DENVER — This week, a 10-month-old baby girl from Mongolia will get life-saving, open-heart surgery at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children. It’s a surgery that is not available in her home country.

Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief organization, paid for the transportation.

Now Sarana, her mother and an interpreter are staying with a host family in Colorado and meeting with doctors.

Speaking through an interpreter, the mother, Narangarav Munkhtuya, says Sarana has a difficult time breathing.

“She sweats a lot and cries,” she said.

Dr. Steve Leonard, a pediatric cardiac surgeon, said Sarana has a heart defect.

There’s a hole in her heart that results in excessive blood flow to the lungs and creates congestive heart failure.

But at this age, surgery can correct the problem.

“It will completely take care of her cardiac issue, and she will go home and live a normal life,” Leonard said.

The care, which will cost more than $100,000, is pro bono.

It’s an emotional time for the family. The mother says she is grateful, and full of hope.