My child was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 7
HER daughter was 7 when she was finally diagnosed with cerebral palsy. “I had been going from one specialist to another for years since a few days after her birth, because I could sense something was wrong with my baby. But most doctors dismissed it as a mother’s anxiety,” recalls Latika Teotia.
Apoorva was studying in Class III in a convent school in Chandigarh when she was diagnosed eventually. The doctor bluntly told Latika, “She is going to be a cabbage all her life. Your daughter won’t be able to even finish school. Don’t waste your life on this child. It will be better to send her to a school for special children.”
But a mother’s stubborn heart did not heed this advice. “We sought a second opinion at the PGI, Chandigarh. Doctors there said not much could be done by the way of treatment and only advised regular speech therapy as well as physiotherapy sessions for Apoorva. Also, as she did not have a binocular vision, she would have frequent falls. She was also diagnosed with silent epilepsy.”
Despite Apoorva’s multiple medical conditions, Latika did not give up and struggled hard to give her daughter a normal childhood. Today, Apoorva is a postgraduate in sociology, with graduation in mass-communication. “The years in the school were the toughest as she faced a lot of bullying. I only got to know when I once saw muddy shoe prints on her back,” adds the courageous mother. Her relatives again advised her to consider sending Apoorva to a school for special children where she would not face such harassment. But Latika’s resolve only hardened to not let her daughter’s medical condition come in the way of her leading a normal life.
It was an uphill struggle. There was no family support and there were financial constraints as well. “We lived in Chandimandir, Panchkula, and had to go to the PGI frequently for her treatment. Sometimes, I did not have enough money for the auto fare. Eventually, I started working on Apoorva’s speech and physiotherapy myself,” recalls Latika. Even normal activities like buttoning clothes or tying shoelaces were a huge task, as her motor skills were quite slow. “But we would constantly practice even these simple acts.”
Today, Apoorva manages her mother’s publication house. As Latika says, “It was never a challenge to raise my daughter, but to make her believe in herself when everybody would make fun of her.” A mother’s patience and hard work has won against the odds.
