Meet Thavy, a 30-year-old woman from Cambodia. For the last five years Thavy has lived with chronic otitis media. As our medical partner, Children’s Surgical Centre (CSC), explains, “Thavy has had both of her eardrums perforated.”
A perforated eardrum means that there is a hole in the eardrum caused by infection or injury. As a result of living for so long with a perforation, Thavy has constant discharge from her ear and cannot hear well.
CSC shares, “Thavy lives alone usually, but now she lives with her mother. She spends most of the day helping her mom cook and clean. She had bought some medications from the pharmacy but they did her no good.”
Thavy needs a myringoplasty—a surgical procedure in which skin from another part of the ear is used to patch the eardrum. With $399 in funding, she will receive the surgery she needs to stop the discharge from her ear and restore her hearing.