DR RADICA MAHASE
According to former Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, "Children are like buds in a garden and should be carefully and lovingly nurtured, as they are the future of the nation and the citizens of tomorrow." World Children’s Day is celebrated onNovember 20 to “… promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children's welfare.”
This week I am proud to highlight two amazing children.
Hannah is 13 years old and her younger sister Leah is nine. They love to dance, sing, listen to music and play with their dolls and dogs.
Hannah was born with biliary atresia, a rare liver disease. She had two liver transplants at Johns Hopkins Medicine International, Baltimore. One of the side-effects of her medication during her hospital stay was profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. At about three years old, she underwent cochlear implant surgery at SickKids in Toronto. These implants help her to hear. Several years later she had surgery again to implant her second ear. Hannah has had nine major surgeries so far, in her life.
According to her parents, Joshua and Thalia Bhagwandeen, “Hannah struggled to survive; she came out of so many surgeries. She had several years of speech therapy after her cochlear implants, to help her learn to talk and understand speech. As parents, we stuck with her, supported her, helped her, gave her every opportunity we could in order to for her to have as close to a normal life, as possible. We remained prayerful and relied on our faith, our support system and each other.
"Today, Hannah still faces challenges with communication, but she is willing and she tries very hard to keep up with her normal hearing and healthy peers.”
[caption id="attachment_924423" align="alignnone" width="892"] Hannah, right, and Leah with their parents Joshua and Thalia Bhagwandeen. - Joshua Bhagwandeen[/caption]
Covid19 has brought more challenges: Hannah is immunocompromised and is on daily anti-rejection medication, so she and her family have to be extra careful to keep her safe and healthy.
More specific challenges are having to maintain Hannah's cochlear implants. According to her mother, “We have to visit the audiologist every couple of months to programme or map it (make adjustments to have her hear optimally) and recently the private audiologist stopped her private practice.
"She now works where they do not have the equipment to map cochlear implants. We're not sure how we'll map going forward. We worry that if she gets sick during this pandemic, how we would deal with it.”
Hannah and Leah are little girls with big dreams and aspirations. Hannah wants to be a pilot, but most recently she developed an interest in hairstyling. She aspires to open her own business and even delegated her sister to be the make-up artist in "Hannah's Salon."
Leah wants to be a doctor so she can help people; she wants to be able to help her sister when she is ill.
Their parent
