Latest update February 4th, 2025 9:06 AM
Incapacitated woman needs help
New Amsterdam, Berbice- A 22-year old woman is once again seeking help to offset medical expenses.
In 2005 Nicola Blades of Lot 31 Stanleytown, New Amsterdam suffered a sudden inability to walk and now four years later, her condition continues to deteriorate. The family claims she had no previous history of this condition.
Nicola Blades and her mother.
A medical document stated that prior to her disability there was a rapid abnormality in her walk.
In the initial stages, she experienced an imbalance while walking and this caused her to fall frequently. There is sensory sensation in the lower limbs but no motor activity.
Interestingly, she suffered no trauma before the change.
On May 8th 2008, the Internal Medicine Department of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation presented the family a medical report, which states, inter alia, that Nicola is suffering from weakness of lower limbs. According to the document, which was signed by Dr. R. Doobay MRCP (UK) Head of Internal Medicine, she was referred for surgical treatment overseas.
No evidence of a fracture, bone contusion or bone infection, or bone erosion was detected. The report in its entirety was dispatched to a neurosurgeon in Trinidad.
A reply from this official proposed a thoracic laminectomy and excision of extramedullary lesion operation. The estimated cost for this entire procedure as well as other charges was given as US$73,450.
This figure does not include unanticipated charges associated with complications.
Her mother Claudette Blades said that they were to meet with a specialist in Trinidad on October 7th 2008 but could not keep the appointment.
According to her, after articles published in the Kaieteur News in September last year, they raised, and still have almost $300,000 but more is needed if Nicola is to be given the opportunity to walk again.
“The thing that is growing on her back, the doctors call it a mass, is getting bigger. It was a small round thing, smaller than a tennis ball, now it is big like a grapefruit. It scratches her back all the time. She also cannot control her bladder and bowels and as such must wear disposable diapers all the time.”
Ms. Blades said that her daughter attended school up to the secondary level and was no different from any other teen.
“She first started complaining that the foot was getting stiff-the right foot. I used to rub it with coconut oil because I thought it was a cold but it was not that.”
Nicola Blades said being confined to a wheel chair for almost four years is like having her youth snatched away from her.
The soft-spoken young lady shyly said, “I feel sad that they have to do everything for me. Everybody got to do everything for me. I like my privacy and now I don’t get any privacy. I cry a lot every time I think of what has happened. Sometimes when I am at home alone and I see people going out and knowing that I cannot go out, I cry. What happened to me was really not fair.”
Persons interested in assisting Nicola can contact the family on 333-3850 and 682-1808 . An account was also opened at the Republic Bank in 2008.
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