April 16
This was
supposed to an email to a friend. And because it came out ok and I was feeling
lazy, I thought I will use this as my next post. I haven’t penned any personal email
in a long time
But today
is a special day. A day I should celebrate and note down somewhere as a day I
was really happy. Need to note it down because this day may lose its
significance as one of those days when things happen you feel happy and then
move on with your life. I think I will ask FB to remember this day. They seem
to be kickass at it.
Today
morning it looked like just another day. Got up with my 6AM alarm and went for
a quick walk. Lazied around on that couch with a view. Got ready to finish off
a few chores. Actually it started getting bad because a. A dose of daily
discussion with this friend was ruled out today. And b. Airtel people. You may
not want to believe but the good news or the happy news has nothing to do with
closing the airtel issue. I generally have way with people and processes to a
good extent. It’s the nature that wouldn’t listen to me. The same nature had
turned against me 4 years back. It was at the end of 6 months in Chennai when
my mom called up and told me that dad was pissing blood. I freaked out and
started pushing my whole family to get to the best doctors asap and do as the docs
suggested. We realized that it was a bladder cancer and that too pretty
advanced. They actually don’t have stages for this type of cancer, its either
initial or advanced or pretty advanced. The doctor suggested a surgery (lets
call it procedure) immediately. I took the next flight home to be around for
the procedure. It went well but the doctor was not too happy, he suggested
bladder removal.
Dad was
shocked and so were we. It was a huge decision not only will this shape his
health but also his lifestyle for rest of his life.
Dad is an
irritable character who also gets irritated quickly. A cow appearing in the
middle of the road will be showered with choicest abuses. The grandson would be
cursed if he changes a channel when dad is watching one of his favorite
mythological fiction or one of those dubbed tam movies. He will blame the whole
family for lack of rains. The global warming is only because a certain people
are allowed to walk on this earth. His favorite past time used to be inventing
new abuses and using them whenever the time is not apt, i.e. in front of kids.
In most of the cases the kid used to be me. I have seen him as an angry old man
since the day I can remember.
So coming
back to his situation, now u can imagine the kind of torture we were being
asked to sign for. If this guy loses his bladder we all start pissing in our
pants.
We took
second, third, fourth and fifth opinion every doctor wanted to remove his
bladder. Man are they serious? They were actually talking of removing bladder
as if it was something that every human being should experience. I took the
matter in my hands and started sending his reports to all the big doctors in India
and overseas I could connect with. Things started looking better and some of
them actually ruled out possibility of removing bladder at this stage. Now I
had to find a doctor in Baroda/Gujarat who shared the same opinion and will
treat him accordingly. We met Dr Kamat, he suggested multiple rounds of
procedures. He also put a word of caution that the bladder removal will only be
delayed with whatever we do, the possibility of avoiding the inevitable was
minute.
We decided
to still give it a shot and go through the procedures. The number of procedures
was initially thought to be 3 and post that we had to take a call. Dad went
through 7 procedures and we kept on postponing the big one. Long story short.
Its been 9 months since his last procedure and today the doctor conveyed that
things look ok and we wouldn’t have to take the big step at least not in
foreseeable future.
I am happy because
my dad did it. He fought the cancer and kicked its ass. He didn’t do it with
lifestyle change or by exercising he actually didn’t give up on his tambakoo
also. I think it was his sheer stubbornness and baseless grit with which he
killed cancer Second time. Oh didn’t I tell you he killed cancer 8 years back
when it started eating into his intestine.
