Race against time to save Dinesh

Di­nesh Gadraj is sched­uled to leave T&T in just two weeks for Apol­lo Hos­pi­tal in In­dia—a jour­ney his fam­i­ly prays will save his life. But as March 11 draws clos­er, the 20-year-old re­mains heart­break­ing­ly far from rais­ing the more than US$165,000 need­ed for the stem cell trans­plant that could give him a fight­ing chance.

At an age when most young men are plan­ning ca­reers and pur­su­ing their dreams, the for­mer Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege stu­dent is in­stead prepar­ing for an un­cer­tain med­ical bat­tle over­seas. Doc­tors in T&T have told his fam­i­ly there is noth­ing more they can do.

The Min­istry of Health has con­tributed TT$100,000 to­ward his treat­ment, and an on­line fundrais­er has brought in US$3,414 so far. But the amount still need­ed re­mains over­whelm­ing.

Now frail and weak­en­ing by the day, Di­nesh spends most of his time at home af­ter be­ing dis­charged from hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing months of treat­ment for high-risk B-cell Acute Lym­phoblas­tic Leukaemia—re­lapsed and re­frac­to­ry—mean­ing the can­cer has re­turned and is no longer re­spond­ing to stan­dard ther­a­py.

“Doc­tors here say they can’t do any­thing again,” his moth­er, Di­ana Gadraj, said. “So I am ar­rang­ing what­ev­er I can to take him abroad on March 11. His best chance is to go abroad as soon as pos­si­ble. He’s get­ting weak­er.”

Once strong and full of life, she said, Di­nesh now strug­gles with even the sim­plest tasks.

“Some­times he can­not stand up for long pe­ri­ods. He’s al­ways tired,” Di­ana said, her voice break­ing. “It breaks me to see him like this. He didn’t even start life yet.”

She said that af­ter months of search­ing for op­tions, hope came in the form of a med­ical opin­ion from Apol­lo Hos­pi­tal in In­dia.

Dr Gau­rav Kharya, Clin­i­cal Lead of the Cen­tre for Bone Mar­row Trans­plant and Cel­lu­lar Ther­a­py, re­viewed Di­nesh’s re­ports and rec­om­mend­ed ur­gent CAR T-cell ther­a­py—an ad­vanced im­munother­a­py that has shown promise in treat­ing re­lapsed blood can­cers. If re­mis­sion is achieved, doc­tors would then pro­ceed with a bone mar­row trans­plant.

But Di­ana said that hope comes at a dev­as­tat­ing cost.

The es­ti­mat­ed ex­pense—in­clud­ing eval­u­a­tion, CAR T-cell ther­a­py, trans­plant, fol­low-up care and ac­com­mo­da­tion for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 18 weeks—ranges from US$151,900 to US$165,000. Com­pli­ca­tions could push the cost even high­er.

For the work­ing-class south Trinidad fam­i­ly, the fig­ure feels im­pos­si­ble.

“One treat­ment in Trinidad is $45,000 for one,” Di­ana ex­plained. “That is why I’m go­ing to In­dia for them to treat him there be­fore the trans­plant.”

His fa­ther, Steve Gadraj, a truck dri­ver, strug­gles to watch his first­born grow weak­er.

The young man who once at­tend­ed tem­ple, read books and spoke ex­cit­ed­ly about build­ing a ca­reer in drilling tech­nol­o­gy now dreams of some­thing far more ba­sic—sur­vival.

Di­nesh says he hopes to re­turn to school, com­plete his stud­ies and build the fu­ture he had on­ly just be­gun to imag­ine.

The fam­i­ly’s fight has been rid­dled with ob­sta­cles. There were de­lays in get­ting do­na­tion sheets ap­proved by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. Fundrais­ing has moved slow­ly, even with a Go­FundMe cam­paign. With each pass­ing week, med­ical costs mount while Di­nesh’s strength de­clines.

Still, Di­ana re­fus­es to give up.

“This is his chance,” she said. “If we can just get him there, he has hope.”

Di­nesh’s bat­tle comes amid what many de­scribe as a painful pat­tern among young men from south Trinidad’s top schools. Just last month, Na­pari­ma Col­lege Class of 2023 stu­dent Roel Mo­hammed died at age 21 af­ter bat­tling Pri­ma­ry Me­di­asti­nal Large B-cell Lym­phoma. An­oth­er young man, Kristo­pher Mo­hamed, who was di­ag­nosed with Stage IV Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, is now in re­mis­sion.

But for Di­nesh, time is not a com­fort—it is an en­e­my.

Apol­lo Hos­pi­tals, one of the world’s largest health­care groups, has out­lined a com­pre­hen­sive treat­ment plan, in­clud­ing hos­pi­tal care, fol­low-up treat­ment and ac­com­mo­da­tion for Di­nesh and one par­ent. How­ev­er, treat­ment can­not be­gin with­out the nec­es­sary funds.

As March 11 ap­proach­es, Di­ana said she is count­ing the days and pray­ing her son can hold on.

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist can do­nate to First Cit­i­zens Bank, Pe­nal Branch, to Di­ana Gadraj’s sav­ings ac­count num­ber 3144693, or via Go­FundMe at go­fundme.com/f/sup­port-di­neshs-fight-against-leukemia.

The fam­i­ly can al­so be con­tact­ed at 366-0423 or 395-5420.