By Jialan Wang | PATS Board Member
I recently returned from a field visit to our operations in Henan and Fuyang in May. PATS’s work is progressing smoothly, and I observed visible improvements in the children’s health and well-being.
Xinxing, a 9 year old boy in Henan, has gotten much healthier since he switched to 2nd line drugs this year. He sang a popular song “Xuexi Lei Feng” and read aloud from a book we bought for him when we visited. Xueqiang, a 10-year-old boy in Fuyang, is probably most improved of all. Xueqiang had poor adherence due to a fluctuating home situation when I visited last year, but he has had nearly perfect adherence during all of PATS’s home visits this year, and his family plans to send him to school in the fall after a long hiatus.
But my most memorable experience was visiting longtime PATS senior advisor Wang Liyao at his home in Hangzhou. Mr. Wang is a 72-year-old retired professor originally from Anhui, and he has been with PATS and our local partner AOS since the very beginning in 2003. He was diagnosed with metastatic cancer of the pancreas in March of this year, and is currently undergoing chemotherapy.
During my visit on May 15 he spent quite a bit of time relating to me his vision for improving our measurement of drug adherence, showing that PATS is on his mind despite his illness and treatment. A few words from Mr. Wang to the PATS community:
“Fortune is not unfair to me. It bestowed misfortune on me, but meanwhile, it gives me so much happiness and joy. Thank you, to the PATS community, for all of your heartfelt wishes, warm letters, and emails. Your words moisten my heart just like the rain and dew, enlighten my life just like sunshine.”
If you would like to donate in honor of Mr. Wang and send him a personal message of support, please choose “Make this donation in honor of someone” to the right of this report, and email your message to me at jialanw@gmail.com so I can forward it to Mr. Wang.
Warm Regards,
Jialan Wang
PATS Board Member
---
Video messages from Mr. Wang, that I recorded on May 15:
English: https://vimeo.com/43052942
Chinese: https://vimeo.com/43013597
You can read more about Mr. Wang, PATS's unsung hero, in our last newsletter:
http://patskids.org/sites/default/files/April%202012.pdf
And see him in action on video from our site visit last year:
http://vimeo.com/album/1750034
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
