“I want to find a good job as a nurse in the future,” says 21-year-old Suong, an aspiring nursing student from Cambodia. She is the eldest of five siblings, and enjoys reading books and helping her family on the farm in her free time.
“Suong began having discharge from her right ear when she was five years old,” reports our medical partner, Children’s Surgical Centre (CSC). Doctors recently discovered that a cholesteatoma had developed inside of her ear, which is an abnormal skin growth in the middle ear behind the eardrum.
This causes Suong recurrent discharge, hearing loss, and pain. “I am unhappy because I have right ear pain and it is so difficult to hear and speak with other people,” Suong details. “Sometimes I need to stay home from school when the ear is painful and there is a lot of discharge.”
After learning about CSC from another nonprofit organization near her hometown, Suong travelled seven hours with her father to reach CSC for care. $809 will fund Suong’s mastoidectomy procedure, where doctors will remove the infected skin cells and drain her middle ear. After a couple weeks of healing, this will stop the discharge and Suong’s hearing will improve.
Suong is excited for her operation so that she can continue to work towards her goal of becoming a nurse.