After the life-saving heart surgery, Pakistani boy Junaid Khalid is rid of the blue pallor that his faulty heart gave him. He is off the ventilator and his mother is now a different woman. After eight and-a-half-years of watching her son gasp for breath, Farzaana Khalid can breathe easy.‘‘The operation has given him a new life, doctors say he will be fine,’’ she smiles. ‘‘His lips, fingertips and nails used to be blue, and when he regained consciousness, I told him, ‘now your fingers look just like mine!’’’ Mixing of pure and impure blood through the hole in the heart and obstruction of flow to the lungs had left the boy blue but his parents had very few options as the surgery required could not be performed in Pakistan.Paediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Rajesh Sharma who operated on Junaid, says, he should have been operated four-five years earlier. ‘‘He could not be operated upon in Pakistan and there was nothing we could do about it. Our doctor in Lahore suggested we contact Dr Sharma,’’ she says.‘‘We could not afford to go to Europe or US and the flight to Delhi via Dubai is long and more expensive than the bus so this was a Godsend. On July 12, the land route opened and on July 14 we went to the Indian Embassy for visas,’’ she says.Khalid Mahmood, her husband, runs a tailoring business in Sialkot, where the family lives with six children. Unlike her other children, Farzaana says, she could not send Junaid to school as he was too weak. There are many in Pakistan who would want to come here for treatment, she adds. ‘‘We should be able to move across borders easily, our homes are on both sides.’’ Meanwhile Noor Fatima, the first child who arrived for surgery, will be discharged on Thursday. She will leave for Delhi and then to Lahore.
