RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Third-year nurs­ing stu­dent Is­rael Cas­tle is fight­ing an up­hill bat­tle — bal­anc­ing his stud­ies and car­ing for his ail­ing moth­er, whilst liv­ing in a col­laps­ing home.

Cas­tle sleeps on a thin mat­tress in a ply­wood house propped up on bricks. Parts of the floor­ing are rid­dled with ter­mites, with holes large enough for his moth­er, Gail Cas­tle, 50, to fall through.

The ceil­ing sags, and the back of the house has no wall at all, leav­ing it ex­posed to the el­e­ments.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia last week, Cas­tle said his moth­er suf­fers from Hunt­ing­ton’s dis­ease, a hered­i­tary brain dis­or­der that has af­fect­ed her move­ment, think­ing, and be­hav­iour, rob­bing her of the abil­i­ty to work.

Car­ing for Gail is a full-time task, yet Cas­tle man­ages his moth­er’s care whilst study­ing nurs­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

“My goal is to fin­ish nurs­ing school… to be able to bet­ter pro­vide for my mom. She was the rea­son I start­ed… she’s the rea­son I’ll be able to fin­ish… just for her,” he said.

Cas­tle said he wakes up at 4 am each day to cook break­fast and lunch be­fore trav­el­ling from La­choos Road, Pe­nal, to class­es from 8 am to 4 pm. While at school, he checks on his moth­er us­ing a cam­era he in­stalled in the home.

“Some­times I call her and be like, ‘Ma, what are you do­ing?’… she says ‘I sit down out­side’… but I see she isn’t at home. She run away and gone in the shop,” he said, watch­ing her fond­ly.

Cas­tle said last No­vem­ber, the back of their home col­lapsed, and he was forced to move his moth­er out of her bed­room. The bro­ken beam had to be propped up with bricks.

“Since then, we have not been com­fort­able. Then, the oth­er day… the beam in the kitchen… it fell down al­so,” he re­vealed.

He said Gail has fall­en through the floor­ing sev­er­al times.

“The roof­ing flaps, the wood is dry­ing so the nail is com­ing out from the wood it­self. So when wind blow, the roof­ing starts to fly up. The walls get wet­ting and every­where has woodlice,” he said.

Cas­tle said he can­not work, so he sup­ple­ments his moth­er’s dis­abil­i­ty grant by sell­ing nurs­ing items to his friends. The mon­ey from these sales helps him to pay for nurs­ing school.

With Hunt­ing­ton’s dis­ease crip­pling Gail’s abil­i­ty to work, Cas­tle said some­times they have to make tough choic­es of ei­ther pay­ing bills or buy­ing food. He al­so wor­ries about Gail’s con­di­tion, which start­ed six years ago.

“I re­alised she had a jerk­ing move­ment… I car­ried her to the health cen­tre and they re­ferred her to the hos­pi­tal. The doc­tor said Hunt­ing­ton’s dis­ease is pro­gres­sive… no cure but there is med­ica­tion to man­age it,” he re­vealed.

Cas­tle said one of his biggest fears is her chok­ing while eat­ing.

De­spite the hard­ships, Cas­tle con­tin­ues to care for her him­self.

“I will ei­ther make a soup for her or cook some food be­cause now she can­not cook any­more,” he re­vealed.

He said his im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty is to make the house safe.

“I was in con­tact with a med­ical so­cial work­er, who said she will have to vis­it her home,” he re­vealed.

Cas­tle said he needs build­ing ma­te­ri­als to start re­pairs and is will­ing to pro­vide labour him­self, along with friends.

“We need build­ing ma­te­ri­als… con­crete foun­da­tion… ce­ment, sand, steel, blocks. Any­thing to make this pos­si­ble,” he said.

He said he hoped the pub­lic would un­der­stand the ur­gency of their sit­u­a­tion.

“We re­al­ly hop­ing to get some help be­cause I am try­ing my best but she needs a safe place to stay. Please don’t judge us be­cause this can hap­pen to any­one… just as how my mom is hav­ing a health cri­sis and we need the as­sis­tance… it could al­so hap­pen to some­one else, so please help if you can,” he added.

Cas­tle said he prays every day for some re­lief and gets strength from God. He re­called how his moth­er took him and his sib­lings to church every week­end and how she tried to keep the fam­i­ly to­geth­er. Ad­mit­ting that he no longer at­tends church be­cause of his com­mit­ments, Cas­tle said he nev­er strayed from God.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist can call Cas­tle at 388 6939 or 3237117. Do­na­tions can be made to Gail Cas­tle, Re­pub­lic Bank, Pe­nal Chequing Ac­count- 500043636031.