Who is popular today?

CHILDREN are back at school for face-to-face classes, but due to complications after receiving four strokes, 10-year-old Hannahlisa Hall gets disappointed having to watch other children go out to school while she is confined to her home.Her mother, Claudette Grant, told the Jamaica Observer that even if Hannahlisa was allowed to attend, due to her illness, it would take very hard work to bring her up to standard.Grant said it makes her disappointed and sad to see the hurt in her daughter's eyes when she explains that she won't be attending physical classes.Further, whenever Grant is preparing herself to go on the road, she is bombarded with questions from Hannahlisa, who is a student of the Seaview Gardens Primary School, as to when she will be able to attend again. The mother said the child was doing online classes and was looking forward to returning to school on January 3, when physical classes resumed."School opened January 3, but the principal said she cannot come out at this time. But, she wants to go to school. If she see me a get ready, she ask me if a school mi a carry her go. In her situation anything at all can happen when she begins to interact with the other children, because of her underlying sickness," she explained.Grant said if physical classes were an option, Hannahlisa would need to be enrolled in an institution that offers special care."Mi want something to be done pertaining to her education. I need some help to see if she can go overseas to get proper medical care also. She has fallen way, way, way behind. She have two devices, but it is not a lack of a device. I put it on learning channels, use pen and paper, and I call her to do book work," Grant said. "You would teach her the vowels and by later you go again, she nuh remember nothing. Mi want she go school. At her regular school there are 35 students in her class and I told the teacher that Hannahlisa will be more work for her than the 35 students. She ago need special attention to even go to the bathroom."Grant said it was recommended that she get her daughter a shadow, but the cost to do so remains a challenge."I don't have that breed of money to pay. I called one school and the lady says it is $70,000 a term, but I don't have that breed of money. Even if she can't go to the regular school, I would love some help to get her into the special school," Grant expressed.Hannahlisa's problems started in 2018 when she suffered a double stroke, a few years after being diagnosed with haemoglobin (Hb) SS sickle cell disease - the most common type of sickle cell disease which occurs when a person inherits copies of the haemoglobin S gene from both parents.The third stroke hit the child in 2019, and in February 2021 she suffered the fourth.Currently, Grant has to stick by Hannahlisa throughout each day due to her "jumping", which sometimes causes her to fall to the ground and has resulted in prior injury. Consequently, Grant cannot go out and work, which further compounds the situation."She cannot go out any at all by herself because of the jumping situation and the fact that she is walking with a limp. She is on her daily medication same way and she current with her doctor's appointments. Her next appointment is in June to see the brain doctor. Her last appointment was December 1, 2021. The doctors said they want to go ahead and do the MRI. They did other brain tests but they said they are not seeing everything they want to, so they want to do the MRI. They say they have to put her to sleep but I am scared because I don't know if she is going to wake up back," Grant said. "They said they would make further arrangements for me to come in. That was the December 1, 2021, but I didn't get a call, so I am waiting. I had already paid for the MRI but the doctors stopped it because she wasn't staying still. I have to press on with her because me is the only one that she has, other than my two sons. I have to stick by her."