RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Kavir Dharam­per­sad’s dream is to be­come an elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer. How­ev­er, since both his kid­neys failed at the age of 20, Kavir fears he may nev­er achieve his goals.

Next week will be his first ses­sion of dial­y­sis, but the crip­pling fear of go­ing through the process of fil­ter­ing his blood through a ma­chine now keeps him up at night.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at his Rousil­lac home yes­ter­day, Dharam­per­sad said he has been suf­fer­ing from nephrot­ic syn­drome since the age of four. An ar­ti­cle from may­oclin­ic.org de­fines nephrot­ic syn­drome as “a kid­ney dis­or­der that caus­es your body to pass too much pro­tein through your urine. It is usu­al­ly caused by dam­age to the clus­ters of small blood ves­sels in your kid­neys that fil­ter waste and ex­cess wa­ter from your blood.”

Ini­tial­ly di­ag­nosed as hav­ing min­i­mal change nephrot­ic syn­drome, Dharam­per­sad had hoped he would out­grow the ill­ness one day. De­spite suf­fer­ing pain and oc­ca­sion­al re­laps­es, he was still able to write his Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) and at­tain pass­es in tech­ni­cal draw­ing, elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer­ing, maths, Eng­lish and physics.

Dharam­per­sad said while writ­ing his ex­am­i­na­tions he suf­fered a re­lapse, but this did not stop him from pur­su­ing his goals.

“It was through hard work and ded­i­ca­tion I got my pass­es,” he said.

Af­ter he left the Fyz­abad Sec­ondary School, Dharam­per­sad un­der­took a jour­ney­man course with the MIC In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy be­fore study­ing Op­er­a­tions Man­age­ment and In­dus­tri­al Main­te­nance with the Syn­er­gy Train­ing In­sti­tute.

How­ev­er, last year, af­ter con­tract­ing COVID-19, his kid­neys de­te­ri­o­rat­ed.

“The doc­tors did tests and found the kid­neys were op­er­at­ing at six per cent,” he re­vealed.

The process of get­ting a donor for a kid­ney trans­plant start­ed and his fam­i­ly found a match but Dharam­per­sad said while wait­ing for the last test to be done, the donor backed out. Since then, his con­di­tion has wors­ened.

Dharam­per­sad said his fin­gers have since start­ed shak­ing so bad­ly that he can no longer write for long pe­ri­ods. Of­ten, he gets over­heat­ed and feels a burn­ing sen­sa­tion in his chest.

“I miss when I used to not get tired fast. I like draw­ing but now I can­not even hold the pen­cil for long to do my de­tails on the sketch­es,” he said of the cur­rent prob­lems he ex­pe­ri­ences.

Dharam­per­sad said his par­ents, Kris­tan and Sher­ryann, and his 18-year-old broth­er San­jeev, were not a match and could not do­nate a kid­ney to him. His oth­er sib­lings —Sushana, 15, and Satisha, eight— are too young to do­nate.

Dharam­per­sad said he was hop­ing some­one could do­nate a kid­ney to him.

“I want to have a chance at life and to achieve every­thing that I want to achieve,” he said.

Mean­while, his moth­er Sher­ryann said it was dif­fi­cult man­ag­ing his con­di­tion be­cause he was ter­ri­fied of dial­y­sis. She urged the pub­lic to as­sist the fam­i­ly with find­ing a donor for her son.

“He is young and he has so much ahead of him. I re­al­ly want to see him live a nor­mal life,” she said.

Sher­ryann said since his di­ag­no­sis, they have tried to give him a di­et that is low in salt, fat and no sug­ar. She said ini­tial­ly, they had be­lieved he would out­grow the ill­ness. Al­so, be­cause he had in­fre­quent re­laps­es, they were op­ti­mistic and nev­er ex­pect­ed his two kid­neys to fail.

How­ev­er, she said the fam­i­ly has se­cured all his med­ical notes from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and is hop­ing some­one can as­sist them in find­ing a donor lo­cal­ly or abroad.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist the fam­i­ly or of­fer ad­vice can call 398-7115.