Shoom Yee suffered a serious burn when, at the age of 2 ½, she accidently fell and tipped a pot of boiling water on her right arm. From their home in Burma, the closest clinic was 30 miles away; Shoom Yee’s parents walked for three days to get help. At the clinic they were only given medicine and cream to dress the wounds.
Now 8 years old, her injury has since caused long-term functional impairment. A keloid scar, an excess growth of scar tissue, formed between her upper arm and forearm. This has limited her range of motion. Shoom Yee finds it hard to fully participate in school without the use of her dominant arm and is sometimes teased by other students.
Shoom Yee’s family moved to Mae Sot, Thailand to seek better care for their daughter and found it. Burma Children Medical Fund can help Shoom Yee regain the functionality of her arm with surgery, skin grafts and physiotherapy. A team member at BCMF wrote, Soom Yee’s “parents both wish for the very best for their daughter, wanting her to grow healthily and happily with the confidence in herself to be able to pursue whatever she wishes, without being confined by her physical mobility.” This surgery is the first step in helping Shoom Yee achieve all this and more.