Heart disease keeps Sterry at home, parents seeking help

By NAOMI KALATE
BECAUSE of a heart condition, nine-year-old Sterry Toukes has stopped going to school, cannot walk long distances, and can only sleep with her legs crossed so that she can continue to breathe.
Doctors have told her parents Tarmeit and Augusta Toukes that the hole in Sterry’s heart cannot be operated on here, but only overseas.
Mum Augusta says they are now raising funds, even online, to take her to a hospital in India.
“It is restricting her from going to school, playing or even walking. She now stays at home while her siblings go school.”
Sterry, the third eldest in a family of four, managed to reach Grade One before her health started to restrict her mobility and agility.
Her parents from Manus and Bougainville had earlier noticed how their active and extrovert daughter started feeling weak and sickly.
“We thought that it was asthma. But when we took her to the Angau Memorial Hospital for an X-ray, the doctor told us the heart ailment cannot be treated in the country.”
They were told that she had the rare heart disease (Acynotic Tetralogy of Fallot) since she was aged one. Today her breathing is best described as labored.
“She frequently squats after exertion. The cardiac clinic in Port Moresby after a review in November last year referred her for overseas treatment as she can no longer be assisted in PNG hospitals.”

“ It is restricting her from going to school, playing or even walking. She now stays at home while her siblings go school.”

The parents have obtained a quotation from a hospital in India on the advice of doctors here, that the only way to save their daughter is to have an operation in India.
“Time is not our side. We have decided to take her to India although it will be costly. But it is for the sake of our daughter.”
The cost of travel alone is around K35,000. So they plan to raise K100,000 by June or July. So far they have done four fundraising events. They have been reaching out to people and organisations to help them with the medical expenses. They have also created social media accounts for Sterry and set up a medical appeal account for her.
Her condition has been getting worse since last year. Doctors advised Sterry’s parents to stop her from returning to school, or playing with her friends.
Her parents have bought her a wheelchair to help her move around.
Dad Tarmeit, a nurse by profession, when taking her daughter for reviews at the Angau General Hospital, hardly sees the same condition among heart patients.
So he researched the heart ailment and consulted doctors about it. He was told that it is a rare heart condition which exists from birth. The condition affects blood flow from the heart and to the rest of the body.
If the heart changes and symptoms are mild, the disease may not be noticed or diagnosed until adulthood.
The symptoms are the shortness of breath and rapid breathing especially when eating, getting tired easily during sports or exercise, irritability and fainting.
If left untreated, it usually leads to disability or even death.
The patients diagnosed with the rare heart condition squat when they are short of breath, because by squatting, more blood can flow to the lungs.
Parents Tarmeit and Augusta, and Sterry’s three siblings, want to see her get well quickly, return to school, and rejoin her friends. But all will depend on raising that K100,000 to travel to India.
They know that the saying “a healthy heart is a happy heart” rings so true for the once-active little Sterry. And they pray that people with big hearts can help her get well quickly.