ANY chance she gets, three-year-old Shakera Mendez takes up her vocabulary book and tries to teach her 13-year-old brother David Mendez the letters of the alphabet and a word that they spell.

“M – Monkey,” she said as she sat on the bed with her brother, book open and a concentrative look on her face. This was followed by the slow spelling of the word before she turned the page and onto the next letter.

This is something that little Shakera does often in an attempt to teach her brother the basics of the language.

“I play with him and I look in my ABC book and say it for him and try to teach him ABC,” the little girl who attends the Leana Jones Basic School in Colonel’s Ridge, Clarendon said.

But for David, his sister’s voice may be nothing more than a sound he does not understand, even as his eyes pop open. Nonetheless, Shakera still tries to play her part on a regular basis.

But according to the boy’s mother Ethiel Rowe-Mendez, he was born without enough brain tissues, which prevents him from learning and makes him function at the ability of a six-month-old baby. He has never attended school a day in his life.

“Doctors said he didn’t have enough tissue in his brain when he was born, so at the time they put a tube through his skull and down to his brain to send medication down there to develop the brain so he could survive, because it was a 50/50 chance they did give him to survive,” Rowe-Mendez said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer at the family’s Clarendon home.

“When he was born he did not cry, and the nurse told me that they were going to rush off with him to Mandeville Hospital to see if he would survive. They said he swallowed something when he was inside of me and he took long to born. He was born a month later than when he was suppose to. I was sick with him for the nine months that I was pregnant and was in and out of the hospital.

“The doctor had told me that if he survived he was going to be sickly,” Rowe-Mendez told the Sunday Observer. “But he didn’t start showing any severe signs until he got older, about nine years old. That was when he started showing signs of total disability,” she said.

Though he has never spoken a word in his life, she explained that he was more responsive when he was younger but he has deteriorated over the years.

Now, David lies in bed barely able to move his arms and feet, not able to sit up on his own, unable to show any signs of discomfort or feed himself, unable to indicate that he is hungry, or play back with his little sister.

Along with his physical disability, David suffers from seizures due to epilepsy, asthma, weak nerves, and eczema that has left large blotches on his skin. Unfortunately, if this causes itching the child is unable to say and unable to scratch himself.

“When he was about one-and-a-half years old he had ‘fits’ (epilepsy), but he was more flexible,” Rowe-Mendez explained. “He cannot do anything at all now; he cannot sit up, cannot talk, and cannot feed himself… nothing at all. I basically have to do everything for him. Sometimes he will make a clapping sound with his tongue, but most of the time I have to judge to know that I should feed him.”

She explains that like a six-month-old child, David can only eat soft foods and has to wear diapers 24 hours a day.

Not only is caring for him physically taxing, but Rowe-Mendez and her husband said that financially, the situation is stressful.

She explained that she has to stay with him at all times, which prevents her from working, while the little that her husband makes from his farm is not able to suffice.

“It is just the mercy of God why we are managing,” Rowe-Mendez said. “It is really stressful. Every week I have to buy half pack of pampers because I cannot buy the full pack of 60. And there is a lady overseas, Pauline Bartley-Brown, she helps us out sometimes, and whenever she is coming down she will carry some pampers.”

She explained that a lot of times she gets frustrated, but knows she has to remain humble. However, one of her greatest fears is David reaching 30 years and onwards and she still has to care for him as a baby.

“Sometimes when I look at him it really breaks me down, but I try and cope because he is mine already.”

The child’s father, Junior Mendez, said that he has accepted his son’s situation for what it is — an illness that is here to stay.

“One of the times it get to me, but right now I don’t see any better so I just take it easy and do the best we can do,” Junior Mendez said. “The hardest thing with us right now is that the clinic is so far in May Pen (approximately 15 miles away) and we have to charter a vehicle and they charge us $7,000 every time we have to take him there. The medication very expensive too.”

Mendez said that the family could do with any help that they can get in the care of their child. He noted that the situation keeps his wife confined.

Mendez refers to his son as ‘baby’, and said that this is because mentally he has not passed that stage.

He explained that a wheelchair is now needed as David has started to outgrow the one he received from the Clarendon Group for the Disabled when the child was five years old.

But there are times, he noted, when he would make the best of the situation and treat his son like a pet by driving him around the yard in his wheelchair, or carry him for walks during the times when the child would cry for hours and they are left not knowing why or what to do.

Rowe-Mendez also expressed her gratitude for any help towards the child, who currently gets $2,090 from the PATH programme every two months. This, however, only covers a full pack of diapers that can last two weeks.

She explained that the hospital sometimes provides them with medication but other times they have to make their own purchases of the epilepsy and asthma medicines.

The attentive mother said that whenever her son is not feeling well she is sometimes able to tell, since he just lays still and is completely unresponsive to whatever is happening around him. These are the times that often drive fear into them as they feel they may be losing him.

But she too gets her own personal rewards, as she explained that whenever she leaves the house for a period of time he will start moving briskly up and down and making what they interpret to be sounds of laughter upon her return.

Since he cannot help himself, David has to be lifted in and out of bed, and since he cannot sit upright on his own, he is tied across his chest into the wheelchair, while feeding mostly requires two persons, one holding him in their lap and the other feeding him.

His mother explained that the Clarendon Group for the Disabled also comes in from time to time and does therapy with him, while a few times he was taken out on trips during the summer by the group. However, because they are not sponsored by the Government they are unable to do this often.

But despite how bad his underlining illness is now, Rowe-Mendez explained that when David was younger they had to rush with him to the May Pen Hospital at odd hours of the night in an effort to save his life.

“All 12 and one o’clock at nights we used to have to be on the road with him to the hospital,” she explained. “So the fits take him, we had to rush with him because if the fits on him for 24 hours it can kill him. When it take him the asthma take him same time too, but it kind of under control now.”

“Nuff times I see him stretch out and I think him dead and I feel a way,” her husband interjected. “But we have a guy whenever David sick any hours at night and we call him, him always help we out and whenever we get money we pay him,” he said.

Those wishing to assist David with a wheelchair or in any other way may contact his mother at (876) 431-7382 or his father at (876) 521-0899.