My name is Palash Reza. I am 18 now. My father Mohammad Arif Ali is a wagon driver. Anyone who sees me will understand that I am suffering from a complex disease. I am a severe hemophilia B patient. My factor 9 level less than 1%.
After cutting my navel at birth, my bleeding was not stopping. That was my first sign. My parents knew nothing about hemophilia back then. Even no doctor in this district was able to understand my disease. From a very early age, I had severe bleeding in different joints of my hands and legs. I had narrow escaped from death many times. At the age of six, my father raised some money and took me to Bangabandhu Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. There we learn about hemophilia. And we are informed about the fresh frozen plasma and factor of hemophilia. Prior to this I was not given any proper treatment. My father never could afford to buy a factor because the factor was too expensive. So the only treatment for bleeding is to get plasma in Dhaka. Which was very difficult and expensive for us. Many times I was brought to Dhaka in very bad condition. I was sometimes given direct blood. A few years later, a hospital was arranged to deliver plasma to a hospital adjacent to our district, which is 74 km from our home. That didn’t help me much either. Thus, I have never received any medical treatment in my life.
I started going to school when I was ten. There I learned to read and write Bangla. However for more than 2-3 years, I had no luck in school. Because I was completely unable to walk.
Every man wants a lot of success in life. Wants to be something much bigger. But to me, something much bigger is a normal life. I want to walk like everyone. I want to go to school like everyone else. I don’t want to play football on the playground too much, I just dream of going to the field and watching the game. Every morning I woke up thinking if there was anything that help me walk.
When I could not sleep through the night because of the pain, I repeatedly wished myself dead. I used to think about why living in such a life? I couldn’t even go to the bathroom by myself. My mother used to take me in her arms. I used to sit in a place all day. I did not have the ability to go a little under the open sky in the front of the house. I was just a huge burden to my parents. And they had to carry this burden until I died. I used to pray to God so that He would give me good life or call me. Even so, I can get rid of this troubled life.
During 2016, my condition worsened. I was taken to Dhaka. It was very important to give me a factor injection. There we introduced with a hemophilia patient and he gave us the news and address of the ‘Hemophilia Society of Bangladesh’. Knowing that there was a free factor, we immediately went to the Society office. There I was made a member and immediately gave me a factor injection. I recover very quickly. That day was one of the happiest days in my life. Since then I’ve been getting factor injections. It is like a dream to me because I could never recover so easily.
My family and I are very grateful to receive free factor injections from the Society. I am thankful to the Society and members of the Society Committee. Not only are they contributing through the factor, it has made me want to live. Now my suffering has decreased a lot. I want them to be healthy and keep helping me so that I can one day walk and work with them for my all other hemophiliac brothers.