SANTA ANA : Father Gets Wish of Surgery for Child

Lauro Seijo left the Philippines for Orange County five years ago to earn enough money to pay for lifesaving heart surgery for his daughter, then 2 years old.

The data entry clerk, who left his family behind, found work at Amyx, a Costa Mesa marketing company, where he often put in 14-hour days and six-day weeks to save enough money to bring the youngster here for treatment.

“I knew that by coming to the United States, I could earn lots of money,” said Seijo, who earned $3 a day in the Philippines. “But every time I started to get money, she would get sick, so I would have to send money to pay her hospital bills. . . . I wasn’t sure we would get her here in time.”

But on Friday, thanks to Pointes of Light, a volunteer group, Seijo, 27, stood in the Compri Hotel, stroking his daughter’s face with one hand and holding his wife, Nila, with the other while a 13-member children’s choir from Pride and Development School serenaded the 7-year-old at a press conference. The youngster, Ruth Grace, sat silently in a wheelchair, hugging a “Peanuts” pillow, while oxygen was supplied to her through a tube.

Ruth Grace--who is frail and looks half her age--arrived last week and will undergo surgery at Loma Linda University Medical Center, near San Bernardino, within a few days. Doctors hope to repair a hole in her heart that she has had since birth.

Ruth Grace’s journey began when Lauro Seijo called Nancy Fontaine, director of Pointes of Light--a group that began as a children’s cultural foundation and has branched into other areas. Lauro Seijo had seen a newspaper account of how the group helped a Polish boy with a similar problem.

“We took this on because this is what we do,” Fontaine said. “We try to help whoever asks us.”

Fontaine said she had to overcome several problems. First, there was finding a hospital that would agree to treat Ruth Grace. Doctors at Loma Linda agreed to take the case for free, she said. Then she had to overcome the bureaucracies in both the Philippines and United States and secured the help of Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach).

The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Orange County, which helps terminally ill children, provided $2,800 for air fare.

An 18-hour flight from Manila to Los Angeles followed. Ruth Grace and her mother were reunited with her father, but the couple’s 8-year-old son remains in the Philippines.

“I just thank the Lord that he gave me Nancy Fontaine,” Lauro Seijo said. “My daughter is going to live.”