My daughter has Scoliosis and life has been very hard for her growing up in Spitak. From the moment she was born we have surrounded her with love, her brothers and sisters never focused on her disability, and involved her in everything they did. Despite this she has asked me many times “Why I am like this?” Why am I so different?”
After the earthquake it was very difficult to raise five children in Spitak. We often had no electricity and not enough water and food, each day was a struggle to survive. We lived in a container house, which would overheat in the summers and get extremely cold during the severe winters. My two six-month-old sons both died because of the cold.
UPWARD WELLBEING
In 2012 we received some help and my daughter was able to have her first operation to improve her quality of life. However by 2018 she was again struggling to breathe properly.
There was not enough room in her rib cage to allow her lungs to function. It was during this time we were introduced to Linda who had such compassion on our family, especially my daughter. Through her help and the people she knew, they were able to raise funds to pay for a second operation to straighten my daughters spine and open up space for her lungs to breathe.
We have seen a real improvement not only in my daughters physical health, but also in her emotional health as she no longer focuses as much on her disability and has started to see her life from a different prospective. Whilst recovering in hospital from her second operation we received a call from some strangers who wanted to come visit because they had seen that people had been raising money to help my daughter.
We later found out that these people were Apostolic priests and after spending some time with us as a family, they told us they would like to give my daughter an apartment to live in. This was a breathtaking moment for the whole family and in an instant, a 30-year old dream became a reality. My daughter and I now live in a warm, safe apartment in Spitak and I continue to dream that her health will improve and that she will live a normal life like everyone else.
