7-yr-old's Distress Cry: "Help me with N3m or I die"

   

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I got it from the Vanguard… So, I share to you:

Childbirth is the most fantastic experience a mother can have. That is not to say a pregnancy that has progressed without hitches cannot give way to complications during delivery.

Most new mothers have idealistic vision of how motherhood should be – feel gloriously happy. But it is not always that straight forward.

That was the experience of Mrs Blessing Ikpegbu James when she gave birth to her first child, a baby girl on 8th of May, 2007 in Jalingo, Taraba State.

Her joy knew no bounds when she gave birth overlooking every other thing that followed  because of the fact that the moment a child is born, a mother is also born.
The baby, christened Reliance, did not show any sign of disorder until she was five months old when she was expected to be sitting but couldn’t.

According to Reliance’s father, Mr Udochi Ikpegbu James, who spoke to Sunday Vanguard, “We noticed the problem when she was five months old. She could not sit on her own nor hold her head up.

“We then took her to a hospital where we were told that she has a problem called cerebral palsy (CP) caused by delayed labour.”

CP is a group of disorders that can involve brain and nervous system functions, such as movement, learning, hearing, seeing and thinking. There are different types of cerebral palsy, including spastic, dyskinetic, ataxic, hypotonic, and mixed.

Between 35 percent and 50 percent of children with CP have an accompanying seizure disorder and some level of mental retardation. They also may have learning disabilities and vision, speech, hearing or language problems.

Like Reliance, children with CP are  not  able to achieve their developmental milestones compared with other children of their age and, as a result, they remain an ever-present burden to their parents, immediate family and society.

Some of them get abandoned, abused, and neglected; their future remains uncertain because there is no nationally known platform or special institution dedicated to their special needs in Nigeria. They are not integrated into the society: the girl is presently under the care and watchful eyes of her parents who spend almost all they have monetarily and otherwise to see what they can do to make the girl live a normal life.

“Normally, she was supposed to start sitting at the age of 5-6months but Reliance could not achieve that until three years later when she started to sit”, the father stated.

“We were going to a specialist hospital almost on daily basis for physiotherapy for close to two years, yet no significant improvement before we were referred to the Federal Medical Centre, Gombe. We used to travel to Gombe every Monday morning and return to Taraba on Friday every week, and that we did until the emergence of Boko Haram in Gombe.

“We suspended the traveling for four months and then resumed the physiotherapy in Gombe before we were advised to try India”.

The Consultant Paediatrician of the Federal Medical Centre, Gombe, Dr Yahaya Alkali, in a referral letter to India, titled, ‘Reliance Udochi James 092525’, dated 2nd February, 2010, said,

“The above mentioned is a three-year-old girl who was found to have cerebral palsy with left talipes equinovarus. She has been on pyridoxine and physiotherapy but would like to be referred to you. Kindly accept her for further management.”

The parents spent nine months running around to raise a total of N1.8million needed for tickets and medical treatment in the India hospital, before they finally made it to India in November of that year, 2010.

The father told Sunday Vanguard, “We sold most of our property to raise funds and travel to India in November 2010. We spent three weeks at the hospital with the hope that Reliance would be able to walk, but the total money was what we paid tickets with, accommodation and feeding. After all the expenses, necessary tests were carried out on her. At the end of it all, we had nothing left before we left the Columbia Asia Hospital in Bangalore, India for Nigeria”.

A letter, dated 11th November, 2010 and signed by Dr  Arjun Srivatsa, the Neurosurgeon of Columbia Asia Hospital, India, stated that Reliance has an evidence of right hemiparesis with an element of cerebral palsy. He however said Reliance is active to stimuli.

The letter read, “An MRI was carried out on her which confirmed that the left temporal gliosis with other parts of the brain are unremarkable.”

Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI, is the use of  a  large  circular  magnet and  radio  waves  to  generate  signals  from  atoms  in  the  body.  Those  signals  are  used  to construct  images  of  internal  structures in the body.

Dr Srivastsa then recommended, four years ago, that, “Reliance does require a lot of physiotherapy to help the spasticity. She also requires brain stimulants and, if she grows a little more, and there is still a lot of spasticity, she would then come for surgeries of spinal stimulation”.

And now that the India hospital had asked that the parents to bring Reliance for the surgeries which would gulp N3million, the parents, who said they cannot even boast of N500, 000, thus seek financial support of Abia State government and Nigerians.

The father appealed, “We need N3million to carry out surgeries on Reliance’ arms and legs, We  were told that we should come back after two years, that was November 2012, for the surgeries on her feet and arms. But two years down the line, we have tried all we could to raise the money to no avail”.

Udochi, who hails from Umuajata in Olokoro, Abia State, pleaded with his eyes soaked in tears to Nigerians to help their daughter become normal. “I am pleading with Abia State government and public spirited Nigerians to help us raise the fund to carry out the surgeries on our daughter so that she is normal and can walk”.