A baby in India was abandoned by his biological parents because they could not accept his illness: the baby’s head swelled up to three times the size of a normal child.
According to the Daily Mail, the baby’s name is Royal Kumar. She was born with hydrocephalus – a condition in which fluid in the brain accumulates and can be fatal.
The illness caused the 4-month-old baby to experience severe symptoms such as vomiting, lethargy and growth arrest.
The baby’s biological parents could not accept this fact and abandoned her.
Fortunately, one of her relatives, Ms. Prabha Devi, 30, and her husband, Mr. Rajendra Prasad, 45, stood up to take care of her.
The kind couple even contributed their entire savings in an effort to save Royal’s life.
Sister Devi said: “I was very nervous when I saw her miserable appearance. I always wondered why the poor had to go through so much pain. Some neighbors asked why. I adopted him again even though I knew about his illness. I replied that because he is a human. Who will take care of him if I leave him? He will die.”
“The boy is like my son now and I will do anything to save him,” said the kind woman, “He is already considered a member of our family. I sold everything. The set of gold I have for the baby’s treatment.”
“Ever since she came into my life, she’s been like me. I’ve never differentiated between my three children and I never will.”
Her family spent more than £2,000 (200,000 rupees) on the boy’s treatment, but Royal’s health has not improved.
Surgeons tried to treat the boy by inserting a device into his body that helps remove brain fluid and discharge it through the bloodstream, to help reduce pressure on the skull.
Mr. Devi, a laborer with a salary of £50 (5000 rupees) a month was informed of the work performed at the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) in Ranchi, eastern India.
This week, doctors operated on Royal to insert a new drainage device, as they thought the old one had stopped working.
Dr Chandra Bhushan Sahay, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the hospital, said Royal was an abandoned case and performed the surgery free of charge.
He added: “The boy had had surgery somewhere before coming here. However, that discharge device got stuck and stopped working – which meant we had to put new equipment in the system. to the other side of the brain.
“When he first came here, he used to vomit, be lethargic and not develop normally, but things are better now.
“The mortality rate is extremely high for these cases because the development of the body and the brain is abnormal, and if neglected, the survival rate is even smaller.