RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Once jovial, en­er­getic and ag­ile, San­jay Sam­pat loved life and took on three jobs to help his fam­i­ly meet their bills af­ter the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic threw his fa­ther on the bread­line.

How­ev­er, to­day, as San­jay ap­proach­es his 21st birth­day, he is a shell of his for­mer self. 

Five months af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed with leukaemia, a form of blood can­cer, San­jay’s face has be­come paral­ysed. His vi­sion is blurred, he can no longer smile and his legs are weak, shaky and painful.

His fam­i­ly, who lives in the sleepy com­mu­ni­ty of Ma­yaro, is now on a mis­sion to raise $1.2 mil­lion to save his life.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, broth­er Don­ald Sam­pat said the ill­ness came sud­den­ly, two weeks af­ter San­jay re­ceived a COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion.

“He wasn’t feel­ing well and up­on do­ing blood tests he was di­ag­nosed with leukaemia. He be­gan treat­ment at the San­gre Grande Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and was in the iso­la­tion room at Ward Six. Be­cause of how ag­gres­sive can­cer had be­come, lo­cal doc­tors ad­vised that San­jay’s best chance of sur­vival was to seek treat­ment abroad,” Don­ald said.

“We con­tact­ed a hos­pi­tal in Cu­ba but were told they are not ac­cept­ing pa­tients right now and we tried three hos­pi­tals in Co­lum­bia but the treat­ment was ex­treme­ly ex­pen­sive there. Then, an­oth­er can­cer pa­tient told us about the Max Su­per Spe­cial­i­ty Hos­pi­tal in New Del­hi and they ac­cept­ed San­jay.”

Since then, the fam­i­ly has raised US$10,000 for a down­pay­ment but Don­ald said they still need $1.2 mil­lion to pay for sev­er­al rounds of ra­di­a­tion, chemother­a­py, a bone mar­row trans­plant and fol­low-up treat­ment over four months.

“We are ask­ing the pub­lic to please sup­port our fund-rais­ing ini­tia­tives. We want San­jay to have a nor­mal life,” Don­ald said.

Say­ing his broth­er had a love for cars and fam­i­ly, Don­ald said af­ter San­jay wrote CXC ex­am­i­na­tions in 2020, their fa­ther Cha­tram San­jay lost his job be­cause of the pan­dem­ic.

“San­jay was in the process of writ­ing back Maths but he got two jobs and helped out. He start­ed to work at a small com­pa­ny, Eu­ro­Japan mo­tors, do­ing air con­di­tion­ing. He al­so worked at a car wash part-time. He loves do­ing me­chan­i­cal work on cars and he has a pas­sion for cars,” Don­ald said.

Mean­while, San­jay, who was dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal to spend the In­di­an Ar­rival week­end with his fam­i­ly, said he was pray­ing that every­thing will work out.

His worse fear, he said, was be­com­ing crip­pled and blind.

“Some­times when I get up, I get weak­ness on my an­kles and knees. It is scary and I pray to over­come,” he said.

San­jay al­so thanked every­one for help­ing him.

“I try to stay as pos­i­tive as pos­si­ble and be pos­i­tive about life. The doc­tors say the can­cer is ag­gres­sive. Up to now, I can­not smile even though I try to. It is de­press­ing but I know that no mat­ter what you do or how de­pressed you feel, you can al­ways feel bet­ter when you pray,” San­jay said.

His fa­ther Cha­tram told Guardian Me­dia it was tough hold­ing the fam­i­ly to­geth­er.

“Every test we do is $800 min­i­mum. We have to do these tests pri­vate­ly be­cause they are not avail­able in the hos­pi­tal. The bone mar­row test cost us $3,000 and some­times we have to do two and three bone mar­row tests. Every day, it costs us $200 to trav­el to the hos­pi­tal,” Cha­tram said.

He too said they were hop­ing to raise the monies to take San­jay for surgery as soon as pos­si­ble. 

“Adesh Air­con­di­tion­ing is throw­ing a bar­be­cue on June 4 and we al­so have a cur­ry-que on June 26. There is al­so a car­wash tak­ing place and the pro­ceeds will be giv­en to San­jay. Every­one in the com­mu­ni­ty is try­ing to help and we ap­pre­ci­ate that be­cause he needs to get out of here as soon as pos­si­ble,” Cha­tram said.

His moth­er Shan­ty said she al­so tries to stay pos­i­tive.

“We pray and pray. We know that with God all things are pos­si­ble,” she said.

Shan­ty said they had a se­ries of fundrais­ers to help San­jay with med­ical costs.

“We are plead­ing to cor­po­rate com­pa­nies to help my son and sup­port our fundrais­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. What­ev­er you can give will be ap­pre­ci­at­ed, even if it’s a dol­lar,” Shan­ty said.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist San­jay with his med­ical costs can con­tact the fam­i­ly at 388-7029 or 715-1126 or 792-2134. Do­na­tions can al­so be made to https://fund­met­nt.com/cam­paign/help-save-san­jay-sam­pat. Al­so at RBC Sav­ings AC#100096170742097 and Re­pub­lic Bank Sav­ings.