When you first hear about a disease such as a thalassaemia, all you actually feel is a pity, and regret a person who might have it. Well, to be honest, your reaction is totally justified. I mean, who wouldn’t feel pity for a patient who might be on BMT transfusions for the rest of their life? Furthermore, the cost associated with transfusion wouldn’t even allow even a little luxury to the patient.
However, what if the transfusion issue can be fixed? What if, there is a medical technique that allows a patient to live a normal life without the worry about transfusions? Well, there is a way now, and it is called Bone marrow Transplantation and this is the story of a man who actually lived this miracle. The name of the man is Nikhil.
Nikhil comes from a lower middle-class family. When he was born, he was diagnosed with thalassaemia intermedia, a rare disease which makes the production of adult haemoglobin impossible. The only known way to manage it: regular bone marrow transfusions.
Let us take a dive into what Thalassaemia actually is. It is a condition that a child develops if she has inherited two sets of mutated genes from her parents. Its initial symptoms of anaemia start to develop pretty fast and even if you somehow manage it, there is a risk that your next generation might suffer from the same.
Nikhil used to manage his condition up until this point. However, since he is married now, he was afraid to pass on the same malignancy to his children. Therefore, he went to contact the experts of BLK Super Specialty Hospital to see if anything can be done. To his surprise, there has always been a permanent solution, stem cell transplantation.
Anyone who needs BMT transplant, can get the detail of bone marrow transplant cost in India.
In stem cell transplantation, known by its more popular name, bone marrow transplant, the patient’s are transplanted with stem cells or bone marrow cells. Now see, bone marrow cells are those cells that make sure that your body develops bone marrow. Thalassaemia attacks these cells head on and therefore, no haemoglobin is developed. Therefore, replacing those cells is the only option to maintain the body.
However, it was not without its risk as the oncologists knew that the success rate of the whole thing is quite low.
That being said, this transplant was the last chance that Nikhil would ever have a normal life. Therefore, after proper consideration and a lot of scrutinies, he said yes.
A miracle then came in the form of his brother whose Bone marrow matched perfectly with him. Once the matching bone marrow was available, Nikhil went through the transplant.
And thank god, the operation was a success.
After the entire procedure, the road to recovery is still hard for Nikhil. Initially, he was to follow a strict regime of strong immune-suppressants and after that, he had to visit the OPD for the next three months.
But now, he is better and he only has to go there once every month.
Bone marrow transplantation is India has been a growing medical need for the people worldwide. When it comes to the statistics, there is a 1 to 15000 chance that a baby would be born with the same condition. However, this new method of curing is hope for everyone.
