Date: 19/X/2011 ________________________________________________________________________ "Living with a mental illness In the world approximately the 20% of children have a mental

illness or a psychological problem. This is a serious problem and people just think This would never happen to me but the truth is that some mental illness like PCI can be either way congenital or acquired. When I was about 4 or 5 years old, I used to play with my parents friends daughter, her name was Karis. Karis had PCI, her condition was caused for some bones on her head which solidified when she was still a baby, and this caused her brain damage because her head didnt had enough space for her growing baby-brain. When she was a baby, her parents took her to many doctors, trying to find the solution for her constant screaming and crying. Doctors couldnt tell what was wrong with her, until one therapist in Sucre conclude that what she had was infantile cerebral palsy. The life that her parents had since then was just about traveling between Bolivia and the USA looking for an answer for her condition. This constant traveling demanded a lot of time and money. When she was properly medicated, they decided to come back to Sucre. In that time she was just one year younger than me. We used to play on Sundays so, while we were playing, her parents could take a breath or just sleep a little. I can only imagine how tired they were, they werent sleeping or eating well, they just took care of Karis 24/7. I remember watching her kitchens cabinet full of medicaments. I used to ask her why was that, but she never answered, she just smiled a little. The last scene of her I have in my mind is of us playing with a ball in her garden, she was sitting on a wheelchair laughing and I was running around her with the ball. She couldnt move or say anything, but she was aware of everything that was happening around her, and just with an expression you could tell if she was happy or angry. When I was about six or seven, I went to La Paz for vacations and that same year near to Christmas Karis passed away. I remember not crying because I was happy for her, and I thought that all the things she couldnt do here were possible on heaven, she
would run, jump, talk or even fly.