Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Can­cer-strick­en eight-year-old Je­hue Thomas has fi­nal­ly re­ceived clear­ance from the Chil­dren’s Life Fund to leave Trinidad in mid-March to do life-sav­ing can­cer surgery.

His moth­er Suzie Gon­za­les says she was grate­ful that the CLF will pay for the bone mar­row trans­plant, air­fare and part of the ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion when she flies to the Apol­lo Hos­pi­tal in In­dia with her son.

Gon­za­les is a match for her son and will do­nate part of her bone mar­row to save her child’s life.

How­ev­er, while the CLF is pay­ing for the surgery, Gon­za­les said she still has to raise mon­ey for part of the ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion as well as oth­er treat­ments be­fore and af­ter the trans­plant, in­clud­ing chemother­a­py ses­sions.

Si­mi Akalloo, whose daugh­ter Sidara al­so suf­fers from can­cer, has been help­ing Je­hue and his fam­i­ly with rais­ing funds. Akalloo said: “ So far we have reached one-third of the funds need­ed. We have a boat ride com­ing up. Hop­ing it pulls through well,” she said. She said I-Can cam­paign has al­so come for­ward to help. 

“There is a fair planned for March 4th and a con­cert in May,” she added. 

“The pa­per­work with Life Fund is go­ing through. It is Life Fund who called and gave Suzie that date for him to leave,” Akalloo added. 

Je­hue, a stu­dent of Ari­ma Boys RC School was di­ag­nosed with Acute Lym­phoblas­tic Leukemia at the age of three. This is his sec­ond re­lapse and all forms of treat­ment have been ex­haust­ed in T&T.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist Je­hue can call Gon­za­les at 290-1045 or make con­tri­bu­tions to First Cit­i­zens Bank, Sav­ings Ac­count: 2892613 in the name of Suzie Je­line Gon­za­les and Je­hue Thomas.

 You can al­so make con­tri­bu­tions to https://fund­met­nt.com/cam­paign/res­cue-je­hue-from-can­cer.https://fund­met­nt.com/cam­paign/res­cue-je­hue-from-can­cer.