The State - News from Jan. 25, 1988

A young Vietnamese refugee with spinal cancer clung to life after an emotional reunion with his mother, who arrived from Vietnam after winning a bureaucratic race to comfort her dying son. “I love you, I love you, mother,” the bedridden Nguyen Ngoc Anh said Saturday as he embraced his mother, Dinh thi Ly, who left Vietnam after an intensive lobbying effort by hospital staff and a lawyer who specializes in obtaining the release of Amerasian children. “Be brave, I’m here,” Ly, who tried several times to escape from Vietnam after learning her son was dying, told Anh. “I love you and missed you every day when I was in Vietnam.” A nursing supervisor at Valley Medical Center in San Jose said Anh was in critical condition early Sunday morning. The supervisor said his mother left to get some sleep, but told the hospital staff that she would return soon.