The world is not a wish granting factory.

As much as I would like to deny the truthtfullnes of the statement, I cannot because not all wishes come true.

I am Oindri Kundu, born on 5th August 2000 in Kolkata with a multiple conginental abnormalities along with phocomelia in left hand. Being born without a rectum passage, I had to undergo a surgery (Colostomy) within 17 hours of my birth. Further examinations revealed more complexities. Hence Dr. Sharon Ishika Ghosh, paediatric surgeon of Kolkata referred us to Dr. Ashley L J D’cruz, of Bangalore. I think of him as my Godfather because without him my existence would have been impossible. Over there we came to know that the construction of the colostomy was done in the wrong position leading to my first operation in Bangalore-reconstruction of colostomy. Even after this surgery, due to my complex problems in urinary bladder, ovaries, etc, several other surgeries took place.

In 2004, I started suffering from urinary tract infection every two months or so for which I had to be admitted in a hospital in Kolkata and treated with intravenous injections. Since this started occurring frequently, we again set off to Bangalore to find the reason behind all of this and it’s solution. Dr. Ashley informed us that since some of the urine was retained in the bladder, urine infection occurred. As a result he and his team decided that I should be on continuous drainage with the help of a catheter. To avoid any sort of infections, the catheter had to be changed once in 12 days by my mother, since I was unable to do so on my own.

As I grew older, Dr. Ashley wanted me to be independent and not rely on my mother to change the catheter. Hence, in 2012 I underwent a major surgery,the Metrafenoff Operation where a small hole like incision was made on my stomach in the right (through which I could insert the catheter and drain my bladder completely). Along with it, Dr. Ashley did another operation of augmentation of the bladder surgery because he knew that since my blood parameters started behaving abnormally and I started feeling weak as well as tired, this was heading to the direction of kidney transplantation. However, to kill time and survive on my own kidney I started to live a restricted diet by limiting the amount of protein intake, nutritounal health drinks and fruits. I simply cannot forget the feeling of not getting to eat all those mouth watering fast foods which had become my favourites. But as they say, hardship leads to success so I started adjusting myself with that diet and being satisfied with it. For motivation and support, first my mother and then later on my father, both of them started having the same diet.

However after years of restraining myself from all those appetizing treats and four times of blood transfusion, I underwent the fistula operation in 2015, in order to start dialyisis on the advice of Dr. Rammohan S. Bhat, head of the Nephrology department. Everyone knows what dialysis is. It is a procedure to make the impure blood pure through a medium sized machine and is performed when one’s kidney fucntion is at its least. On Dr. Bhat’s advice, as soon as dialysisis started, me and my parents started getting the paperworks ready which were required for my transplant. A certificate called No Objection Certificate by West Bengal Government was required to perform the transplantation. I really won’t go into all the details of the hassles we had to face just to get one NOC. After receiving that, we again came back to bangalore where we had to stay for one month prior to the the date of operation and 5 months post operation for further close observations. The operation itself was for 12 hours straight and I had to stay in the hospital for 14 days.

At 16, as I look back on my past, it still gives me the sense of accomplishment and success on being able to overcome all the hurdles and obstacles thrown my way. This does not mean that the fight is over. After 8 months of being completely fit and fine, going to school and tuitions, I again started having problems such as heamachuria in urine. Cystoscopy and all kinds of scans were done but unfortunately no reason was found behind it and we were sent back to Kolkata since at that time my father was very ill.

He was suffering from a viral fever which in turn led to a severe liver disease and he was admitted to a hospital. After one month’s fight, in the last moment his kidneys gave way and he passed away on 19th September. After completing all the rituals related to the demise of my father, we (me and my mom) returned back to Bangalore for further treatment of the same problem. Now, after doing the Kidney Biopsy we found out that there’s an acute kidney rejection (i.e. the kidney is getting rejected by my body as it is a foreign organ). At present, I’m going through the anti-rejection treatment which is supposed to reduce the rejection chances to nil.

In spite of all these problems, I had always led a completely normal life, going to school, participating in quiz, projects, games and other activities, playing with friends, working for TTIS, doing online internships, travelling with my parents, etc. It did not matter to me that I had underwent so many operations, I always faced life with full of optimism. I’ve accomplished to do so with the help of my parents’ support, love and care. I will never forget all those sacrifices that they had made. My dad left his job of a regional manager in a reputed company and built up a pre-school since no private sector office would have given him a six month leave. My mom, a lecturer of a reputed college, arranged her hectic schedule in such a way that she did the household work, went to college, gave private tuitions and also sought out enough amout of time to attend me and to my needs. Even after such a tiresome day, she always has the strength and stamina to bear with me talking about all sorts of things with a smiling face.

My parents always tried to get me whatever I wanted (of course there was a limit to it, like, I could not just ask them to go to Hogwarts set or something) so that I was in a jovial mood always. They were the ones who were there to bear all the pain, distress and stress with me and guided me to overcome it by cheerfulness and smiles. I will never forget this whole contribution, support, love, care and adoration dawned on me by parents, and will cherish it forever. I am also thankful to my grand parents, other members of family, my mom’s colleagues and specially principal mam for motivating me. My friends from school as well as my new squad of TTIS (you guys know who you are) have helped me when I was down, and cheered me up with their jokes. Even people from the Internships I’ve done have helped me and supported me whenever they could.

School is known to be the second home of a kid. This is unbelievably true. My school, G. D. Birla Centre For Education, has supported me since day one and has been doing so even now. I am immensely grateful to all the support given by my teachers and also for treating me equally since the very beginning. My teachers did not hesitate to pick my name for activities which they knew I excelled in and give me chances to prove myself. My Principal mam has also been a great support. She has granted me long term leaves as and when required so that I am not under too much of stress. She even assured me that the school will help me in all sorts of academic problems.

Facing and overcoming obstacles are hard, especially if it is as big as mine. I don’t mean to say that I have got the world’s biggest obstacle on my shoulder (of course there are others who suffer much more difficulties than me), but if you have the determination and strength to overcome them you can. Determination leads to success. Along the way, when I lost my father, the grief both me and my mom felt was unexplainable. No amounts of ‘Sorry for your loss’ could repair the damage that had been done.

My mom who too had suffered through an irreplaceable loss, however still tried to put up a smile on my face by keeping her emotions at bay.

I can’t really say how to overcome the grief because the wound is still anew, afresh. They say time heals the wound. But I find it to be untrue. Passing of time helps us to overcome the pain felt, it does not heal the wound but it just lessens the pain.

Sometimes to get distracted from all these tensions, I resort to listening to songs, drawing, reading books and most importantly writing. Writing helps me to express how I feel about all the beautiful things around me, my thoughts crammed in my head. It is a sort of outlet for me. Writing for TTIS is even more fun. Interacting with others, a little bit of fighting on who would do which part and then finally getting it all sorted out, is nothing short of joy. TTIS has definitely played a positive role in my life. It has given me new friends, mentors and guides. Writing for various sites due to my wide choice in Internships has shown me that there are a variety of topics one can write on and how to improve my writing skills.

I am really thankful to Biswanath Sir for encouraging me to write about myself at such a young age where my fight against life has not yet ended. I’m still fighting and will always have to fight throughout my life. But I don’t mind. As long as I know I’m gonna have my friends, mom, books and writing, I’m gonna be fine.

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