Bukola Adebayo
Master Tope Apanisile needs the help of well-meaning Nigerians to lead a normal life.
According to his medical report, which was made available to our correspondent on Tuesday, Apanisile was diagnosed with bladder exstrophy, a disease that can only be corrected with surgery.
The father of the boy, Wale, said that doctors had warned that Apanisile must undergo the procedure before clocking five years in October.
He said the four-year-old had to be placed on a strict diet to ensure that his bladder did not collapse before he could raise money for the operation.
“If he eats something hard, it will not digest in time and he will have stomach-ache. If he takes drugs, it will not digest and the drugs will be visible from his affected scrotum,” he said.
“Once he eats and it digests, the urine drops from his scrotum by itself, it does not go through his penis and this has affected his bladder. His scrotum is swollen and needs to be stitched for him to be able to urinate through his manhood.”
The boy, he said, uses about seven sanitary pads daily, adding that he has spent all he has on him.
There is still hope for Apanisile, but it does not come cheap. His family would need to raise about N4.5m for a surgery which his father, a bricklayer, has said he cannot afford at the moment.
“He had to stop school as he could no longer cope. Even his mother abandoned him when his condition began to get worse. All I have has been spent on my son’s health. We have been able to raise N650,000 but I need more to pay for his treatment,” Apanisile added.
- To help please call: 08030688658 Apanisile Wale: 0237910788, GTB
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