10-Year-Old Lucita Chable Needs Your Help to Stay Alive

Lucita Chable

At first blush, ten-year-old Lucita Chable appears to be a healthy, carefree child.  She goes to school, plays, dances and attempts to carry out her daily routines like most children her age. But Lucita is fighting to remain alive due to a rare kidney disease.  The young girl from San Ignacio needs help for a round of surgery she desperately requires. Her family is making a public appeal to defray medical costs so that Lucita can live the life she deserves. Duane Moody was in San Ignacio today and met the young girl.

Lucita Chable, Kidney Failure Patient

“Play with my friends at school and home. I like to dance.”

Duane Moody

“What kinda songs?”

Lucita Chable

“Reggaeton.”

Duane Moody, Reporting

This is ten-year-old Lucita Chable; a standard four student at Bishop O.P. Martin Roman Catholic School in San Ignacio. She is an exemplary student that loves dancing and playing with friends—everything a girl her age would care about. But even though she is full of energy, her life is far from normal. Lucita has been living with polycystic kidneys. Her left kidney is non-functional and her right kidney is only operating at a twenty-five percent capacity. It’s a condition that was detected during her mother’s pregnancy.

Rosita Chable

Rosita Chable, Mother

“I was five months pregnant when I went to do an ultrasound. And when I do the ultrasound, they told me it was going to be a girl, but she was coming with some problem with her kidney. So they told me that when she born, maybe she will not live.”

Their first child after being married for eleven years, Rosita and Lucio Chable welcomed a beautiful baby girl back in 2008. But the family made life-changing decisions.  Lucita is still alive because she’s been visiting with doctors four times a year, taking sodium bicarbonate and pressure pills on a daily basis and drinking lots of water. It’s a routine that must be done to ensure longevity.

Lucio Chable

Lucio Chable, Father

“We gone and check at Karl Heusner [Memorial Hospital] with ultrasounds and everything and it shows the same thing and confirmed that yes she had kidney problem—one functional and one non-functional—and both polycystic kidneys.”

The condition shows no symptoms and between 2017 and October 2018, her only functioning kidney deteriorated because she is growing. It’s a frightening reality for the family as they are trying to keep their firstborn alive.

Lucio Chable

“With the medication, they do urine and blood tests, but they tell us that sometimes it is stable and there are times that suddenly it might go down because of the growing stage. Last year and a half, it was about thirty to thirty-five percent functional and then last year in October when we went, she gave us the bad news that it went ten percent in one year and it is too much.”

Rosita Chable

“We still have faith that we are going to help her and they told me that I could give her the kidney and I don’t care, I will give her the kidney. If I have to give her my life, I’ll do it. I have two kids; she and her little brother, but she need me right now, so I will give her my kidney.”

Interestingly, Rosita is compatible with her daughter and Doctor Maribel Patal, a Paediatric Nephrologist in Guatemala is willing to undertake the kidney transplant at a cost of seventy-five thousand Belize dollars. It’s the cheapest in the region, but a life-saving procedure for Lucita, whose time is running out. The family has been doing several fundraising activities, including a barbecue and pibil sale on January twenty-sixth to assist.

Lucio Chable

“Because of the expense; it is a very expensive and delicate surgery so she told us if we prefer to find here. So I contacted the doctor at Guatemala and she told us that the cost will be between seventy and seventy-five thousand Belize. That’s only the kidney transplant; the travelling and other expenses plus he lab test will be a next expense and after the surgery, she have to go on medication/treatment that will cost like a thousand a month so that body doesn’t reject the kidney.”

The primary school has been very supportive and recently carried out several fundraising activities to assist Lucita with her unique condition.

Francisca Green

Francisca Green, Standard IV Teacher, Bishop O.P. Martin R.C. School

“They are always there for us, so we thought that it is time of us to also give back and lend a helping hand.”

The family is looking for assistance to get Lucita the life-saving surgery she needs and can be contacted at 629-9790 or 933-2402. Duane Moody for News Five.

If anyone would like to assist Lucita Chable, deposits can be made to Scotia Bank San Ignacio Account number 180-5778.