Destiny's miracle child

Having braved the storm of an incurable illness to emerge victorious, Shraddha Parekh inspires us not to lose heart, no matter how tough the going gets

When I was a four-year-old, I was down with a fever. But everyone was alarmed when the temperature was not dropping even after a couple of weeks. The doctor diagnosed everything minutely and came to the conclusion that I was suffering from TB. But that was not all.

Soon, there were blood-red butterfly rashes all over my face. My blood pressure was shooting up almost every day. My temperature remained high and severe stomachaches were making it worse. Some ointments for mosquito bites were prescribed to treat the rashes. What’s more, doctors were still diagnosing the main cause of all my symptoms.

When I turned nine, I wasn’t able to sit or standstill because of the stomachaches. And to bring the body temperature down, doctors were making me lie on a block of ice.

After changing doctors and visiting many hospitals, my family finally came to know that I was suffering from systemic lupus erythematosus or SLE.

And they decided not to tell me anything about it.

The fearsome diagnosis

SLE is an incurable immune system disorder in which antibodies attack the healthy and efficient cells of our body. It weakens the immune system and makes diseases more deadly. It’s more or less like an army of soldiers attacking their own king. Unfortunately, there are no medicines to cure SLE, but a few steroids can lower its intensity.

Now, steroids, as we know, have many adverse effects too. Some of them are visible on my body. My head was puffed up like that of a wolf. My body was losing all its strength. I had to go through a kidney biopsy, that too without anaesthesia because the doctors thought that I would go into a coma. To make me cooperate with them, they promised me that they would let me watch television in the hospital’s compound. So, I ended up witnessing the whole biopsy procedure.