Make-A-Wish Foundation fulfils wish

B.Muthukumar at an armed forces unit in Coimbatore.Sitting up on his bed at the Oncology ward of the Ramakrishna Hospital, B.Muthukumar looked at pictures of himself clad in a camouflage-patterned field uniform, holding a rifle. His pale lips curled up in a smile.He had always dreamt of becoming an Army officer and today, his wish had ultimately come true. The only thing he had said when the volunteers of Make-A-Wish Foundation approached him was, “I want to become an Army officer.” Not for him the simple pleasures of owning a bicycle, a set of toys or meeting a celebrity.

Fourteen-year-old Muthukumar has acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a form of cancer.He was recently taken to a local armed forces unit by the volunteers of the foundation, where he was welcomed by the officers. Wearing the uniform specially tailored for him, he was escorted into the camp by officers who treated him on a par with them. He even held the rifle in his hand, feeling very proud.“He was really very excited,” says Air Commodore Minoo Vania, Programme Director, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Coimbatore Chapter. “We could see the pride on the parents’ faces too,” he adds. Though he was keeping relatively well on the day of the visit to the camp, he was taken in an ambulance with a doctor accompanying them. “The doctors of the hospital were very co-operative,” says Bindu Rajeev, programme co-ordinator of the foundation.
Muthukumar was an active member of the National Cadet Corps in school. “Though I never encouraged him to pursue a career in the armed forces, he always told me he would only work as an army officer,” says B.Karpagam, his mother.

“He was not much interested in sports or games like other children. He always kept to himself,” she adds.In the ward, there were many others like Muthukumar, hardly into their teens, staring cancer in the eye. They hardly smiled, watching the whole thing nonchalantly. On September 22, celebrated as Rose Day, Make-A-Wish Foundation plans to gift each cancer-afflicted child at all the paediatric wards in hospitals in the city, a small teddy bear, flowers and a bunch of balloons.For the Make-A-Wish Foundation, granting the wish of a child with a life threatening illness is like giving it back what the illness has taken away.

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