Kadewatee Ali has endured immense pain from a condition that she says no medical professional seems to have answers for. The 55-year-old woman says she has been living with pain and discomfort for the last 20 years. Ali lives in a wooden house at Bamboo Settlement with her husband, Nazir, and two teenage daughters.
In 1992 she noticed swelling in one of her feet. Ali believed it this was a simple sprain and did not pay much attention to it. "I went by somebody to get my foot crack because I thought was just a little sprain but he tell me that it is not a sprain and that something really wrong with it," she said.
She went for an X-ray of her ankle which just showed some type of swelling, but no one could figure out what was causing it. A few months later, she noticed the other foot was swollen as well. "After I had my second child the nurses told me to go and see about that swelling so they sent me to Port-of-Spain. Since then I have been to many doctors and no one can tell me what this problem is."
As time passed, sores starting to form on both feet and Ali's toes began twisting. That is when the pain started. The distraught woman said sometimes she feels like her feet are on fire. Her toes are so twisted she can no longer walk and gets around her house in a wheelchair. Before she got a wheelchair, she dragged herself around the house.
"I fed up go by doctors and nobody know what to do. Look how my toes bend. I can't do anything again and I can't afford any more doctors," Ali lamented. To make matters worse, her 76-year-old husband who once worked as truck driver, lost his right foot in 2006. He also uses a wheelchair. "I had a bust toe and I went in to see about it. They take so long to see about me that I get gangrene. They shave all the flesh off the toe and then I end up losing the foot," he said.
The couple said they need some financial assistance but are really pleading for help with basic household duties like cleaning and cooking. Ali said she wants her daughters to focus on their education and so they are really not able to provide much help. She hopes to find a medical professional who can cure her but has almost resigned herself to just live with the pain.
"We just need somebody to help we. Somebody like a geriatric nurse and someone to help with the house," she said. The family is asking for assistance from the public. "Sometimes people does come around and help we around Christmas but then everybody does forget and this foot just getting worse. We really need some help," Ali pleaded.
