2003

Today Alfreda came to the office. She came straight from Tata Memorial Hospital after her Bone Marrow Aspiration. As always she was full of chatter and laughter, wanting to ask a hundred curious questions and wanting answers to each of them…even before she'd finished asking them!
Every once in a while she would hold on to her lower back and grimace in pain the needle was very big and the doctor was tired, “…even more tired than I was after the procedure”, she said to me with an impish grin on her face. I asked her if it still hurt and she quickly lay down flat on the ground and she said, “No, see? I can lie down!!”

Up in a trice, she dug out the cards she'd made for everyone in the office and was happily distributing them around. Next she very proudly she took out some newspaper cuttings and showed them to me. Alfreda, in her crisp, white school uniform, receiving a trophy from Sonia Gandhi The Courage Award from the Calcutta Telegraph…for going regularly to Tata Hospital for her Bone Marrow procedures year after year. For coping so bravely and cheerfully with the diagnosis of Luekemia. Alfreda, all of five years old, and so brave and matter of fact.