SINCE 12-year old Tahera Wright’s dilemma was highlighted in the Sunday Observer of June 12, 2011, not only has she received substantial assistance from well-wishers locally and overseas, but was able to undergo surgery that as left her feeling much better.

The young girl, had been diagnosed as suffering from a build up of fluid around the brain, and needed to get an operation to place an adjustable shunt, (a surgically implanted device used to drain fluid build-up in affected parts of a patient’s body), costing some $420,912, in her head.

Tahera’s mother Karen Miller told the Sunday Observer on Friday that that her child is doing much better since the device was implanted.

However, she says her daughter is still under close observation.

“Her head still hurt and she is sleeping a lot,” Miller said.

“I am worried about her because she will just get up and eat and go back to sleep. She is mostly in bed. I think she sleeping too much. The doctor said to keep her under close observation and if I see anything that seem unusual to take her in to them.”

She explained that before Tahera did her first surgery in May, when a temporary shunt was placed in her head, she was also sleeping a lot and the child’s doctor had told her then that this was not good.

Miller said the doctor has now told her to look out for signs of seizures, which the child had experienced before her first surgery, and vomiting. So far, she said she has vomited only once and has not had another visible seizure.

In an earlier article, one of Tahera’s doctors at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) confirmed that the fluid in the child’s head was not only causing her head to swell, but was putting pressure on the brain which may have caused the seizures and headaches she had been suffering. He explained that this pressure can lead to memory impairment, problems with her performance in school, coma and worse.

When Tahera did the initial operation in May, Miller was told that her daughter needed a different device, one that could be adjusted so that the fluid flow could be monitored without additional surgeries.

A good Samaritan, Wesley Richards, was bent on shouldering the bill for the adjustable shunt, even if he had to do it alone, he said. So determined was he, that the day following the publication of the Sunday Observer story, Richards decided to consult with some doctors overseas to source the shunt. He then discovered that a special valve could be attached to the temporary shunt already in the child’s head, converting it to an adjustable device.

He convinced his friends overseas to source the device, known as the Medtronic Burr Hole Valve.

“I contacted my friend Dr Hin in Florida on the night of June 13th, and he spoke with an associate, Dr Figuereo (neurosurgeon), who obtained the valve from his supplier on June 16th and provided it to us gratis (free).

“I then flew to Florida the evening of June 21st and returned to Jamaica on June 22nd with the valve,” Richards explained. He handed it over to the child’s doctors at the KPH, who approved it.

On June 28, Tahera was admitted at the hospital to have the valve attached.

“She is doing much better,” her mother said Friday.

“Her head is no longer growing and it even look as if it shrinking,” she said.

Financial help also came from Ex-JDF Association, New York chapter executive member, Tony Williams, who donated J$50,000 from his own pockets with the promise to seek additional help from his friends and other members of the association overseas.

The Portia Simpson Miller Foundation also helped monetarily, as did a compassionate Observer reader; Heron Wright, who decided to assume responsibility for Tahera’s monthly medication bill, which Miller said sometimes amounts to $6,000.

Duane Boise, president and COO of Jamaica Med (MedServ Jamaica Limited) — Jamaica’s first air ambulance service — and his team, have been working on the next step of Tahera’s treatment, which involves taking her overseas where she will have medical experts treat the source of her problems with fluid build-up on the brain.

There is hope that specialist care would prevent her having to wear the shunt for the rest of her life.

Several persons also made contributions to the Jamaica National Building Society account set up towards aiding the child.

Miller said she is forever grateful to those persons who assisted Tahera.