A year after Sunita Jaiswal lost her husband, Brij Prasad Jaiswal to the 7/11 blasts, she might now lose her year-old child to a fatal heart disease.
Sunita, whose husband died in the 11/7 blasts, has no funds to have her son operated for a congenital cyanotic heart
Circumstances have forced Sunita Jaiswal, 28, to look at her life with an unforgiving eye. A year after she lost her husband, Brij Prasad Jaiswal to the July 11, 2006 blasts, she stares at the prospect of losing her year-old child Ayush to a fatal heart disease.
Ayush, who was barely four-months old when his father died, suffers from a congenital cyanotic heart disease, brought on by absence of pulmonary valve between the ventricles and the lungs.
The defect restricts blood flow from the right ventricle of the heart on to the lungs thereby reducing oxygen movement. This discolours his skin (it turns bluish-cyanosis) and could lead to complications, including breathlessness, brain abscess, stroke, abnormal increase in red blood cells (polycythemia), coughing up blood (hemoptysis) and impaired growth.
“My son was first operated upon when he was two-days old. There are four holes in his heart. Doctors at the Holy Family Hospital, Bandra — where he is undergoing treatment — say he will soon need another surgery,” laments Sunita.
The fact that the surgery requires lakhs of rupees has only compounded her agony. The widow is alone, unemployed and just manages to take care of her two small children (Ayush has an elder brother Aryaan, 6), with the ex-gratia compensation received from the government.
Apart from the financially agony, Sunita must suffer the ordeal all by herself, as her in-laws too abandoned her soon after the tragedy. “They believed Ayush was cursed,” she sobs. Sunita, who has done her Honours in Arts from her native town in Bihar, says Railways offered her a job as a peon after the tragedy, but she did not take it up as Ayush is prone to infections and demands constant attention.
“All I long for is some financial help for my son’s treatment and a government job. May be as a teacher in a school where I can also admit him,” she says with tears rolling from her eyes.
Reminiscing the ill-fated Tuesday, Sunita says her husband — an insurance agent with Max NewYork Life — was in the first-class compartment of the Virar bound local that exploded around 6.35 pm. “Life has been painful ever since,” she snivels. Her father, who is in poor health, is taking care of the family.
He, however, will have to return to his business in Bihar in a month’s time. “I am worried about my daughter. Life has become one painful drip for her — a sickening routine. If she isn’t taking Ayush to the hospital, she is nursing him drugs at home. At other times, she keeps wondering when her misery will end.” Help for Ayush’s treatment could be sent at 9892017303/ or Holy Family Hospital, Bandra: 30610555
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