“Faith in God’s plan”
"We are so humbled by the generosity of everyone and the love and prayers that have been showered upon us,” acknowledges the family of Ariana Quettawala of Karachi. They are happy to report that their little Ariana who was diagnosed with aplastic anemia was able to overcome the disease after the third marrow transplant.
Though reluctant to share a photograph of the baby or the family, they have candidly expressed the pain and agony of the months beginning January 2015 when their two-and-a-half-year-old Ariana was diagnosed with a rare blood disease where the body’s immune system attacks the bone marrow and destroys the stem cells and is hence unable to make blood. The patient requires constant blood and platelet transfusions in order to survive and is also very susceptible to infections as the immune system gets very weak. The treatment recommended is bone marrow transplant.
Since there is no bone marrow bank in Pakistan, they felt their best option would be Iran but after spending many months there they could not find a donor. When they learnt that the next best option was a Haplo-identical stem cell transplant where they collect stem cells from parents, they felt it best to pursue this option in Singapore "but the big hurdle was the financial aspect. This is where we can say that we are blessed to belong to the Zoroastrian community. We got tremendous support from our entire community…from all over the world (and) from so many other people who heard about Ariana’s situation.”
The first two transplants were not successful but "we kept our faith strong and remained positive and trusted our baby’s life to Ahura Mazda and surrendered to Him.” The third transplant tried through a different method brought forth "a miracle…and our little warrior princess fought her way to victory.”
The lesson they learnt through this ordeal as acknowledges their note to Parsiana was "to have faith in God’s plan for us… We learnt about patience and unconditional love… He always sends his angels to help us; angels that come in the form of friends, well-wishers, doctors and nurses… We would specially like to mention Dr Rajat Bhattacharyya of Singapore and his team of doctors and K. K. Hospital’s dedicated staff for all their care and love shown towards us during these challenging times… Life is a journey and every moment is a gift. Let’s celebrate it with joy and gratitude.”