MARTIN RAMIREZ
Tot must heal amid financial, other hardships
By JOHN LANTIGUA
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Martin Ramirez has his pride. He and his wife, Guatemalan immigrants, came to the United States in 2003 and always supported themselves.
But when their son, little Martin, was born here Oct. 30, 2007 with a serious digestive tract deformity that required various surgeries to save his life, they needed help.
“These last two years we have had a difficult situation,” says Ramirez, 28, a soft-spoken man who specializes in understatements.
When the baby was three days old, he went under the knife at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach so that doctors could attach a colostomy bag.
Months later he was on the table again for spinal surgery at Miami Children’s Hospital. There followed many more trips to Miami Children’s and Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital while doctors plotted the complicated operations that would allow the child to lose the colostomy bag and relieve himself normally.
But Ramirez and his wife, Hermilia Hernandez, don’t have a car and don’t have much discretionary income. That was where the non-profit organization Families First of Palm Beach County came in, offering help with transportation, translation and a bit of cash.
Then came the major surgery, Sept. 15, in which doctors created a rectum for the boy who was born without one. A follow-up operation was performed in October.
Ramirez says his son’s discomfort has caused him heartache and also some self-doubt.
“It made me sad,” says the West Palm Beach father. “You start to think that maybe you made some error to offend God.”
Little Martin is still suffering discomfort, but his parents have been told that in time he should be fine. Meanwhile, Ramirez and Hernandez are extremely rateful. They are originally from Huehuetenango province, deep in the Guatemalan mountains, where medical care is at best rudimentary and sometimes nonexistent.
“We are very grateful to the people in this country for helping us,” Ramirez says. “We don’t know what might have happened if our son was born back there.”
At the moment the parents, the baby, and a brother, Jesus, 5, all live in one room in a barely furnished apartment they share with other people. The parents are loath to ask for more help, but the staff at Families First see this reality: Little Martin will continue to need care from specialists in Miami and his family desperately needs better living conditions in order to properly care for him.
MARTIN RAMIREZ’ WISH
Martin Ramirez Hernandez was born two years ago with a life-threatening deformity in his digestive tract. At three days old he underwent surgery to attach a colostomy bag. Not long afterwards doctors operated on his spine.
In the past two months he has endured two more surgeries. Meanwhile, he, his parents and his 5-year-old brother all sleep in one room, in a run-down, ill-furnished apartment they share with other people. It is all his father, a landscaping worker, can afford.
Martin’s family needs better living conditions. And since the boy will require continuing care from specialists at Miami Children’s Hospital, the family will need help with transportation and other expenses.
