Save our Shantoy - JamaicaObserver.com

Saturday, November 21, 2009 6:47 AM

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Save our Shantoy

Family, friends of Cambridge High School student seek help for critical heart surgery

BY PAT ROXBOROUGH-WRIGHT EDITOR-AT-LARGE/WESTERN BUREAU roxboroughp@jamaicaobserver.com

Thursday, November 05, 2009

CAMBRIDGE, St James - Holding hands with 14-year-old Shantoy Lawrence is an unnerving experience. They're unnaturally cold and her fingernails are a pale shade of blue, an unmistakable sign that something is terribly wrong with this incredibly beautiful, dark-complexioned girl.

But for the tears that well up in her eyes when mention is made of November 20, the day scheduled for her next medical visit, and the fact that her father, 36-year-old Howard Lawrence has to carry her around on his back, you'd never guess the depth of the problem by looking.

The Lawrence family from left: Zariannah, Howard, Shantoy, and Natallee. (Photo: Pat Roxborough-Wright)

For even though young Lawrence has been diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot, more commonly known as a hole in the heart, she exudes a fearlessness of death that belies the seriousness of her situation.

"My chest hurts...a lot," she told the Observer West in a barely audible whisper earlier this week.

At that her father, for all his affected bravery, looked away with clenched jaws and her mother's brow crinkled, both miserable in the knowledge that time is running out.

Were it not for their unshakeable faith in the Almighty, the family, which is faced with the challenge of finding a total of US$1,250 for a open heart kit and J$497,000 in hospital fees, would have succumbed to despair long ago.

Members of the guidance counselling unit at Cambridge High count monies donated by students of the institution at Monday's devotion exercise. (From left:) Marcia Mungo, acting vice-principal and guidance counsellors, Jacqueline Brown-Munroe and Yvonne Scott. (Photo: Pat Roxborough-Wright)

Make that J$437,000 as at November 2, when the guidance counselling department at the Cambridge High school in St James presented Shantoy with J$60,000 to offset the hospital fees.

"We are not giving up. Shantoy is going to live. We are going to find that money!" said Yvonne Scott, one of the guidance counsellors at
the school.

Scott too, had to fight back the tears on Monday, even as she assured the school assembly that a happy ending was in store for Shantoy, who has been keeping up with her schoolwork at home since last month when her condition, which was diagnosed in 2001, worsened.

Prior to that, her father, a gardener who earns just under J$5,000 a week, did his best to keep her in school, paying $300 per day - $200 when he could find a friend- for transportation in addition to lunch expenses.

Whenever he didn't have a job, he carried her on his back.

Now, due to the fainting spells that come with the slightest exertion, it's just not possible for Shantoy to keep up with the physical demands of school.

So, with the help of Scott who co-ordinates the classroom link, she studies at home under the care of her mother, Natalee Lawrence and younger siblings, Shaniel, 11; Nastasia, 9 and Zariannah, 3.

Together, they do everything within their power to ensure her comfort, all the while praying that their appeals for help to Member of Parliament for the area Derrick Kellier, the New Testament Church of God which they attend in Cambridge, the community radio station and now, through the printed press, the international public, will net results.

So far, in addition to the guidance counselling department's contribution, they are assured of a contribution from the church. However their hopes are firmly hinged on the response that the public will make to the savings account #10912423 at the Jamaica National Building Society.

For in order for Shantoy to have the surgery at the University Hospital of the West Indies she must come up with a cheque in United States dollars for the Open Heart Kit which will be made available within a minimum of three weeks of the deposit.

The hospital also requires 80 per cent of its estimated fees prior to the surgery.

"If everybody in Jamaica gives one dollar, just one Jamaican dollar, Shantoy can get that surgery and be saved. Oh my God, she's such a humble tender-hearted girl. She deserves our help," said a tearful, Shanica Stewart, Shantoy's class prefect.

In the meantime Shantoy, is pressing on through her studies, with her ambition to become either a teacher or medical doctor.

Why?

"Both help people and that's what I want to do," she explained.

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