Nivedita Bhandari is a 29 years old female has done B.Sc. Computers but is not working as she has to undergo some treatments which require prolonged stay in the hospital. She had met with a serious car accident a few years back and went into coma for 3 months. After coming out of comma, her knees could not bend at all. The doctors had inserted rods in both her thighs but those lead to a slow infection which spread through her thighs and hips.

        

During this course as nothing was diagnosed she also went to a mystic healer called Aslam Baba in Bagalkot to see if anything at all could help her. He did some surgeries on her but then said he could not do too much at that point of time as her body was too weak. He asked her to come back after 3 months but as luck may have had it there was a flood there and he was then nowhere to be found.

After that she also went to other cities and other doctors but as the reports did not say anything the doctors were just making symptomatic diagnosis. Some said she had multiple sclerosis, as her hands were stiffening like her legs and they said eventually all the body parts would go stiff and she would die as there was no cure for MS. She has been to CMC Dehradun, Himalayan Hospital Dehradun, Apollo Hospital, AIIMS but to no avail.

After this episode she also had acute kidney failure around 3-4 yrs back.  That is now fixed after 8 dialysis sessions, but she still gets occasional stones and also repeated UTI infection.  She has had blood transfusion a number of times.  Her veins often cannot be found, and doctors have had to do multiple incisions for the CV line. Her body has been cut thru in various places in search of veins.

The doctors removed the rod but the infection continued.  They were unable to diagnose what was causing the problems and started giving her anti tubercular medicines.  They did multiple I&D’s (Incision and Drainage) but it did not work.  Finally when they did cut open, they saw that all the muscles were dead.  They did debridement and took some skin from her calves and closed her thighs, but during the surgery they damaged a nerve which led to a foot drop.

Now they have come across a Doctor who is into embryonic stem cells. The name of the doctor is Dr Geeta Shroff.  But the treatment is quite expensive(1 – 1.25 lakh/ month) and there is no specified time limit to how long will it take for it to actually work or make any difference as she herself says that she has not seen a case like this.

She is also undergoing some thereupatic massage thru Ayurveda and it was effectic but the cost is very high and it had to be stopped in Delhi due to the cold climate. Now she is being treated is the Aryavaidyasala in Kottakal which is another (1 lakh/month) and physiotherapy and medicines are from this. (The cost of this treatment is approx 1 lakh a month regardless of where its done.

Another Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Vashisth has been consulted as well and he has come to the conclusion that Nivedita has developed Osteomalacia (lack of vitamin D) because of which her bones have developed osteoporosis and has also a number of secondary problems which has made her case quite complicated. Surgeries would still be required because the hip bones are severely damaged.

Since over the past 8 years all the funds have been exhausted and they are also running loans,

let us all come together to help Nivedita. Together we can reach out to our communities and remind them that we - members of Nivedita’s family, community, country and the world have a responsibility to help on humanitarian basis. Let us all remember that Nivedita is also a wife, a daughter and a daughter in-law. We should all see ourselves in Nivedita and realize that she deserves the same support we would wish for member of our own family or even ourselves.