Bhumi aged 12 years was born in Mandawali, New Delhi. She was referred to Child Heart Foundation from another nonprofit named – Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan (MBCN) a charitable school for children with disability. MBCN had informed child heart foundation about the medical condition of Bhumi and she is a child with Down syndrome. 

Bhumi was screened in the free OPD in Delhi on June 2016, 2019. She was diagnosed with small Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA). She requires PDA Device closure. The estimated cost of the surgery including the post-operative care was Rs 1, 85,000.

Bhumis father worked as a driver in a private firm with a salary of Rs 1, 80,000 annually. The family is not in a position to bear the cost of the treatment. She successfully underwent her Heart Surgery at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital on  24th October 2020. She is doing fine now and has been regularly coming for the follow up screenings 

About Delhi Youth Instagram Challenge 

What does the Winner Gets 

• Gift Vouchers worth Rs 15000
• Final designs and video shared on CHF Social Media Channels 
• Felicitation on a live virtual event by Social Media Celebrity on September 29, 2020 which is celebrated as World Heart Day 

• Mandatory Orientation Sessions 
• Expert Sessions 

Let This Independence Day Day be about Curing Hearts !

Anunay Mishra, 13 years is the only child of Mr. Rajesh Kumar who is from a small village in Ayodhya District in Uttar Pradesh. Anunay’s father is an agriculturist and with a meagre income of Rs. 3000 per month, it is difficult for them to earn their daily bread and butter. They barely can manage the household needs and even the mother of Anunay also works in the agricultural field to supplement the family income.

Anunay already had a BD Glenn surgery in 2015. However, the problem persisted and so does the suffering. His body becomes bluish during winters and also feels breathless if he walks even for a short distance.
Now the family is in desperate need of funds for taking up the costly treatment. It is estimated that Rs. 5 Lacs are required for the procedure. They have no avenues which could be called as source of funds. They sought help from many other sources, however there seems to be no option of getting financial assistance from anywhere. Another Fontan procedure is required without delay, which would be greatly helpful in providing Anunay a healthy life.

"The parents of Anunay request all the donors to come forward to support them in this hour of distress and help them to come over this tough phase of life. Child Heart Foundation requests you to support Anunay and his family in this difficult time. He needs your donations to live life as a normal child so donate for his heart surgery. "

The details about his diagnosis are as follows 

        

    

      

       

Congenital Heart Disease is a heart disease that is present at or before birth. So in simple terms, you’re born with a bad heart. There are MANY variations of this disease and it is one of the leading birth defects. I had open-heart surgery when I was a few months old and had a pacemaker operation when I was 17.

I recently started making comics about my life with this illness. Featuring my heart, Brady. Brady is short for “Bradycardia” which is the medical term for a very slow heart rate which is one of the things that is wrong with my heart. This series shows all of the weird and strange things he does. Joking about daily frustrations and struggles I have when my heart doesn’t want to do its job.

I started this series to cope with my own situation through humor and art but to also teach people about an illness they might not know about. Thank you for reading!

Mornings with a heart that doesn’t like to do its job goes about as well as you’d expect.

Transmissions

When you have a pacemaker there are things you have to get into the habit of doing. One thing is sending transmissions of your pacemaker to your cardiologist every other month. I am bad at this. Sorry.

Brady has one job. But he’d rather be a chaotic evil potato.

Kind Of Works

A lot of things about me fall into the category of “Kind Of.”
Are you an artist? Kind of. Are you okay? Kind of. Does your heart work? Kind of.

Behavior

Brady’s behavior seems to depend on the situation. Sometimes during my cardiologist appointments, he seems almost healthy.

Other times he is actively trying to implode.

Climbing stairs feels like climbing a mountain when your heart wants to give out halfway up.
Also, the “We got this. We do not get this” is a whole mood for just how art school and college were in general.

Too Young

This was a night during my freshman year of art school. I had a really bad CHD scare and contacted my friend. It was late but she still showed up.

I didn’t know what to do or what I wanted her to do. I just knew I didn’t want to be alone right then. She sat with me for as long as she needed to. It helped. A lot.
This isn’t just a CHD thing. If you want to help someone through something you don’t understand. CHD scares, depression, anxiety, episodes, panic attacks, or whatever else. Simply just being there is often more than enough.

It nice to know you aren’t alone when life gets scary.

Source : https://www.boredpanda.com/author/heartart

About the Author : Hey there! I'm an artist and illustrator with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD). I create comics about my life with this disease featuring my heart I call Brady (short for Bradycardia). I hope you enjoy my work! Thanks for stopping by!

The reason why few people are not taking things seriously is because they think COVID 19 can’t affect them.There have been cases of people going to Covid parties in US and in India as well. Such people  are foolishly over confident of their body’s immune system.

The increasing numbers of COVID19 confirmed cases and many, many such cases leading to death has made it more important to set our hygiene and precautionary standards in place.

 We all irrespective of age have to wear mask and "KEEP IT ON" whenever we go out. Now that the lockdown has been lifted and people have started going to their work places, it becomes our responsibility as citizens of this country to behave responsibly. 

 “We now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms (“asymptomatic”) and that even those who eventually develop symptoms (“pre-symptomatic”) can transmit the virus to others before showing symptoms,” according to the advisory published by the CDC. “This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity — for example, speaking, coughing, or sneezing — even if those people are not exhibiting symptoms.

It is becoming increasingly clear that all people should be wearing masks while out in public. Masks are a likely reason why the virus has been better controlled in China, South Korea, Japan, and other countries,” Dr. Subinoy Das, chief medical officer of Tivic Health and the chief executive officer of the U.S. Institute for Advanced Sinus Care and Research, told Healthline.

The recommended N95 masks, are worn by medical professionals who come into close contact with those with COVID-19, are actually respirators. They form a tight seal over the nose and mouth and filter all air coming in or out.

Cloth masks, on the other hand, are much more akin to surgical masks, which are not airtight and are primarily intended to prevent healthcare workers from spreading germs to patients.

Wearing a mask is good for two reasons: It’s going to cut down 95 percent of the breathing that sends the virus up to 6 feet away in a room, and also will reduce fecal/oral transmission by preventing the virus from getting into your nose or mouth” if you touch a contaminated surface and then your face will put a person to risk of Corona virus. So we need to know how to remove our masks, how to preserve and clean them well.

STAY SAFE AND HEALTHY 

You know how there are incidents that greatly impact your life? The incidents where you remember the smallest detail, for years to come and at the same time you don't really remember much of that entire day.

There were three such days/incidents in my life :

First, was when I about 9 years old. I clearly remember the hospital ward, the nurses, the pain from sticking the IV needle in more than twice, the poorly lit room with two beds, one of which was mine. I was about to undergo a procedure for my heart defect which I didn't know much about. I mean, can you expect a 9 year old to know about a normal or in my case, an abnormal human heart? For all I knew, my heart looked like the heart emoji we all use. ❤️

And yet, my 9 year old brain always knew something was not right. You see, for as long as I can remember, my parents have been taking me for a visit to the doctor's even when I wasn't feeling unwell.

I definitely knew the difference between my 'fever-doctor' and the doctor who puts tiny little vacuum pumps on my chest and looks at a long piece of paper with squiggly lines on it. And to say that these visits were frequent would be an understatement. They were every few months, every time my dad was back after working away from home, every time my mom thought I looked too tired to do every day tasks and so on. 

Mom would never take me alone, there was always someone along with us, either my dad when he was home, or my cousin or my uncle. I think she always feared the day my doctor would say, that it's gotten too bad and that they needed to intervene.

That day did eventually come when I was 9 but thankfully, my dad was with us when the doctor was explaining things. I was referred to another doctor; it was like I had level up-ed in a game. This new doctor had a bigger waiting room, more professional looking receptionists, had fancier equipments and a more serious tone to his voice than the previous one.

Doctor visits and my childhood went hand in hand. They took up the entire day, a whole lot of traveling, a lot of waiting and observing people, and kids crying and me wondering why they were crying. I was somehow always easy going for my parents and doctors at these visits.

So, anyway, since I was pretty much used to the people in white coats and their waiting rooms, this new fancier change didn't phase me. I continued to observe the worried adults and kids crying for no reason. It was on this day, that I finally realised what was actually happening. I attribute my limited discovery to my great observation skills and smartness, but mostly just listening to whatever gibberish the doctor was saying and picking up on words and phrases like : 'Bad', 'Severe', 'Difficult in future', 'Operation', 'Heart',  and so on. 9 year olds were smart even then. So it wasn't difficult to put two and two together. Or in this case two and 20 different words and phrases.

Then it all made sense!  I was used to being tired and breathless time and again. Climbing even 2 flights of stairs or running a ridiculously short distance and still needing to catch a breath. This was all too normal for me. But these other kids my age; wow! They ran up and down those stairs like they had super human strength. I always wondered why they could and I couldn't. Oh, and the dizziness and fainting. If there was a degree available for these, I'd be awarded a PhD in my childhood. Maybe it was due to these issues that I grew up to be extremely unathletic. But I wouldn't totally blame it on my health, I do have terrible reflexes naturally. Word of advice : Never throw things at me! Haha.

The second such day was when I was 24 and was graduating. The difference between that day and this day was huge. For starters, I knew that my heart did not look like the heart emoji. The black and red robes, the balloons, the bouquets, and me on a stage in front of my friends, teachers, and families of my fellow graduates.

Me; the girl who thought those squiggly lines were some kind of art and the round piece of a stethoscope was a microphone that the doctor speaks into, was holding an actual microphone herself. She was delivering a commencement speech at her graduation from medical school. After this day, she herself would wear a white coat, look at those artistic lines, and hear heart and breath sounds with the 'microphone'.

Third was after I was back home, with my shiny new degree. My mom said, "I still can't believe it. One day, when you were a baby and had just finished having a seizure, I wondered how I would explain things to you when you grew up. About your condition, about how and why it happened, about what you need to do from now on, things you need to be careful of. How could I answer questions, even I had little knowledge about? That day, a thought crossed my mind for a very brief moment. What if you became a doctor? You'd know everything about it. And I won't have to worry about what to tell you."

My mom, before this day, had never mentioned this. Simply cause it was a fleeting thought all those years back which she happen to remember once she saw my degree. I was shook, in a good way though.

Through it all I have met amazing people, who've pulled through conditions far worse than mine. One may think I was unlucky for being born with a heart defect. But I see it differently. I was lucky to have a defect which has a fairly good recovery rate, I was lucky to have doctors who were amazing at what they did. And most of all, I am lucky to have my parents and my family.

But not everyone is as lucky as I am. Not every child or their parents and families have the means necessary to help their condition or even detect it in time. If only these kids have a chance at a relatively normal life, they can do so much! I know of painters, engineers, and even athletes who all suffer from different heart conditions. The CHD warriors are found in all walks of life.

So, I hope that these kids are also given a chance at life. After all, you never know, they may even grow up to treat you someday. :)

 

About the author

Dr. Manasi Shringarpure.

MD Physician (Russia)

Email : manasi.shringarpure@gmail.com

Being a father is one of the most satisfying and emotional moment in any man’s life. Holding the bundle of joy, looking at the small twinkling eyes, holding the small fingers which would not let you go. These precious, intimate moments of peace and joy are cherished by any father for the rest of his life … Fathers don’t show their emotions openly as mothers do. It is taken for granted that mothers can cry, hug, and miss their children.. but fathers are supposed to be strong and give emotional stability to the whole family especially to their children. Fathers are supposed to be the Heroes and someone the child looks up to!

The same is the feeling that went through little Sourav’s father's heart when after a long wait; he held Sourav in his arms. The doctor who was checking his wife during those tough months of pregnancy had referred them to see a pediatric cardiologist as she suspected some abnormality in the baby’s heart sounds. Poor parents would never imagine anything would go wrong as this baby was coming after years of prayers and wait. God had to set everything right… they prayed as they went to see the cardiologist. It came as a rude shock to them as they were told that the suspicion of the gynecologist was true and in fact, their baby was going to have heart defects which would require multiple treatments.

On hearing this, both of them wanted to cry and scream but he, as a father stood there as a rock for his wife and the unborn child. They were counseled for going for termination of pregnancy but he couldn’t imagine doing that? He would not let his baby down? He consoled his wife and they left the clinic with a broken heart but a solid resolve that they will have this baby with whatever defects, the only question which he asked the doctor was whether all the defects were treatable? When he was told that they were treatable but involved a lot of money and expenses, he felt his heart miss a beat?  expensive ..  how much? Did he need money in lakhs? how many lakhs? He asked …. Around 7 to 8 lakhs?

He is a daily wager who had never seen more than ten thousand rupees and here he was told that he would need 8 lakhs of money for his child’s treatment. He was illiterate so he did not even know how much that money meant but he knew that meant lots and lots. On reaching his home, he shared the news with his poor old parents.  The old parents knew how much he was looking forward to this child after waiting for so long, told him that they would sell their house, land .. Whatever was required to generate 8 lakhs.

Looking at his father, he felt tears pouring out unconsciously from his tired eyes, his eyes met his father’s moist eyes, and this connection and bond between a father and an expectant father were worth giving up anything in this world. His father assured him that they would manage the crisis and they start planning for welcoming the child with open hearts and arms.

It was destiny that one day after meeting up with so many money lenders and relatives, one of his friends told him about this organization which funds children’s treatment whose parents can’t afford the costs. It was something like a miracle, he got in touch with our foundation and after producing the required documents got his unborn baby registered for the financial assistance program.

He still can’t forget the day when Sourav was born, the most important day of his life, the baby looked so normal and well, just that his body turned blue when he cried. He could not bear to see his baby cry and the whole family would be on toes to not let baby Sourav cry for a second.

Fortunately, his funds got collected and Sourav went for hisfirst surgery in 2019. He came out safe and sound; he is doing well and regularly comes for his follow-ups.

Sourav will be going for his second surgery when he turns three. His father has so many dreams for his baby, He wants to work harder day by day and save money for his better healthy day to day life and his school, college …..

There are many more inspiring stories of such warrior fathers whom we want to wish Happy Father’s day as they are the ones who are real inspiration for working in odds but making their children live with pride and dignity.