This Girl's Fight With A Deadly Disease Is The Journey Of Hope And Heartbreak You Need To Know About

By Momina Mindeel | 6 Oct, 2016

Ashaba Sophia Chohahan, a Pakistani American, born and raised in Portland, Oregon, is the epitome of courage and hope. Ashaba has been struggling with a rare blood disorder, Beta Thalassemia, since her childhood.

Beta Thalassemia is a blood disorder that hinders the bone marrow to make its own blood cells thus, requiring frequent blood transfusions. The frequent blood transfusions can be incredibly painful, making the recipient feel like their body is deteriorating. Almost 1.7% of the world population suffers from Beta Thalassemia. However, Ashaba has been a fighter since the beginning and continues being one, to this day. Her struggle with the disease is a journey laced with positivity, occasional heartbreak and lots of hope.

 

Back in April, Ashaba wrote a heart-wrenching account of her journey. Given the incredibly honest account, one could easily deduce that Ashaba is a fighter, a brave one for that matter.

Source: Ashaba Chohan
Source: Ashaba Chohan

I didn’t truly know what it meant to have a life threatening disease until I was in high school and it became extremely difficult to keep up with my peers. The first year and a half of high school were all about missing a lot of days and then having piles and piles of make-up work, until one day in sophomore year (10th grade) I got really sick and had to drop out; I had no other option. I still had a positive outlook on life and I thought that maybe there was a reason as to why all of this happened. The whole year was just spent getting criticized by people who had no idea what was going on with me and why I wasn’t able to attend classes and I somehow felt responsible and ashamed for the way things shaped up,” Ashaba wrote in her blog.

Being the only daughter of her parents, it was immensely difficult for her to find a donor. However, when she finally did in 2011, the doctors began preparing her body for the transplant. Ashaba had to go through excruciatingly painful chemo and radio therapies. Unfortunately, the donor backed out after a while and Ashaba’s life went back to being the way it was.

I was 16 at that time and believe me, I was devastated. This one moment that I had waited my entire life for, this one chance I would have had to finally live my life like a normal human being, gone. It was the worst thing I had ever felt,” says Ashaba. Heartbroken, she turned to Twitter and found a friend there who motivated her to fight her depression.

 

In September 2014, she visited the Adult Bone Marrow Transplant team and they told her of a possible cure.

However, it was only a trial and Ashaba was not sure as to whether or not it was going to be successful but she decided to go for it anyway.

The trial started in September, 10 days before my 21st birthday. Fast forward 7 months post transplant and no one even knew what I went through. The struggle, the pain and the suffering. I stayed in the hospital for 45 days and they were the worst days of my entire life. The chemotherapy side effects were the worst I have ever endured and I wish it on no one, not even my worst enemy. I cried in pain every day and night. I prayed to God to ease my pain. Even with high doses of morphine I was in so much pain and I couldn’t talk because I had a severe case of something called mucositis, continued Ashaba.

Source: Ashaba Chohan
Source: Ashaba Chohan

Ashaba is still on a road to recovery, her hair is coming back and she is holding her ground, rather bravely. Ashaba says you cannot judge someone’s life based on their social media or pictures because one can always fake a smile. One can always fake being happy and the other will never be able to tell. It’s still a journey, and I would like you to be a part of it. Ashaba’s current major is software engineering, her future plans are to graduate University and become a programmer and work for Microsoft.

Here is hoping that Ashaba’s story succeeds in inculcating some empathy in us and we become more understanding towards people and their struggles, on the whole.

You can read the entire story here.

 

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