Shas­tri Boodan

Levi Mo­hammed, 13, who has been bat­tling a rare form of leukaemia since age eight, has start­ed life-sav­ing treat­ment at a chil­dren’s hos­pi­tal in North Car­oli­na, Unit­ed States.

The teen, who was di­ag­nosed with acute basal leukaemia, has suf­fered two re­laps­es—the most re­cent was last month.

Levi and his moth­er, Maris­sa Ali, left T&T on March 19 to be­gin a crit­i­cal treat­ment plan aimed at achiev­ing re­mis­sion, fol­lowed by a bone mar­row trans­plant. The fam­i­ly is ur­gent­ly ap­peal­ing for help to raise the es­ti­mat­ed US$500,000 need­ed to cov­er med­ical ex­pens­es.

Levi’s un­cle, Saud Ali, said the first phase of treat­ment is be­ing done at the North Car­oli­na Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal.

“This drug re­quires a three-week course, so we’ll be stay­ing put in North Car­oli­na for that time,” he ex­plained.

“Af­ter this, his doc­tors are rec­om­mend­ing im­munother­a­py, fol­lowed by a bone mar­row trans­plant. There’s still quite a bit of lo­gis­tics and costs to be sort­ed out, but we’re re­lieved that he can start this ini­tial part of his treat­ment and that we have a bit of breath­ing room to re­group and plan ahead.”

De­spite the med­ical chal­lenges, Levi’s spir­its are high and he is ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in phys­i­cal ther­a­py and has re­sumed light school­work. With the hos­pi­tal’s sup­port, he al­so en­joys down­time with a PlaySta­tion, which has brought him com­fort dur­ing his stay.

Ali said the out­pour­ing of sup­port from the pub­lic has been over­whelm­ing.

“We are so very grate­ful for all the do­na­tions and the thoughts and prayers for Levi but the cost of get­ting Levi treat­ed is still well be­yond the fam­i­ly’s sav­ings and the fundrais­ing achieved so far. We would great­ly ap­pre­ci­ate it if peo­ple can con­tin­ue to share Levi’s sto­ry and do­nate where they can.”

Doc­tors have pre­scribed a spe­cial­ized im­munother­a­py, CAR T-cell ther­a­py to en­sure the leukemia does not re­turn be­fore the trans­plant. Levi al­so suf­fers from oth­er med­ical com­pli­ca­tions that re­quire close mon­i­tor­ing, mak­ing his re­cov­ery com­plex and ex­pen­sive.

Still, his fam­i­ly re­mains hope­ful.

“Levi con­tin­ues to im­prove since be­ing hos­pi­tal­ized in the US He is in much bet­ter spir­its, work­ing hard at build­ing up his strength for walk­ing and man­ag­ing dai­ly tasks,” Ali said.

“His par­ents are de­ter­mined to give him the best chance at a can­cer-free fu­ture.”

Do­na­tions can be made to the fam­i­ly’s fundrais­ing plat­forms, with de­tails avail­able on so­cial me­dia, or to the Roy­al Bank ac­count 110000002352902.