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Tuesday, Sep 14, 2004

National

National

Walk boy, walk

By Ramya Kannan

Tharshanan takes a few steps at the Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, on Monday as his parents (left) watch. - Photo: S. Thanthoni

CHENNAI, SEPT. 13. When you ask Tharshanan Paramadevan the usual question about what he wants to be when he grows up, the 13-year-old pauses a moment. He then cocks his head and says, haltingly: ``I want to walk.''

For a boy who took his first steps when he was 12, walking is a big deal indeed. When he was born in 1992, doctors at the French hospital told his mother Kirubarani that her son had cerebral palsy (CP). ``Denial of oxygen to the brain at some point during birth could lead to CP,'' says Dr. Radha Rajagopalan, paediatrician, Apollo Hospitals.

Tharshanan was crumpled in a foetal position, his limbs stiff, as he was wheeled into the hospital on July 18. ``Only the tips of his toes would touch the ground and his knees were bent,'' says Ms. Kirubarani, a French national of Sri Lankan origin who migrated to France in 1984 along with her husband, Paramadevan.

On July 19, Dr. Balaji Srinivasan, ortho engineer, Apollo Hospitals, Chennai, and his team operated on ten areas in Tharshanan's body, correcting soft tissue deformities, in about two hours. Subsequently, the physiotherapists gave Tharshanan his first lesson in walking. With intensive physiotherapy and the aid of a walker, he took his first steps.

After 12 days at the physiotherapy department, his face lights up at the sight of the therapists who helped him walk.

``Gautam,'' he keeps calling out to one of them, and the tall, bearded gent walks up to him and calls him by the name of his favourite actor, `Suriya'. But Tharshanan quickly corrects him, Madurey!

``His favourites change. After seeing the movie Madurey, it is Vijay,'' Mr. Paramadevan, who works with a re-location agency in Mantes-la Jolie, near Paris, says.

He and his wife had approached hospitals in France and the U.K. All of them ruled out the possibility of the boy being able to walk independently, he says. Then they turned to Dr. Balaji Srinivasan.

``Though we are entitled to receiving free treatment in France, we pooled our meagre resources to fly to Chennai. For us, it was where hope lay,'' Mr. Paramadevan says.

Since CP is not a degenerative condition, Dr. Balaji Srinivasan assures them that Tharshanan will not become immobile again. ``He can walk with the help of a walker now, and six to eight months later, he should be able to walk without support."

Perhaps, in six months, when he strides across the streets of France, Tharshanan might want to do something else when he grows up.

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