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DEL.ICIO.USFear, future weigh on Baby Noor’s family
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Abu Ghraib, Iraq — Family members of Noor al-Zahra, the baby with a birth defect who underwent lifesaving surgery in Atlanta this week, said Tuesday they were considering moving because of possible retribution by anti-American insurgents.
The family also told soldiers from the Gainesville-based 48th Brigade Combat Team they were worried that they would not be able to provide a lifetime of care for Noor, who doctors expect will be paralyzed from the waist down and will have limited control of her bowels and bladder.
Noor’s grandfather, Khalaf, said the family realized Noor would need specialized care when she returned to Iraq.
But the local hospital in Abu Ghraib is sparsely stocked and has no facilities to treat the kinds of problems Noor might develop.
In the past, soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment’s Charlie Company have helped stock the pharmacy shelves with their own supplies.
Noor’s family may have to take her into Baghdad, where hospitals have better resources.
“She’s likely to need a pediatrician, at least on an annual basis,” said Maj. Susan Robinson, an Army doctor at Camp Liberty who examined Noor before she left for Atlanta.
“Iraq has a lot of good doctors. It’s a matter of getting their facilities together.”
Surgeons at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which is treating Noor for free, plan to decide today whether to proceed with a second surgery.
They performed a scan Tuesday to check for a buildup of fluid in the baby’s head, common in such cases, but found none, hospital officials said.
Doctors plan to continue monitoring her for evidence of fluid accumulation and will perform surgery today to insert a shunt to drain fluid if they find any buildup. Noor could remain in the hospital for several more days.
In Abu Ghraib, Noor’s mother, Iman, looked at Atlanta Journal-Constitution photographs of her little girl taken Monday after Dr. Roger Hudgins and a colleague removed a growth from her back.
Iman smiled in amazement, showing the photo to several of her sisters-in-law.
“I am very happy that it [the growth] was removed,” Iman said. “I am grateful to the Americans. But I am still very worried for my baby.”
She said she understood that Noor would likely be in a wheelchair and need extra care.
“But at least this is life, not death,” Iman said.
Noor was born in September with a severe form of spina bifida. Her spinal cord had not fully closed during Iman’s pregnancy.
Iman said she wished she could be with Noor but that the family decided it was not proper for a young Iraqi woman to travel so far from home.
“I can take care of Noor. I am her mother,” Iman said. “But about medicine, about money, there is nothing I can do.”
Khalaf said his family was of modest means. He asked Sgt. 1st Class Michael Sonen about setting up a cash flow from donations in the United States to his bank account here.
He said Noor’s father, Haider, who accompanied his daughter to Atlanta, did not graduate from high school and sometimes is unemployed.
Sonen tried to allay Khalaf’s fears by telling him that charitable organizations in Atlanta had collected money for Noor’s care.
But even with financial help, Noor’s life is not likely to be easy in the slums of Abu Ghraib.
“She’ll return to the life she was born into,” Sonen said. “It will be difficult. But I do believe some Americans will maintain contact with the family and try to support her recovery.”
Noor’s family lives in a squalid neighborhood, where clean water and electricity are scarce and violence is common.
The pockmarked road outside Noor’s home was covered in ankle-deep mud and slushy sewage on Tuesday.
The family home is not well-suited for a child in a wheelchair. The bathroom is outdoors, in a courtyard.
Relatives said they were thinking of selling the house.
Noor’s aunt, Hannan, said the family feared that too much publicity surrounding “Baby Noor,” as the soldiers have come to call her, may make them a target for insurgents.
Hannan said the risk was worth it in order to give Noor a chance at a normal life.
“We are grateful and thankful to the Americans but the situation is dangerous in this city,” she said. “It will not be easy for us.”
Robinson said she was concerned that the family might move to a rural area where adequate medical care was lacking.
“That would be a problem,” she said, especially if a shunt is inserted to help drain fluid buildup in the brain. “That would mean a lot more maintenance.”
The family knew when they accepted assistance from the American soldiers that it meant putting the family at risk.
The soldiers who helped rescue Noor also realized their good deed could come at a price.
“Will the insurgency kill her?” Sonen said. “That is my deepest fear. To know that a child was killed just because we gave her help — that’s a heavy burden to carry.”
Staff writer Mark Bixler in Atlanta contributed to this article.
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