Strange disease afflicts family trio

By S. Edirisinghe

All the inmates in this house today are handicapped but their struggle to live on is an example to those who are gifted with limbs.

A mother, son and daughter are suffering from a strange disease. They are from Wadakada in Yatiyantota and are N.D. Babynona (60), K.D.Podimahatmaya (38) and Kumari Hapuwella (34).

All three of them cannot keep their heads or their bodies straight as normal people can.

They make a living by making wicks for lamps and selling them to keep the home fires burning. It is a meritorious act if others can help them. When this journalist visited their home and interviewed the mother, this is what she said.

“I am from Kotikawatta and I came here in 1968 and married Gunadasa a carpenter. I worked in a quarry for the Road Development Authority till I gave birth to my daughter in 1984. Then I contracted this disease. All of a sudden my neck stiffened and I could not move it. I was treated at the Colombo General Hospital where doctors said they cannot diagnose my ailment.

In 1988 the daughter too was afflicted with it and was treated at the same hospital, being warded for a year. In 1997 my son contracted the disease and was warded at the Peradeniya Hospital. His wife left him after that.”

“We don’t make much money out of our business even after going from place to place”, she said.

Neighbours are helping this family. Though the three of them are receiving medical treatment, there seem to be no sign of their condition improving. A pensioner living close by and who helps them said the family was in dire straits today.
He said it would be a great help if some philanthropist would assist in the education of the son’s two children.