Abdullah was born on June 26, 2003.  My delivery was normal and insignificant throughout the pregnancy period.  When I had labor pain I went to the hospital and within 2-3 hours I delivered him. He cried after birth his weight was 3.5 kg at birth.

Abdullah was feeding on my milk but when he was of four months, he started getting jerks. On appearance, he was a healthy child but we could make out that he is not holding his neck yet and he started getting jerks while asleep.  It looked as though he has some fear and he would not respond if we called out his name.

I have four kids in total out of which the eldest and the youngest are normal. Out of the other two one girl was having SMA and Abdullah is a cerebral palsy child along with mental retardation.

One day I went to my relatives living nearby and he was an homeopathic physician. When he examined my son, he said that your child should have been holding his neck by now but that has not happened yet.  I got a little worried when he made this remark.  Until now, I thought maybe things are happening little slowly with my child.  Abdullah continued to get jerks in sleep.  One day my husband spoke to me why our child is behaving like this; I am sensing something odd.  The very next day I took him to a pediatrician.  He asked us to get an E.E.G & M.R.I. done.  When the reports were explained to us by the doctor, we felt dark in front of our eyes.  We were heartbroken and depressed.  Already we had a girl child suffering with SMA. Doctor said to us “due to some problem in the brain your child is suffering from jerks”.

My doctor advised me to go to Dr. Udani. After consulting Dr. Udani, when I was travelling back home and as my sweet baby was sleeping in my hands   was unaware of any thing, I thought that will I be able to bring back happiness in my child’s life. I was weeping all the way from hospital to my home.  I remembered the words of Dr. Udaani that your child is helpless and can’t do anything. Suddenly it flashed through my mind why will he not get cured. My son will do everything.  I’ll just pray to Allah; he has to help me. I will do everything to help my child but you have to help me. Suddenly I felt energetic and confident.  I now had found a goal to live my life.

After that I took Abdullah to Dr. Udani.  Upon studying the reports, he simply prescribed some medicines and said nothing. Doctor just said “you give these medicines to him for next one month and bring him to me again after one month.”  I returned home and as per the doctor’s instructions I started the course of the medicine but just after having one dose, Abdullah would be drowsy and was fast asleep.  The sleep would be so deep that I would have to wait to wake him up and make him do some activity.  After taking the medicine, he used to fall sleep whatever position he would be at that time and would not change the position till he was awake.  I got afraid of this situation thinking if so many hours are wasted in sleep, how I shall make him active.  The effect of medicine was really disturbing.   I sensed something was critically going wrong with my son.  Just after two days I threw all the medicines and took him to our homeopathic doctor.

I requested doctor to give medicine to my son because allopathic medicines were causing him drowsiness; I decided not to go ahead with allopathic medicines.  He was five months old at that time and by the time he was 1-year-old, he started hearing and achieved neck control and his jerks also reduced by 90%.   At the age of 2, he was able to sit down. He started understanding lot of things.  After this I consulted Dr. Johari.  He advised me physiotherapy. I never stopped his homeopathic medicine and physiotherapy.  My husband was of the opinion that with practice everything will be alright.  Even our children will become normal one day.  I was moved with his words and worked hard every single minute on my children.

I also visited lot of neurologists in these 8 years, they would prescribe some medicine and I would soon realize that medicine was making him sleep and I would stop it.

In the beginning I hesitated to take Abdullah out of the house because everybody used to stare at him or otherwise showed sympathy towards me.  But then I thought the other way round and started taking him everywhere and slowly people got used to seeing him and then nobody would bother me. I never allowed my botheration to appear on my face.  I began to keep Abdullah with me wherever I would go; be it a party, or wedding, or movie, or mall, I used to take him everywhere wherever I went because I wanted him to learn from the world.  He did watch everything, but he never reacted to anything.  If anybody would call his name, he would never look back as if the words are not reaching his ears and brain.  It appeared to us that he is a very lazy child. He would not react even if some life-threatening event occurred.

We are in a joint family and my husband helps me a lot.  When Abdullah was small and his father used to be out of station, he would call me on the phone and when I used to take the phone near Abdullah’s ears, as soon as he heard his father’s voice, he reacted. In the beginning, he was not able to recognize the voice, but every time we kept doing the same thing and then slowly he started realizing it is his father’s voice.  Now, he brings the phone to me and says papa, and I understand that he wants to talk to his father.

I cared for him a lot when he was a new born baby.  But the day I came to know that he is a CP child, I became little strict in the sense I decided I will not take special care of  him because he has this brain problem and will not allow him to be wholly dependent  instead I will grow him like any other normal child.

By the time he was one year old; I made him drink water from glass and gave him normal food whatever everybody at home had.   I have never differentiated between my children as normal or abnormal, all are same to me.  Abdullah has a younger sister and I have told him that you have to take care of her and he really loves her a lot.  He would wait for her to come back from school and he would get very happy upon seeing her.

Abdullah likes riding on bike, so his father takes him for a ride in the evening.  Earlier he used to fall down whenever he used to get jerks, but now he doesn’t allow himself to fall down.

With whatever physiotherapy Abdullah did, it involved lot of ball balancing exercises, but it also included making him walk.  As he grew we used to make him stand and drag as it would be easier way for us to carry him.  He also used to crawl, but if we make him stand and walk he could move faster.  But this standing and walking induced more tightness in the inner side of his thigh muscles and then there was lot of hip contracture.  He had no muscles as he would only crawl, the part below knees did not develop at all.  His calf muscles and foot appeared as if there was no single muscle in it.  Even his hands had no muscles.

I was sending Abdullah to special school, but he never learnt anything there.  He would go, sit and come back.  Being a mentally retarded child, he was not able to concentrate and learn anything from school.

He has lots of cousins who stay nearby and he is very happy when they come at our place to play.  He enjoys playing with them.  Even I insist them to include him in every game that they play.

One day, at Abdullah’s school, one of his classmate’s (Hast) mother was applying for leave.  I asked her the reason and she told me about Hast taking therapy from Dr. Vasa.  I enquired more from her as I was always hunting for the solution to my child’s problem.  She told me about the improvement in Hast and that minimum 6-7 hours of therapy is required per day to bring changes in these children.  It was not a difficult task.  The very same moment I decided that whatsoever, I will take Abdullah to Dr. Vasa. When I approached Trupti Madam, there were many children taking treatment and madam insisted only committed parents are welcome.  Getting admission here was a difficult task for me.  Every Sunday, I used to go and visit the center and watch carefully the way exercises were being done here and then finally one fine day madam said you may bring your child along with the required documents.  This way Abdullah’s therapy began.

Within few days of starting therapy I could see lot of changes in his body.  His pelvis tightness started reducing and his balancing improved.  The most important of all to mention Abdullah had an ugly scar on his forehead which was like a dried scab and it had been there for last 5-6 years.  The doctors said it was due to calcium deficiency, but no one had been able to treat it.  After starting with Dr. Vasa, within a year’s time, this scar has disappeared.  His muscles are developing so fast.  Now he has to do all his exercises actively.  He was also put on diet.  After that there was big change in his skin appearance and his intellectual level.  He now looks very active child.  He does not look mentally retarded any more.  He has become very witty now.  He loves to play with flash cards and knows alphabets from A to J. His concentration has increased and he knows very well that how to behave well to impress the important people in his life. From crawling, he was able to do kneeling, then knee walk, then squat to stand, then remain in standing, then walking…it has been wonderful to see my child progressing under Rajul madam’s care.  Now he has started walking on the slope and with the rate at which his brain is developing I feel one day the world will forget that Abdullah was a CP child once upon a time. I am quite confident of that.

Thanks to Rajul madam for bringing this change in my child and many more such children.  I am thankful to Dr. Rajul Vasa for her selfless, valuable support!  I also try to guide parents of new patients in my own small way about how to do exercises.  Unlearn to Learn!