‘I want to be normal’

The family of 17-year-old Kiara Ingram, who has had a large tissue tumour growing on her neck for more than half her life, has been struggling to scrape the funds together to have the mass removed.

But despite a GoFundMe account being established to seek donations to assist her in paying for a digital subtraction angiography (DSA), the funds have been slow in coming.

With seven months gone since the GoFundMe account was established, it has received a mere £847 of its £20,000 goal, and the teenager is again pleading for assistance as she desperately needs to pay the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) J$1.6 million, which represents the subsidised cost of an operation.

Kiara told The Gleaner that she first felt the vascular neck mass nine years ago while she was attending primary school between grades two and three.

“It started as a little bump, and then it kept growing,” Kiara said as The Gleaner spoke with her at her home in the rural district of O’Meally, St Catherine, last Thursday.

She brought the ‘bump’ to her parents’ attention, and her mother took her to the nearest health centre for an examination.

After numerous visits to doctors in the public-health sector, and with the tissue tumour becoming more pronounced as it grew, she was referred to the Bustamante Hospital for Children, where a section was removed for a biopsy. Thankfully, the results proved that the growth was not cancerous.

About three years later, Kiara’s mother, Kathleen Ingram, took her to a private doctor, who referred the teenager to the Kingston Public Hospital.

“The doctor referred me to Public, and I went to Public and they did many tests, and dem seh dem have a test (the operation) to do, and dem don’t do it there, so dem send me to UHWI (University Hospital of the West Indies) to do the test ... . They told me they are going to put her on a [subsidised] programme, but we still need that amount of money ($1.6 million) to do the test,” said Kathleen, who is a farmer and market vendor.

“The [donations] are coming in very slow. The money right now, it don’t reach nowhere, so we still need a lot more ... and I cannot afford it,” she said.

Earning capacity reduced

Kathleen said the funds she and her husband earn from the work they do, tilling the soil and going to Bog Walk Market, is sometimes only enough to put food on their table and send their children to school.

Additionally, with the destruction of crops by Hurricane Beryl, their earning capacity has been further reduced, with Kathleen not going to the market to sell during the past two weeks.

“Hurricane blow down the plantain [trees and] the banana [trees], so what we can find mi carry dem a market already,” she said.

To add to this, the family had no money to pay for Kiara’s graduation package up to May, and as a result, the teenager missed out on attending her graduation ceremony at the Enid Bennett High School.

“I really want the help because I’ve had it for years now, so I want it to be done with as quick as possible. I want to go out in the world, be normal. I want it to be removed to just feel normal and feel comfortable. Sometimes it makes me feel like the odd person out from my friends and my family, but I’ve grown to accept it and not let it bother me,” Kiara told The Gleaner.

She said sometimes the mass becomes painful and affects her hearing and leaves her with a numb feeling.

The student sat English language, English literature, social studies, principles of accounts, principles of business, and electronic document preparation and management in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations and City & Guilds mathematics examination. She is now eagerly awaiting her results to know if she can apply for her school’s Sixth Form Programme.

Regarding hospital visits, Kathleen said it has been stressful for her to take Kiara from their rural farming community in the mountainous terrains of O’Meally to hospitals in the capital city over the years, but she did it nonetheless, and they are now at a crossroads, pleading for financial donations.

“I’d been taking her and dem seh dem don’t know what it is, but it’s not cancerous. They want me to go over to do the tests, but I don’t have the money to do it, so I stop right there,” she said.

Kathleen told The Gleaner that, at one point when Kiara was still a young child, she told her husband that she did not want surgeons to put another knife on her, but with the continuous growth of the tumour, she has now come to another decision and is also pleading for financial help.

She said that given that she cannot afford the J$1.6 million, and despite a television interview in which they made their appeal some months ago, the GoFundMe account has not been able to reach its goal.

Amid it all, the teen has not been deterred or lost faith. She remains grounded and has set out a goal to work in the medical field.

“I want to become a doctor. I did business subjects, but I want to become a doctor. Many people have told me that I look like I could be in the medical field, and if not a doctor, I could start by becoming a nurse and going to nursing school. I’d really like to help out people, and so on,” an enthusiastic Kiara told The Gleaner.

“Going to doctor visits ever since I was a child, it inspires me to want to become a doctor. I don’t know why, but I just have a feeling that I should be in the medical field, so I’m really trying, and I know that I need to get science subjects to become a doctor, so I want to start after I leave high school,” she said.

Persons wishing to donate can visit Kiara’s GoFundMe page at https://www.gofundme.com/f/52cuf-donate-to-help-kiara or call her mother at 876-430-7268.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com