By Lakhram Bhagirat
“Throughout my school life, I was always treated as a normal child. There were always children there to help me and my teachers were very supportive. I never felt different from anybody else,” said Davindra Bridgmohan.
Davindra is proving that being diagnosed with cerebral palsy is not the end of the road, rather it gives you a unique perspective on life. He is using his illness as a way of motivating others to show them that they too can live a normal life despite their circumstances.
Life for 17-year-old Davindra Bridgmohan has always been different and he would not have it any other way. The difference between Davindra and a regular 17-year-old is that he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was about 6 months old. However, his family never allowed Davindra to feel like he is less than capable.
According to the Mayo Clinic, cerebral palsy is a group of disorders that affects movement and muscle tone or posture. It’s caused by damage that occurs to the immature brain as it develops, most often before birth.
In general, cerebral palsy causes impaired movement associated with abnormal reflexes, floppiness or rigidity of the limbs and trunk, abnormal posture, involuntary movements, unsteady walking, or some combination of these.
Davindra was born at a private hospital following a caesarian section. Being the first child of his parents, Indira and Yogananand Bridgmohan, meant that there was a level of excitement surrounding his birth. However, his mother noticed that he was vomiting persistently.
She consulted with his doctors and they told her that he was suffering from a throat infection and there was nothing to worry about. He was discharged from the hospital and went home. At no time did the doctors tell the new parents that their child had cerebral palsy.
“When he was about 6 months old my mother came back from overseas and she recognised that he wasn’t doing stuff that a six-month-old baby supposed to be doing so she started to get frustrated and she sent me back to the hospital. There I saw the doctor who delivered him and he recommended me to another doctor. That doctor said that he has fluid in his head and we need to go to Trinidad for treatment,” his mother said.
Davindra’s father was a sugarcane farmer at that time so finances were not forthcoming. The family instead chose to get another doctor’s opinion and that was when he was diagnosed. The family had never heard of cerebral palsy so they began their journey towards understanding and caring for Davindra.
The doctor recommended physical therapy to aid his mobility. Indira began taking her son to the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre twice per week for therapy. She did so for over two years and then got pregnant with her daughter. Being pregnant limited her which led to her requesting that he be transferred to the West Demerara Regional Hospital for his sessions.
Then he began schooling and the physical therapist would come home to continue his treatment.
Despite his condition, Davindra’s parents continued to push him towards achieving his goals and this resulted in him performing exceptionally at the 2019 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams.
The West Demerara Secondary School student earned himself 4 Grade One passes and 6 Grade Twos, placing him among the school’s top performers. Davindra said he could not have achieved this feat without the assistance of his parents and all the teachers around him. Due to his diagnosis, Davindra relies heavily on a walker to support his movement from one place to another.
Throughout his schooling, his peers and teachers would have gone above and beyond to ensure that he enjoyed the same things as those around him. For that, he said he is grateful.
“The teachers were nice and when I was in primary school, Miss Roxanne in Grade 2 was very nice and she used to encourage me. Then in Grade 5 was Miss Onkia and she was the best and when there were tours and so on she would carry me and hoist me and make me feel like a normal child. Throughout my school life, I always felt like a normal life. I never felt like I wanted to give up, I always had the confidence to move forward,” he remembers.
Davindra’s mother, Indira, said she is beyond happy that her son has been able to accomplish so much. She commends the work of all the teachers who would have aided Davindra’s success and explained that it was not an easy road.
“When he was in primary school, there was a problem. The Grade One class teacher didn’t want him and they started to tell me different things and it used to hurt me. I would cry. One day the nursery school Head Mistress heard that teacher, she called me and told me that differently-abled children must be accepted in all Government schools.
“When I heard that I had hope. Another day I was leaving the compound and the Head Master approached me and told me that my son needed to go to a Special Needs School in Georgetown and at that time I was living three houses away from the Mc Gillvary Primary School and I told him I am not going to take him there and from that day they never told me anything else.”
Davindra never attended extra lessons during his CSEC preparation and whatever studying he did, was with the help of his parents and those around him. Armed with that knowledge, Indira said that when she saw her son results, she was speechless.
What makes her even happier is the fact that she graduated from West Demerara Secondary in 1996 and now she will be witnessing her son walking across the stage decked out in the same purple gown.
She noted that her son is just like any other child and encouraged parents of children with similar conditions to not give up.
An aspiring engineer, Davindra hopes to attend the University of Guyana to pursue his studies but for now, his family is financially constrained since his father’s earnings as a farmer cannot support this venture. He intends to enrol at the Georgetown Technical Institute as a precursor to his engineering degree but ultimately hopes that help comes along the way and his dreams can be realised.
