, and any additional items that may be required.
I will then continue to fund this little girl’s needs for as long as necessary as things arise with respect to repairs, adjustments, new hardware, etc.
This is such a wonderful project, I’d rather not keep it all to myself... and I’m so happy to be able to share with you the gift of helping this beautiful little girl… and the joy and fulfillment that it will bring you to participate in something so meaningful and profound.
To help this little person who will otherwise have a very bleak future to be able to hear and speak and lead a normal life is maybe one of the greatest gifts we can offer.
This will be an amazing journey, one that will last her entire lifetime, and I encourage and welcome you to join me in it.
In closing, I’d like to share with you a picture taken during my recent trip, in the same room as the above picture taken exactly three years before... this one with a message of Thanks from Lanh.
I’d like to share with you a beautiful opportunity to make an incredible difference in the life of the little girl sitting on my lap in this picture.
Her name is Dan Le, and she’s the younger sister of the other girl in the photo, whose is named Lanh. I began sponsoring Lanh back in March of 2009, when she was just 2 ½ years old, through what was then called Christian Children’s Fund (now known as ChildFund International).
Dan Le was born almost four years after I started the sponsorship, and because of my kind support of funds, gifts, and letters to Lanh, the family thought it a pleasant honor to name their new little girl after me.
Last April, I received a letter from Lanh’s mother, who in passing made a comment that the family was very sad to have eventually found out that Dan Le was born deaf… so she will also be mute, since hearing is of course necessary in order to learn how to speak.
Obviously, being a deaf mute can severely impact her chances of having much normalcy, limiting her ability to attend school and therefore to have employment options or a significant quality of life. The family lives in a very small farming village in a remote part of northwestern Vietnam and her outlook is even more dire because of the limited resources available there.
Dan Le had just recently turned 3 years old, and it was very important that sounds get to her brain during these early years of her cognitive development, or it would be difficult for her to learn to speak later in life even if she were able to get some artificial hearing assistance.
I’ve spent the last year working to get a treatment plan in place.
Over the course of the next few months, I gathered information on the history of Dan Le’s condition, and learned that she had recently been fitted with hearing aids; however, in her local community, there were not any specialists that could advise the family on how to assess her prognosis.
I also contacted another nonprofit called The Global Foundation For Children With Hearing Loss, and together we were eventually able to get Dan Le evaluated at the National Pediatric ENT Hospital in Hanoi last September and again with specialists in both audiology and speech evaluation in October (by the way, it’s a bumpy three hour bus ride from Dan Le’s village to Hanoi).
The results of these evaluations indicated that she has a profound congenital hearing loss and can only hear certain limited frequencies of sound, even with the hearing aids on the highest setting.
I’ve now just returned from a busy week in Vietnam, where I was able to continue the evaluations that we started last fall. I flew Dan Le and her mother down to Danang to meet with staff from The Global Foundation for Children with Hearing Loss who were in Vietnam that week doing clinics for local practitioners. We did a full assessment of hearing and speech to compare these to the baseline results done last October at the Pediatric ENT Hospital in Hanoi.
Later that week, I then met with both parents and Dan Le in Hanoi with the hospital’s audiologist (Dr. Ha) and speech therapist (Ms. Linh). We also evaluated CT Scan and MRI to determine the condition of Dan Le’s inner ear.
It was determined that her hearing hadn’t regressed since last fall, but she is still not hearing a large range of certain sound frequencies, and the doctors said that she would not be able to develop speaking skills solely with the use of hearing aids.
Now for the good news... Dan Le is a candidate for a Cochlear Implant, which as you may know is a device which mechanically simulates the deficient part of the ear, thus allowing for a person to develop (almost) normal hearing capabilities.
I would like to share with you a letter the mother wrote to me in July as I was working to get help for Dan Le (translated of course from Vietnamese into English by ChildFund).
Ky Son, July 20, 2016
Dear Sponsor Dan,
We are happy to receive your letter. As we read it, we feel encouraged and confident. We are thankful for your care for our daughters over the years.
Since Lanh and Dan Le have you as a sponsor, reading what you wrote in the letters, we think an angel has brought you to our family. You give us so much inspiration and hope. We can be more confident to believe in a brighter future. We are ready to fight with her. I believe what has upset me for too long will pass.
I really want her to be able to say "mother" by herself, which is still difficult now. I was born into a mountainous family. I myself did not have good condition for study and cannot afford her treatment. It might be hard to cure Dan Le but we believe everything will be fine.
Because she is unable to hear, the doctor advised that we implant supporting device as soon as possible. Then she will be able to listen and speak. She will then go to school like every other child.
We are thankful for your care and support. Thank you very much.
With love,
Bui Thi Lien
Lanh's mother
I often think of a line from a song that goes, “Above all things, if kindness is your king, then heaven will be yours, before you meet your end”.
After nearly a year of effort, I would like to invite you to join me in giving this little girl the gift of hearing and more importantly of having the ability to speak so she can lead a normal life and grow up to have options that will allow her a joyous life.
The goal will be to provide the cochlear implant surgery at the earliest possible opportunity.
The costs that I’ve received from the Pediatric ENT Hospital are approximately $1000 for the surgery itself, $25,000 for the cochlear implant device (we’ve selected a Cochlear brand Nucleus 6 if you’re inclined to look it up), and then an additional $4000 - $6000 for the follow up care expenses to include mapping, trips for the family to and from Hanoi on a weekly basis following the surgery for the first six months, and any additional items that may be required.
I will then continue to fund this little girl’s needs for as long as necessary as things arise with respect to repairs, adjustments, new hardware, etc.
This is such a wonderful project, I’d rather not keep it all to myself... and I’m so happy to be able to share with you the gift of helping this beautiful little girl… and the joy and fulfillment that it will bring you to participate in something so meaningful and profound.
To help this little person who will otherwise have a very bleak future to be able to hear and speak and lead a normal life is maybe one of the greatest gifts we can offer.
This will be an amazing journey, one that will last her entire lifetime, and I encourage and welcome you to join me in it.
In closing, I’d like to share with you a picture taken during my recent trip, in the same room as the above picture taken exactly three years before... this one with a message of Thanks from Lanh.
Organizer
Dan McBurney
Organizer
Atlanta, GA
