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Aabi: The Joy
Aabi, the name means ‘Pure Joy’.
Simply as what her name implies, Aabi was and will always be pure joy. She carried into her little self, an energy that would dim the brightest of firecrackers, fearlessness that would challenge the norms, and love that no one could ever get enough of, yet remain yearning for more and more. Her joy, optimism, warmth, and her love for her elder sister, to always look at her while doing anything and everything, makes me visualise her as a ‘Sunflower’. Just as the sunflower always turns towards the sun and bloom, so would Aabi to her sister Aarvi – our sunshine. Her eyes had a unique twinkle to them, so evident that I almost pet-named her ‘Tim-Tim: Hindi for twinkle’
Our house, like any other normal, loving, household, was complete and cherished with two beautiful girls. What could one ask for more than this.
When we moved to Perth, Western Australia, Aabi was only 5 months old. She was a quick learner and appreciated the lifestyle, food, and love everyone here had to offer to a delightful active baby. She was growing up into a mischievous, fun-loving, and talkative little toddler. Picking up on new words, expressions, and conversing as if she led the conversations, held the attention of anyone who ever met her. Mealtimes being her favorite, she enjoyed all food, unlike all children, she was impressed with whatever I plated for her. Be it fruits, bread, snacks, sweet, or healthy food, she would welcome the plate with sparkling eyes saying ‘woowwwww mumma, thank you’. Her spontaneous and generous ‘thank you’ could warm the hardest of hearts and she would charm her way to anything with them. Just getting more fluent every day and daring as she repeated all jumps, she learned at day-care, countlessly. She was her sister’s best friend, her biggest fan, and her most favorite playmate. They would dress-up and do mini-fashion shows at home, make new and funny hair styles, had nail-polish times, sang at the top of their pitch in the car, and copied the Taylor Swift signature dance moves together, making our home a wholesome beautiful place to be. She was her sister’s sunflower, her mumma’s Koala, her papa’s puppy, and the family’s joy.
They say, everything has an expiry date. Only we, know what this means. We never knew how fragile life could chose to be. All this happiness, joy, fun, and mischief suddenly came to a hard stop in May 2025. Aabi had mild fever on a Saturday morning, which responded well to Panadol. Complaining very casually of a head ache (she mentioned boo-boo, pointing to her head), which came as a normal complaint of a toddler who was running around all day, bumping into things, and falling all the time. One vomiting, after her morning meal. Nothing alarming again, as she was jumping and dancing around, singing and playing as regular. This repeated on the evening, with a slightly higher fever, again, settling to Panadol in an hour. As her fever settled, so did our worries, because she seemed to be perfectly alright in all other aspects. No symptoms to raise our flags. The Sunday morning was again as any Sunday morning, slow-paced. Her fever returned around mid-day, this time, not to settle. Waiting and hour and two, when it kept rising, she was rushed to the emergency department. She got highly febrile and lethargic, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, in a matter of 3 hours.
Attended to immediately, in the ED, she seemed de-hydrated, due to the high fever. The medical team did all they could immediately, when she had a very gentle yet evident seizure. This followed with a dose of an oral anti-seizure medication, which would settle her brain, securing it from further damage. This is when her bloods came back positive for Influenza A. Still raising no alarms, everyone in the medical team waited for her to wake up from the effects of the anti-seizure medicine. But her responses faded, and she slipped. Deciding on a CT-scan to get more clarity and then shift her to the ICU for close monitoring, the medical team increased the watch on her.
It was 4 hours in the hospital, her fever just slightly settling now, is when she stopped breathing. Following regular protocol, she was intubated immediately. But the damage was already done. The virus had infected the brain stem, leading to Acute Necrotising Encephalitis (ANE), that stopped all blood flow to the brain, shutting it down, and the heart, and other systems, almost instantly.
Something happened beyond what anyone, family, friends, and medical professionals, could anticipate. Aabi had breathed her last and despite all efforts and hopes, she slipped into a space from where it was impossible to bring her back. As we stood there trying to comprehend what just happened, the reasons never came straight and they might never will, except the fact that the virus played deadly. Took away a little life that couldn’t fight back, and whom no one expected to be taken because of this.
Aabi got infected early in the season, earlier than when the vaccines started rolling out, raising the alarm that the flu/influenza is ruthless and will not wait for us to act. It will act first. Aabi was booked in for her flu vaccine on the 6th of May 2025, the first day of the flu-vaccine drive. But it got to her on 4th of May itself. She had no genetic predisposition towards this kind of a reaction to this infection.
As the closest who are living the impact, Aabi was a person this world is now less bright without. From her sister, her parents, and her family, please fight against this enemy, which is definitely not ‘just flu’. Get your little ones vaccinated first thing you can do. She will live through these little lives, for sure.
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