Udupi: Little Swathi suffers from rare disease - needs help

Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi

Udupi, Feb 6: Little did 12-year-old Selvi Swathi Prasad realise that she would have to suffer a lot, until one fine day in May 2012, all of a sudden she developed a head ache with neck pain and vomiting. Though initially her father Krishna Prasad, a clerk in a private firm, thought that his daughter would be alright within a day or two, when the pain did not subside, he took her to Neurosurgeon Dr Raja at Adarsha Hospital in Udupi. After conducting CT scan of her brain, he referred Swathi to Ramachandra Medical Centre in Chennai.

When the doctors at the Centre, after conducting an angiogram revealed that Selvi is suffering from a rare disease (90 per cent occlusion of the nidus; and intraventricular haemmorrhage with hydrocephalus and right thalamic bleed in the brain), her parents were speechless.

However, without wasting even a single minute, they requested the doctors to do their best and in fact, they did.

A 7th standard student of Mukunda Kripa School in Udupi, Swathi has been a topper not only in academics, but also in extra curricular activities.

According to Dr Keerthiraj, the Interventional Neuro Radiologist, one of the doctors who treated her, said that though there were two options to treat Swathi - either open the brain and remove the bunch (formed due to joining of artery and veins in brain) or embolization, the doctors preferred the latter as the affected part was deep inside the brain and there was higher risk to life.

“Though Swathi recovered quickly, the chances of recurrence are more in the case of a child,” he said and added that there is a need to monitor the child 24/7.

Krishna Prasad, Swathi’s father, who has already spent more than Rs 10 lac on Swathi’s medical expenses has been running from pillar to post as he is unable to repay the loan he had obtained from banks as well as from his friends. In fact, he has been spending Rs 500 everyday on physiotherapy ever since she has been discharged apart from other medical expenses for medicines, etc.

He is also worried as if Swathi’s condition recurs, then he would have to spend a huge amount again. “I don’t know what to do, as I am already in neck-deep loan,” he said and added that he has not spared any stone unturned, but is unable to repay the already availed loan.

Anybody who is interested to help Swathi may donate to the following bank account.

Krishna Prasad
A/C No: 0651101053533
Canara Bank,
Collector’s Gate
Balmatta Post,
Mangalore - 575 002
Karnataka.

IFSC Code: CNRB0000651

Mob: 98442- 36082 (Krishna Prasad)

Back at home, Swathi is recovering without knowing what is in store for her. Incidentally, her favourite song is “Pathangavagi na haaraballe...” (I can fly like a butterfly... from the movie ‘Meravanige’) and “Are re re ye tho kya hua” (from the film ‘Dil Tho Pagal Hai’)