Pretty Manisha with the bright eyes and endearing smile is happy. There are a few akkas and aiyyas around her along with her mother. Suddenly, her face crinkles up in agony, her brow tightening into wrinkles.
Oluva kekkumai, weeps this 10-year-old, tightly holding on to her mother’s hand, while the tears pour down her face.
This slip of a girl is at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital for Children in Colombo for a bed sore. Yes, a bed sore because she has been confined to bed and a wheelchair in turns for a while.
Manisha is paralysed below her waist and a sad tale unfolds with numerous cruel blows to this humble family. Poor they were but contented, this family of four living at Buttala in Moneragala – toiling to make ends meet.
Pathiranage Ananda was feeding his family by earning whatever he could as a carpenter while Chintha Hettiarachchi rustled up something for them to eat with his meagre earnings. Manisha was doing well at Dutugemunu Maha Vidyalaya, very good at mathematics and studying hard for the Grade 5 Scholarship Examination, for she wanted to become a proctor. It was her Thaththi’s cherished dream for her. She was an example to her four-year-old brother, Dilsara.
Want to help? |
Do you wish to give a helping hand to this desperate family? Then please send in your contributions to the account of Chintha – Account No. 075020054966 of C.N.T. Hettiarachchi at the Buttala branch of the Hatton National Bank.
Chintha may be contacted on Phone: 0728400501. |
Two weeks before the scholarship exam in August last year, Manisha developed a small itch on her left leg, says Chintha reliving the nightmare. Assuming it could be exam stress, they showed her to several doctors. It was at the Peradeniya Children’s Hospital that an MRI scan revealed a malignant tumour in the spine. Transferred to the Kandy Teaching Hospital, hopes of sitting and passing the exam shattered, it was on August 4 that Manisha underwent spinal surgery losing the use of her legs (motor and sensory loss) and confining her to bed.
It was an astrocytoma common in children, the Sunday Times learns. The family had been advised that radio therapy will prevent a recurrence of the tumour while physiotherapy will help Manisha regain the use of her legs. Home in disarray, unable to make ends meet, the desperate parents brought Manisha to Colombo.
Roughing it out, they faced the long haul of treatment with grit and determination. The therapy was supposed to end on December 8.
Could life get any worse for this family? It did. The mainstay, Ananda, who held his beloved Manisha close even the night before, wanted to grab a few minutes of rest before taking her for treatment. “It was December 6,” recalls Chintha as sobs wrack her body. The rain had started at dawn. He closed his eyes and that was the end. He died of a heart attack, maybe he couldn’t bear the pain of seeing Manisha like this, sighs Chintha.
Treatment forgotten, mother, daughter and son took his body back to Buttala for cremation. The tiny shack they had lived in held too many memories and mother and daughter would cling together in sorrow. Manisha could not bear to stay there, “Thaththa mathak wenava”, and so they packed their few worldly possessions and went to live with Chintha’s mother.
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| Manisha finds something to smile about in spite of all the pain |
The family is now scattered – while Chintha is attempting to get Manisha’s deep and angry bed sore cured, little Dilsara is with his grandmother waiting for his father to come back unable to comprehend that the farewell in December was final.
Manisha is also bitter that she is unable to go to school. But she is a good girl, says Chintha, for whenever she has to attend to some urgent matter, Manisha would tell her to put her into a chair so that the grandmother would not have to carry her and stay there until her return, whatever the time, without even being taken to the toilet.
As this edition went to print, the SundayTimes learnt that Manisha may have developed water in the brian. If so, she will have to undergo an operation to insert a shunt to draw out the water.
The future is bleak for this family. Now they depend on the goodwill of relatives, but how long can they help us, asks Chintha.
No means of livelihood, no place to call their home. Chintha pleads only for a scholarship to send Manisha to school and give her the basic necessities. |
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