His mother and the staff at the Suddie Hospital call him a ‘miracle baby’, because he defied all the odds to survive.
Unwanted and disowned by his father because of his physical ailments, five-year-old Richard has generated love and caring in the hearts of many; but to his mother, former teacher Kaiesheena Kissoon, he is the hub around which her world revolves.
Kaiesheena, who has resided at Middlesex, Essequibo all of her life, lost the love of her life when he drowned while they were on a picnic.
It took a while before she could settle into a solid relationship and she was 32 years old when she fell in love with Richard’s father.
Her pregnancy was an extremely difficult one, plagued with bouts of nausea throughout; but although her parents were abroad, neighbours took care of her – as neighbours in rural areas are wont to do, until she was in her eighth month of pregnancy, when her water broke unexpectedly in the middle of the night of 29th December 2005, whereupon she was rushed to the Suddie Hospital, where she spent many agonizing hours in ‘dry labour’ until a decision was taken to perform a caesarian section.
However, the baby, which was in a breached position, was born before the operation could have been performed and from the inception of his birth it was immediately discernible that his survival was in question.
Actually, no-one expected him to live.  He was a blue baby who weighed 2 ¾ lbs at birth and did not cry until seven days after he was born and opened his eyes eight days after.
No-one expected him to live and his grandfather, who had flown into Guyana for his birth, baptized him Richard.  However, disregarding what seemed minimal chances of his survival, hospital staff went into overdrive in desperate attempts to save his life.
He was placed into an incubator, intubated and given oxygen and blood treatments.  His mother stayed with him, pumping milk into a container because he was never strong enough to breast-feed.
He had to be fed, drops at a time, from a pippet (medicine dropper).  Even after he was allowed home he suffered one medical crisis after another and his mother was always rushing him back to the hospital.
But for a baby who was not expected to live, Richard slowly began to heal.  He creeped at two years, walked at three years, was making baby words as normal, but began speaking real sentences at about two years old.
At age three he could sight read more words than the norm.
However, approximately six months ago, he started getting tremors in his hand and his mother took him to the hospital, which prescribed a treatment course of Phenobarbitone, but his condition progressively worsened until he became very violent and hyperactive, lost bowel and bladder control, with his speech eventually fading into occasional monosyllables; although the words he spoke were appropriate to the occasion.  As an example he was with his mom in church when he turned to her and said “Go.”
Kissoon, who was  loud in praise of the staff of Suddie Hospital, whom she said had been kind and supportive from Richard’s birth and throughout all his medical emergencies, especially Dr. Narine, also consulted several doctors in the city, whom were all of the view that Richard was afflicted with autism and cerebral palsy.
She went online looking for answers and discovered the Shriners’ Children Hospital in Tampa, Florida that offered her hope because they specialize in such cases and have recorded a great degree of success. But although they were kind and encouraging, they said that they were overloaded and cannot take additional patients for another three years.
Kissoon said that she is fearful of Richard’s condition deteriorating to unsalvageable levels if he does not receive timely help.  According to her, right now she has nothing to hold on to and is grasping at straws.
She has relatives in the USA who can support her and a friend at whose home she can stay in Tampa, Florida if Richard is admitted at the Shriners’ Children’s hospital.
She is appealing to anyone who can help and is praying to the Lord for a miracle to save her ‘miracle baby.’