Urmila, a beautiful young girl holding her father’s hand came to see me while I was examining the other patients who had come to the camp for surgery. After some initial talks, upon asking in which class she studied she looked at her father inquisitively. I looked at her father and asked, “Why does your daughter not go to school? She seems to be a bright child.” The father with a sad look on his face parted his daughter’s hair and showed it to me and said, “Madam, look at her scalp. Because of this, she is not able to go to school.” I looked at her scalp closely. There were several small growths there which in our language is known as neurofibroma. There were several small growths on her head. The father told me that because of the growth, the child could not sleep well, as she had severe itching on the scalp. The fear that the children will make fun of her, she did not go to school. The family had taken her to several hospitals, but they were charging three lakh rupees to treat her. Her father, a daily wage laborer, could not afford such a costly treatment along with looking after his family of six and a sick mother.

This was the challenge that was awaiting us on the third day of our camp. When Urmila was being taken into the operating theatre, her parents and relatives all looked incredibly sad and tense. After about an hour and a half of surgery, she was moved to the recovery ward. Later in the day, after finishing all the surgeries when we went to the ward and saw that Urmila had regained consciousness and she looked very tired. Her parents and relatives were all beside her.

The next day we were welcomed by the beautiful smile of Urmila, as we entered the ward to meet all the patients. There was no tiredness on her face and her parents and relatives also had a look of relief on their faces. They were so happy to see Urmila smiling and behaving like any other normal child. Urmila was excited to see and touch my stethoscope, so I put it around her neck. With great excitement, she said in her native language, “I will now go to school, study hard, and want to become a doctor like you when I grow up.
At that moment it was such a great joy for me and my team to see the peace and happiness on the faces of the family members, who now had a hope that their little Urmila is going to live a normal life like any another child.