Bringing life to boy, hope to family
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cdh/20040223/...
Feb 23
By Eric Peterson
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Patsy Thalheimer wonders if 2-year-old Marco Felix will one day, in hazy dreamlike memories, recall her family and the many people who worked together
to save his life.
What she knows for sure is that she will never forget him.
On Thursday, the Barrington resident and a neighbor will begin the long journey to return little Marco to his homeland in Mexico's Baja Peninsula - a
poor, hot, dusty place of tomato fields and snakes he hasn't seen for more than a year.
When Marco was last there, he was in too much pain to turn his head to look at the world around him.
Marco returned for his second stay in the United States last February to repair a medical device in his head that was supposed to relieve fluid
pressure on his brain. Marco was born with hydrocephalus, often referred to as water on the brain.
Although the repair itself was a relatively simple surgery, Marco spent most of the last year living at Thalheimer's home as he went through a variety
of therapies to help build up the physical and mental skills he either lost or never developed.
Although Marco was 20 months old at the time of his surgery, his motor skills equaled those of a 6-month-old. Even now, though he can walk and play
and feed himself, his abilities are only at an 18-month-old level. He still can't talk.
"I'd say the biggest disappointment for me was that I wanted to have him talking," said Thalheimer, who majored in Spanish in college.
At one time, Marco was developing skills at a normal pace. The developmental delays he's experiencing may have been caused when the shunt in his head
malfunctioned, Thalheimer said.
"It's possible his shunt was shut down for eight months," Thalheimer said. "Some people can't survive more than a day."
She and two other women from the Northwest suburbs met Marco's mother, Diana Felix, in July 2001, during a one-week mission trip to Mexico.
The 19-year-old single mother had come to a morning prayer service at the Hogar Para Los Ninos orphanage, where the volunteers were working, to ask
them to pray for her baby Marco, who was 2 months old.
They had the idea to bring the ailing boy to the States for life-saving surgery and his first stay at Thalheimer's house.
Everything seemed to be going well for Marco after he returned to Mexico. Then Felix called Thalheimer on New Year's Day 2003 to ask for her help
again. It was another six weeks before Marco arrived back at O'Hare International Airport on a humanitarian visa and in the care of a retired flight
attendant.
What Thalheimer and her family expected to be a three-month recovery period has lasted longer than a year. After the initial surgery at
Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, Marco went to La Rabida Children's Hospital on the South Side for several weeks of his
intensive therapy. He also received five hours of therapy a week as he continued to stay with Thalheimer on his extended visa.
"It's been nice that there's always been somebody helping me with the next step when it wasn't even on my radar," Thalheimer said. "I was so ignorant
about what his needs were going to be."
The emotional bond Marco and his host family formed is an unexpected benefit of his stay. One doctor said Marco's ability to connect with individuals
is a sign of marked improvement from a year ago.
"He said, 'He will learn more having loved you and letting you go than never having been attached to anyone,'" the doctor said. "But what I realize is
people are going to fall in love with him there. He's so lovable. He's such a sweetheart."
Thalheimer's greatest wish is that the orphanage where she met Marco will accept him as a permanent resident rather than force him back into the
cramped household where he would otherwise be raised.
Contrary to what most Americans might expect, the orphanage and its clinic provide the best possible environment for the children of the Baja -
turning out the best-behaved, best-educated and healthiest children in the region, Thalheimer said.
While she hopes Marco's mother will be a constant, loving presence in the boy's life, Thalheimer doesn't think the family's home would be the best
place for him to grow up - especially if it takes much longer for their actual house to be built.
The house that she and other volunteers have been helping to finance has been delayed since contractors mysteriously walked off the project.
There was encouraging news recently when she received an e-mail that work resumed on the septic system.
When Marco was born, the family was living in a hut on the grounds of the tomato fields where several of them worked.
The family included Diana Felix, her mother, three brothers, a severely mentally handicapped sister who recently died and Marco's own older sister.
As they waited for the house to be built for them, the roof of their hut fell into such a state of disrepair it was no longer able to keep snakes out.
The family was forced to move into the tiny storage shed for the new house. The space is about a quarter the size of Thalheimer's family room, she
said.
Marco's father is in prison and is not expected to play any part in the boy's life.
On Marco's homecoming trip, Thalheimer intends to spend a few days not only getting the staff of the orphanage clinic up to date on Marco's progress
but also to check on the progress of the house's construction.
"My goal is to help them find hope again," she said. "That someone cares enough to help them that they can help themselves."
Although Diana Felix has only an eighth-grade education, one of her brothers had started studying engineering at college. But the family's immediate
economic needs were so great he was forced to drop out to help.
"They're caught in a web of poverty that's pretty amazing," Thalheimer said. "So by helping Marco, I'm really helping more than just Marco."
Thalheimer said she intends to go back in a month with her husband, Charlie, and daughter, Maggie, to see how well the little boy and his family are
getting on. Beyond that, she doesn't know how much more she can do.
The help Marco and her family have received in donations of medical service and volunteerism are such that she has no idea what his entire stay and
expenses might have added up to without it.
A program at Barrington High School has allowed students credit for baby-sitting Marco. More than 400 hours have been awarded to students who have
helped look after the boy while Thalheimer has taken breaks from him to shop and exercise.
"I have needed help," she said. "I needed help for sanity."
And her gratitude extends to the many doctors and medical facilities that have looked after the little boy - including, most recently, St. Alexius
Medical Center in Hoffman Estates where he went for CAT scans.
"They treated Marco like a king," she said.
Black and white portraits of Marco on the dining room walls will hang as reminders of the extra member the household had between February 2003 and
February 2004.
But more than anything, Thalheimer hopes to have bought a future for Marco - whether or not he remembers her.
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