Cancer is a serious health anomaly. It’s the great malady of our times. It’s painful. It’s the cause of sorrow not only for the sufferer. Rather, it’s immensely pain-inducing for a sufferer’s family. One needn’t run after too many details or pieces of information to know how bad can cancer actually be. We’ve got used to seeing the ills of cancer-afflicted patients through hundreds of advertisements that are carried out in mainstream media to raise a plea for help for the victims.
Now, one needn’t need any more proofs to understand the magnitude of the plight faced by those who are grieving for there’s perhaps the most shocking and heart-wrenching example among them all. Let it be asked, when was the first or last time that you heard of a youngster battling with the rare condition of eye cancer? In India, home to colours, cultures, languages, multiple histories and traditions- pain and suffering are ever a lasting reality of multiple lives around us.
At this moment of time, her life isn’t a life rather a saga of endless suffering. Nothing seems well for the cancer-stricken young Indian girl- Dhanika. It’s honestly among those sad, extremely heart-crushing stories that can aggrieve one endlessly so. At the age of 6, where most girls of her age would be commonly seen busy playing with dolls or remembering basic elementary level math tables, occupied in learning about different kinds of birds, Dhanika in India’ northeastern Tripura is battling for her life.
Her parents say that she had been admitted to the hospital as her complaints about her eye were endless. She would experience a horrible form of itching and that would continue to trouble her. Nonetheless, when her family- coming from a weak economic background- failed to generate any kind of financial help, then a small charity stepped in to arrange for the funds needed to get treatment.
But at this point of time, little Dhanika is fighting not from any mediocre or mild disease. She is afflicted with cancer. And could things get any worse than that? Can there be any hope for Dhanika? It’s heartbreaking to note that Dhanika is already blind. But all of it wasn’t that bad if one asks about the period earlier.
At least, 6 weeks ago, Dhanika was doing fine and was a normal girl, much like the others her age. She was diagnosed with the medical condition of acute lymphocytic leukaemia. Post that, her condition began to deteriorate. And the eye power began weakening. She would constantly rub her eye and would cry out helplessly. This, is rather sad and painful because at the same time where other unfortunate children are lucky enough to receive the required medical assistance- arguably because of being in bigger cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai- there’s this little girl here in Tripura whose chances of survival are only 10 per cent. And that’s not the only condition. She is already blind.
What this tells us about our lives is a pretty simple thing. Maybe, a lesson that when we complain and crib nearly endlessly that we have problems in our world, maybe there are others who are weighed in so much by a constantly growing sack of problems that they may not ever survive. At this point of time also, young Dhanika’s parents who are dying each moment, soul-crushed seeing their daughter are not able to arrange for the funds needed to sufficiently treat their waning daughter, despite the charity’s help.
Could life be any crueler? Can there be some hope for this embattled and jaded 6-year-old girl child? Prayers for peace for the Tripura girl and her family.