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I barely sleep anymore. Every morning, I'm up before the sun rises, the weight of my daughter’s fragile life pressing down on my chest, heavier than any exhaustion my body knows. When I see her, her face pale, her breath uneven... I've never known this kind of pain. She used to wake up excited for school, chatting about her lessons, her friends. Now, all she talks about is her dialysis schedule—when it is, how we’ll afford the next session, if we’ll have to skip it again.
When we can afford food, each swallow feels like a brick. It struggles to go down. I struggle to swallow each morsel because I haven’t guaranteed my daughter’s survival yet.
She was in school when it started: vomiting. Over and over. The school called me, and we rushed to bring her home, thinking it was food poisoning or something, just a passing illness. But it didn’t pass. The hospital tests came back, and the doctor hesitated before speaking, asking if we would be scared to hear the truth. I wanted to scream at him to just say it. And then he did: her kidneys were failing.
We used to be happy with our lives
She is in an emergency ward within two days, her body barely holding on. We sold our only house, but even that wasn’t enough. The doctors warned us—if we stopped dialysis, even for a single session, she could die. We borrowed from everyone we knew. We still owe more than 10 lakhs, and yet, we need more, so much more, for her survival. Because the doctors are saying that the only cure is a kidney transplant. Before we got to this point, our life was good. It’s all broken now.
My husband ia a security guard, but his health collapsed under the weight of our daughter’s illness
There's a growing lump in his stomach, causing unbearable pain. He needs surgery, but he refuses. "If my daughter misses even one dialysis, she will be in a lot of trouble. If one of us has to die, it should be me. But I don’t want to die without ensuring she lives," he says. And so, he sits beside her, holding her hand, unable to work, his pain festering. Meanwhile, I work as a maid, my diabetes medication another burden we can barely afford.
The worry of missing even one dialysis session of hers keeps me up at night
I see other girls her age, living, laughing, being happy, and then I feel guilty for feeling envious. It feels like my heart is hurting all day. But what hurts more is seeing my daughter hide her own pain. She tries to smile when she talks about her friends, but I see it in her eyes. "I feel very bad when my friends are now going to college. My friends are going, but I am not going," she says, and I have no words to comfort her.
We have nothing left to sell, no one left to ask
We don’t even have a single rupee to give to our daughter, to save her life. Some people tell us to let her go, to stop fighting, to let her die. But how can we do that? She is only eighteen. She wants to be a teacher. She still dreams of a life beyond hospital walls. I try seeking comfort in God, but it’s so difficult. So now, I turn to you. My daughter’s life is hanging by a thread, and I have exhausted every option to save her. Please, if you can, help us. Every contribution brings us closer to the transplant that could give her another chance at life.
Click here to donate.
EIN 20-5139364
