Mumbai: A happy family portrait that livened up the cover of the prestigious international medical journal Lancet Oncology in October was the artwork of a 12-yearold child Ajit Kholam from the city. Look beyond the colourful paintings and you will discover a silent force which has been helping kids like Ajit who are suffering from brain tumour in braving the odds.
The motivation comes from a support group that works under the aegis of the Brain Tumour Foundation (BTF) at Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel which has been bringing together hundreds of patients, drawing out their strengths and financing their treatment. The BTF had been propagating the message of optimism and positivism during the Brain Tumour Awareness Week that ended on Saturday.
On Sunday, the foundation members helped hundreds of children sketch their thoughts freely. The sketches will be printed on greeting cards to raise funds for patients. For some like Mumbra resident Irfan Khatri (22) who was diagnosed with brain tumour when he was in Std XI, the BTF has made survival possible. “The foundation has completely financed my radiation therapy which would have otherwise been difficult,’’ he says. The painting sessions take his mind of the illness and make it easier for him to cope.
Working behind the scenes is Dr Rakesh Jalali of Tata who says, “The purpose of BTF is to ensure that no patient who has brain tumour goes without treatment only because he can’t afford it.’’ According to him, the hospital receives nearly 700 new cases of brain tumour, every year. In India, the incidence of brain tumour is 3-4 per 100,000 persons every year.
Survivors like designer Diya Mohanty have been volunteering for the cause. “We are like a family of patients and I draw strength from the little children who soldier on,’’ she says.
Giovanni D’souza is optimistic as he shows off a scar on his head that he got from brain surgery. “If you had seen me two months ago, I wasn’t like this. I was devastated when doctors told me about my brain tumour and kept wondering why it had struck me,’’ says D’souza, a model by profession, who was diagnosed with brain tumour when he was in Milan. He had to be operated upon overnight and says the “sympathy’’ offered by visitors made him wallow in self-pity for days. However, he got a boost of positivism in Tata.
The BTF crossed another milestone recently, with preliminary findings of ongoing research by Dr Jalali, showing that surgery and radiation therapy used to treat breast cancer among patients did not affect their intellectual ability, an area that has been a major concern till now.
LETTING THEIR IMAGINATION RUN WILD: Brain Tumour Foundation members helped hundreds of children sketch their thoughts freely on Sunday. The sketches will be printed on greeting cards to raise funds for patients.
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