Manas Lokhande
Age: 4 years
Hometown: Jalgaon, Maharashtra (247 miles from Mumbai)
Manas is a strong child who loves playing and coloring. He is the first born child in his household and is pampered by his family. He came to the Access Life center with his parents in January, 2020.
Fighting Cancer and COVID-19
In Dec’19 Manas was admitted to the hospital in his hometown for Pneumonia. He developed difficulty in passing urine and stool with pain in the abdomen. Since he was not getting better, his family shifted him to Aurangabad City where a CT scan and Pet scan report confirmed that Manas had a Rhabdoid Tumor in his stomach. Heeding the advice of a close relative, the family travelled to Mumbai for better treatment.
Manas was already running a fever when he was admitted. On being tested, he was found to be COVID positive. He recovered in 14 days with the support of the doctors and the hospital.
Four months later, Manas was scheduled for his Rhabdoid Tumor surgery at Tata Memorial Hospital. The operation lasted for more than 5 hours and was successful. Manas was on the road to recovery and was almost normal.
However, a month later he tested positive for COVID-19 again. This time his mother also tested positive for COVID-19. While Manas’ mom was COVID negative within a week, his struggle lasted for more than a month. He tested COVID positive 6 times throughout this month before finally being tested negative in late July.
Only after he tested negative for COVID-19, did Manas’ treatment for cancer resume. He was started on an ongoing cycle of 28 radiations.
Challenges
The biggest challenge for Manas was being repeatedly testing positive for COVID-19. After his mother tested positive too, it was difficult for her to provide him the care he needed, as she needed time to recover as well.
