Published on: Friday, October 16, 2009 |
In the room were her older sister Nurazila, 8, younger sister Nurafazirah, 4, youngest brother Mohd Abdul, nine months, and mother, Noryanah Muksin, who had just arrived from the kampung.
She recognised a face among the visitors, Dr Ong Eng Joe, who has been monitoring her since she was admitted to the hospital.
But whatever confusion and pain she was suffering, it momentarily vanished when she saw a portable DVD player taken out of a shopping bag.
Her eyes brightened and she quickly struggled to sit up when Alan Yip Hong Kum brought it to her.
It was a truly a wish come true for the Bajau Cagayan girl from Kampung Sikuati, Kudat, who has been suffering from leukaemia since she was diagnosed about three years ago.
Coming from a poor background, her father a fisherman and her mother a full-time homemaker, she has never seen a portable DVD player until she was admitted to the Likas Hospital.
Her mother, Noryanah said some of the children admitted to the hospital brought with them the portable player and this aroused Norashikin's curiosity and longing to possess the gadget.
"At that time, she could only watch the cartoon movies being played from players that belonged to other children," she said.
She said among the cartoons that Norashikin really liked to watch were "Tom and Jerry", "Pingu" and the Malaysian-made animation "Upin".
Knowing that her daughter really wished for a portable DVD player, Adhari Wali promised her that they would purchase one when they go to Kuala Lumpur.
However, unknown to them, the wheels of motion had already started moving.
Dr Ong, who is in contact with the Children's Wish Society of Malaysia (CWSM), has been liasing with the Selangor-based organisation and feeding them with information regarding Norashikin and her wish.
Back in KL, board members of CWSM sat down and discussed the girl's case to determine whether she qualifies to be a recipient of the organisation's "wish granting commitment".
After making its decision, the board's next move was to fix a time where they could surprise the girl and present her with the gift.
And when the day finally arrived, several reporters and photojournalists were invited to attend the simple presentation ceremony.
Bright-eyed Norashikin was all smiles when CWS board member, Alan Yip, asked her what the gift was for she knew deep in her heart that her wish has come true.
Later, after the reporters had finished interviewing her parents, Alan and CWS Vice President-cum-SJ Echo (a Subang Jaya-based free community bulletin) Managing Editor, Teoh Teik Hoong, took the family for a KFC lunch and DVD shopping at 1Borneo Hypermall.
Despite several attempts by the reporters to muster a response from Norashikin, the girl just smiled shyly and let her parents do all the talking.
Norashikin was admitted to the Kudat Hospital in 2006 for the first time after she had a severe fever.
"She had red and blue spots all over her body and after that she couldn't walk," her father said, adding she was an in-patient for four weeks at the hospital.
Adhari said on Feb 27 in 2006, she was sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) where doctors performed a medical procedure on her to ascertain her illness.
Recently, she underwent 10 operations to get blood samples for testing.
He said Norashikin was given chemotherapy for one year when she had a relapse.
"We had intended to go to KL for Norashikin's stem cell treatment but because of the relapse, it had to be cancelled," he said.
Looking at his daughter, he fought to suppress his feelings. "I have been crying a lotÉcuma menangis darah saja tidak (I only didn't shed tears of blood)," he said.
Noryanah said her daughter was a chubby girl before she got sick but lost weight as a result of the chemotherapy.
She said Norashikin and her father had to return to Likas Hospital once a month or whenever her sickly daughter has a fever.
She said her second child among four siblings is quite choosy when feeding her.
Adhari said it has been really hard on his family since he could not go out to sea, as he had to take care of Norashikin at the hospital.
Luckily, his parents and younger siblings helped a lot in terms of moral and financial support.
He said it takes about more than two hours journey by bus from Sikuati to the Likas Hospital. The fare per person is RM25 for a one-way trip.
While his daughter is sick, he said, Norashikin knows that she has to be careful of what she eats.
"She cannot eat spicy food as well as salty and sour foodÉshe also is very careful when playing with other children her age and she normally puts on a mask," he said.
Norashikin's other siblings especially the eldest, Nurazila and her younger sister, Nurafazirah, do not know about her situation because her father doesn't want to tell them about her sickness.
"Usually, I would tell them that she is getting better," he said.
But when she is in pain, Adhari said, she would cry for hours which really breaks his and his wife's hearts.
Teoh said each "wish" forwarded to CWS would be studied on a case-by-case basis.
Each case would to through the vetting process, he said, adding that when it is approved, the organisation would then raise funds to meet the child's wish.
Norashikin, he said, is the first case in Sabah approved by the CWS since the organisation was formed about one-and-a-half years ago.
So far, he said, they have "granted" the wishes of 14 children throughout Malaysia that included a pair of twins from Miri, Sarawak, who had wished for a laptop each.
"However, we could only grant one laptop to the twins," he said.
Most of the children, he said, had wished for a PSP game set.
In the case of wheelchair-bound Aiman Hafiz Abdul Halim, 12, his wish was to meet players from his favourite team, Manchester United that was granted when CWS brought Michael Carrick, John O'Shea, Paul Scholes and Ben Foster to see Aiman when the team played in Malaysia recently.
The Children's Wish Society of Malaysia as its President Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam described it, is a very new organisation, set up primarily to aid children suffering from terminal and life-threatening illnesses, by granting them a wish.
"Through CWS, we hope to be able to bring as many smiles back to children among us who are suffering from incurable diseases.
"We can give the family some time together by granting a special wish that their child might make.
"It could be a toy, a trip or to meet a special person or celebrity. It allows them to put aside what is on the horizon if only for a short time and this is something worth doing," he said.
Meanwhile, Norashikin was granted her choice of DVDs, when she chose 10 cartoon DVDs from an outlet at 1Borneo Hypermall.
