Indian father seeks help for cancer-stricken son’s treatment

Dubai: An Indian father is distraught after his youngest child has been diagnosed with leukaemia.

Ten days ago, Dubai resident Nazeer Ahamed was in for a huge shock when his youngest child, Aahil Nazeer Ahamed, a boy just over a year old, was diagnosed with leukaemia. Ahamed said his life had gone topsy turvy as a number of pressing issues demanded his immediate attention.

“Finance is a major concern. While the hospital bills are being taken care of by my insurance company, there are other expenses that I have to deal with. For example, my son needs to get a bone-marrow transplant in India. This costs a lot of money. I have to arrange for flight tickets. Doctors say the transplant can cost around Rs4 million (Dh201,816),” said Ahamed who works as a sales supervisor for a private company in Al Quoz, Dubai, earning Dh11,000.

Ahamed said Aahil was diagnosed with Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukaemia ten days ago.

“My son was having fever, which was not subsiding. For the first few days, we were giving him Adol. But the fever did not subside. So we took him to the doctor who subscribed some antibiotics. When that did not help either, my wife and I took him to a hospital where more tests were conducted. The hospital recommended a paediatric oncologist. So we moved him to another hospital where more tests were done.”

Ahamed said his wife had already started to notice that Aahil’s lymph nodes were swelling up. They looked like boils. The doctors said it could be heart-related and we had to move him again to another hospital. There more tests were conducted and it was finally revealed that he had got leukaemia.”

The Indian father who hails from the Udupi district in Mangalore, Karnataka, said he first came to work in the UAE in 1999 for a salary of Dh600. He worked in a shop as a “shelf boy”. In 2000, he joined NMC Hospital as a receptionist for a salary of Dh2,200. After that, I switched job and worked as a merchandiser in a trading department.”

But with hard work, he managed to climb up the ladder and reach a supervisory position. “I have only known that hard work pays and I will continue working hard,” he said.

Meanwhile, the condition of little Aahil is deteriorating wih every passing day.

“His lungs are filling up with water and he is finding it difficult to breathe. My son has been moved to Zulekha Hospital. He is struggling to breathe. Everyday his stomach swells up by a couple of inches. Only a miracle can save his life now,” Ahamed rued.