" Classmates laughed at me as I cried in pains"..14 yrs old girl to undergo surgery to correct her sight( photos)

 

Gloria Kyakuwaire, a young girl who has endured a life of pain and stigma because an eye swelling, is about to see her fortune change after meeting one of the richest men in Uganda.

A Primary One pupil of St. Matia Mulumba Primary School in Mayuge district, Kyakuwaire was born with a swelling on her right eye that kept enlarging and now covers part of her nose and mouth.

She has never been able to access any treatment. The little girl has difficulties in seeing and getting along with her peers.

But there is now hope for a better life for her following a meet with Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia and wife Jyotsna. The businessman has agreed to take care of her medical expenses.

Accompanied by her father, Steven Naita and Vision Group chief executive, Robert Kabushenga, Kyakuwaire met the tycoon in his office at Crane Chambers in the capital Kampala.

Along with the treatment, Sudhir said he would support the girl so she can live a “normal life again”.

“As human beings, the least we can do is to give. When my wife and I read the story in the newspaper, she said: ‘Look, look at this girl’. She clearly was in pain. My wife said: ‘We have to do something,’” Sudhir said.

Jyotsna, under the Ruparelia Foundation, promised to take care of the girl’s education.

Since then, the girl and her father have been at Mulago Hospital, where preliminary lab tests are being carried out to verify what it is that could be eating at the little girl’s eye and to establish the best kind of treatment she needs.

New Vision carried Kyakuwaire’s rather painful story on Tuesday (newspaper) as well as online, where readers were moved and some offering to help the girl.

In the story, Kyakuwaire narrated how the swelling grows rapidly and has several openings which, at times, ooze blood and pus.

She found it difficult to continue with school whenever the swelling started oozing (blood and pus).

 

“At times it [the skin around the affected area] peels off,” she had said.

“And when it does, no pupil at school wants to associate with me. Some start laughing at and calling me names.”

It is that experience that moved Sudhir and his wife.

On his part, Kabushenga said doctors at the Uganda Cancer Institute are carrying out tests to verify what disease it could be.

“We hope the operation will be performed here and she [Kyakuwaire] will have a normal life,” he said.

New Vision paid for their [the girl and her father’s] transport to Kampala and is also paying for their stay at Mulago – the national referral hospital.

The girl’s father thanked Ruparelia and New Vision for helping his daughter.

“She is my fifth child. When she was born with the swelling, I tried to take her to hospital. They referred me to Mulago but I did not have the money. However, he [Dr. Sudhir] is going to help her,” the father of seven said.