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Not every family
wakes up one fine day to learn that both of their children
are having a disease which cannot be cured. However, that’s
what exactly happened with the family of the siblings, 18
year old Poovarasi and her younger brother 13 year old Poovarasan.
When both their
children started to lose their weight at an accelerated rate
inspite of eating up to the last morsel left in the house
and fainting often, the uneducated parents residing in a backward
village started to suspect that some evil curse had befallen
them. After unsuccessful attempts to drive away the curse,
they finally consulted a doctor whose diagnosis came as a
bolt from the blue.
How much will
the treatment cost? And among a thousand other questions,
the million rupee question through a hoarse voice and a stream
of tears: `Is there a cure?’
Armed with the
local physician’s diagnosis they came to the Christian
Medical College hospital, Vellore in India and were admitted
with DKA. The father who was a mason and mother, a housewife
barely able to make both ends meet with their meager source
of income had a number of questions that loomed trough their
minds. The diagnosis of `sugar disease’ OR ‘Chakkera
Viadi’ in children was unknown to them. Is the disease
contagious? How long will the children live? Will the girl
be able to bear children?
Moreover, their
tender minds were not able to comprehend what had happened
to them. Telling the growing children to limit their diet
to specifics was virtually unheard of for these children.
Although the girl had completed her high school and dropped
out after that due to financial constraints, the boy was still
in school and had concerns as to whether he could continue
his education; for the disease had taken its toll on him both
mentally and physically due to delay in diagnosis.
Then as time lapsed,
they came to terms with the disease and its care. They realized
that although there is no guarantee for cure, it could be
kept under control and they were overwhelmed with the response
to treatment as the symptoms begun to wane. The children were
more recently provided with glucometers and strips from the
Life for a Child corpus.
They soon excelled
in SMBG and their HbA1c dropped to near normal levels in 6
months without nasty hypoglycaemic twists and turns. Both
siblings complemented each other in treatment. The boy soon
returned to school and the girl has started to learn tailoring
to complement the parents’ income. Now nearly a year
following the diagnosis, the family has regained some of the
original happiness that they had. |
