|
19th
February 2005
One more
Cocktail for Oon.
No I
don’t mean a Harvey Warbanger, although I am rather
partial to those. Here I am talking about a cocktail
of anti-viral drugs. Thankfully there is now one more
because it’s not long ago that she was on the last
one. Thankfully with the progress in this field she
now has yet a further one to go.
Oon is 18
years old on 15th June 2005 and I am told
that she is the longest living HIV sufferer in Asia
having had the misfortune of being been born with HIV.
When changing from her previous medication the last
time to the present one she suffered terrible side
effects for the first few weeks but as you can see
from the photo, she is now doing well. It is
considered that you have a few years with each
cocktail before HIV overcomes the beneficial effects
of the drugs. Naturally this will vary with each
person involved.
|
 |
This is Oon
today.
Left to right Fr,
Nidini, Oo and Oon.
Fr, Nidini has
now returned to Italy
Update July
2010 Oon is now 23 years old and has finished
her studies. She is now working as a teacher for
the younger children at the center. |
Georgina
wrote this about Oon’s birthday last year.
A Birthday to
Celebrate:
Every
year we all have the chance to celebrate our birthday.
Some birthdays we look forward to with great
anticipation and others we wish would pass quietly.
Today we
celebrated with great joy the 17th birthday
of one of our children.
Oon was
born HIV positive on June 15th, 1987. She
came to the Camillian Social Center in November 1997
as a thin, sick little girl. She was the first child
at the Center to receive anti-retroviral medicine. Now
she is attending a local Secondary school in the
community and is a healthy, active teenager.
We are
pleased to say that Oon is the oldest living teenager,
born HIV positive, living in Asia.
Her smile today was a light for everyone at the Center.
We could feel her great joy and it was a pleasure to
celebrate her birthday with her.
Last
Tuesday, 15th February 2005, it was the 14th
birthday of Ou. This was celebrated with great joy as
these children just don’t know how many they have
left. OK that could be said of us all but as is the
case these children they know their days are numbered.
Two of
her three pills cocktail are provided by the Thai
authorities under the new 30Baht (about $0.73 cents)
scheme but the third one which is $250.00 a month has
to be provided by the centre. This is what our
contributions are all about.
The last
child to die from HIV/AIDS at the centre, at the end
of October 2002, was approximately four years old. Her
name was Sonya and her age is only approximate because
no one knows how old she really was. Sonya was
referred to the centre after she had been taken to
Chonburi Hospital following an accident and was found
to be suffering with HIV/AIDS. She had been fed, one
imagines like you would feed a stray dog, by the
market vendors up until that time. She slept under the
empty market stalls after the market closed. I am
sorry, I have been around a bit, but I just can’t
imagine that. She had no name and was only given the
name Sonya when she arrived at the centre. No one
knows how she came to the market or where she came
from. This sounds like a story from Rudyard Kipling in
the early 1800’s, not one in the 21st
century and from a modern city like Chonburi. I am
sitting here in total disbelief and if these facts
hadn’t come from my most reliable source, I, for sure,
would not have believed it. While at the centre Sonya
was loved by all children and staff alike and her
untimely death was very sadly mourned.
Georgina
is at this time writing the biographies of all the
children at the centre and I hope she will allow me to
publish them on my site when the job is complete.
There is
a new scheme being devised by the centre, well, on the
drawing board anyway. This is for a new teenage
community of 24 young people. As yet it is only in the
planning stage because the target monetary requirement
is Baht 9,000,000 (about $237,000.00USD) and as yet
there is only 3,000.000. Baht in the kitty. This would
free up at least 14 places in the orphanage
immediately. The funds for the children seem to remain
constant at a three month level. That is to say that
if no cash comes in the centre has a breathing space
of just three months. Fr, G is always saying God will
provide and that just may be the case in the form of
you, me and many other good people out there.
Up Date
February 2009
In the summer of 2008
Oon celebrated he 21st Birthday, she is still at
collage learning business studies. She is now
considered the oldest living person to have had HIV
since birth in Asia. She will finish her studies in
the spring of 2010 and that summer she will go for a
stay in London England courtesy of the Thai
Children's Trust (formally the Pattaya Orphanage
Trust), this is to further her studies of the
English Language.
All this was 0nly
made possible because of the monumental efforts of
Father Giovanni who became an Italian Knight in the
summer of 2008 for his work helping the poor and
sick people of Thailand. |
