DOUGHTY BEYOND DOUBT

A 17-year-old donates a part of her liver to save her dying father, becoming India's youngest living organ donor

- ANUJA SUSAN VARGHESE

Most people open the front door in the morning and see light that often powers their day. But for days together Devananda saw only darkness. It seeped inside her home, and engulfed her family.

The dark days had started last October when her father Pratheesh P.G., 48, was diagnosed with liver cancer. None in their family had heard of decompensated chronic liver disease with hepatocellular carcinoma—the medical name for his condition—nor about nonalcoholic fatty liver which the small businessman was diagnosed with along with the cancer.

Life crashed. Devananda found her father fatigued most hours. Sometimes semi-conscious. And when awake, he struggled to talk. Devananda, 17, froze at fate's harsh twist. But she did not submit.

Still she didn't have a clue what to do in those early numbing days.

As the family struggled to absorb the shocking news, they were advised that an immediate liver transplant was the only option.

Stressed from the shock of seeing the family's breadwinner struggling for life, and stretched thin on the financial front, Devananda and mother Dhanya ran from pillar to post. It seemed time was steadily running out for Pratheesh, and no donor seemed in sight.

“Finding a suitable donor and arranging money for the transplant seemed an impossible task, as one by one the doors closed on us,” said Dhanya.

Pratheesh runs an internet cafe and printing shop in Thrissur, his hometown, about 90km north of Kochi. The shop is on lease, and the only way to arrange the money for surgery was by pledging their house. “He was vehemently against the idea. He used to ask us how we would repay the loan in case something happened to him,” remembered Dhanya.