24th December 2007
This was the day I came to know that there was something wrong with papa. I had reached home from a 36 hr journey from Banaglore. (Yes I took a train.) Reached home at around 9:30. This was supposed to be a fun trip of 10 days for me so that I could return to Bangalore for a stupid software job. I came home to find a cousin bhaiya and bhabhi at our house on general friendly visit. Bhaiya is a doctor. My father was a bit strange we felt as if he was forgetting a few things he would not have forgotten otherwise. We had our dinner amongst some how are u? how have u been dinner table chat. Given these guests in our house I was sleeping in PAPA's room and he just kept talking till .. late which was not like him. He would generally be the person saying "ab so jaao saari baatein aaj hi karoge kya.."
25th December
Next morning I asked my brother who had been home since a 5 days earlier than me given his vacations was there a problem? "Was papa sick?" Well next morning he read the newspaper for around an hour. At around 10' o Clock he was looking for the news paper all over again. He had forgotten the whole incident that he had read the newspaper. We asked bhaiya whom should we consult. He suggested a good neurologist in town. 25th being a holiday it was decided we would take PAPA to the doctor the next day. So 25th was pretty much like a normal holiday trip home for me.
26th December
The next day after our breakfast we asked PAPA to come with us to the doctor. He in turn quipped that he felt perfectly ok and did not need a visit to the doctor. Still he agreed to come to the doctor on our insistence. Me and my brother were worried PAPA was not. He was dozing through the ride to the doctors. This was the first time I was taking PAPA to a see a doctor. At the doctors place the doctor tried to ask a few questions to test his memory he got teary eyed. The doctor tested him with a few new items from the newspaper and with his memory for some items in the room. He said he did not find any particular problem with him. He tested him for calculation skills as well he was not his usual self the mathematician a little under confident sort of. The Doctor said he cannot see any problems as such get a CT scan done, after which he will be in a condition to prescribe some medicines. I said get an MRI scan done just find whatever is wrong with him. After this we went for the MRI scan. It takes some 30 minutes to get MRI Images and u have to go with no metals attached on your body. Papa went in for a scan we were not just hopping but feeling confident that nothing can go wrong with papa.. After all he had been a non smoker non drinker.. no tobacco person who had religiously done 30 minute of yoga for the previous 30 years of his life. But GOD had different plans for me and my family. Half an hour through the scan the technician came out and said that PAPA was moving constantly and it would take longer. Another half and hour he comes out and said there's something in the scan and showed me calling me inside a lump of the size larger that a golf ball almost a tennis ball. He said that he had already interacted with the doctor and wanter to to a contrast MRI and hence needed more money. My first reaction was "My father has a brain tumor I will need much more money to save my father". I was cold but was still feeling the confidence that I will get him cured after all medical science has come long way and can cure virtually everything. The contrast MRI was done and we went out to have our lunch till the prints were being developed. We did not tell PAPA anything about the MRI. Around 5 p.m. We got the prints and the report the report said in the last line "?? Glioblastoma Multiforme".
Same day we met the doctor again. For some strange reason PAPA was not interested in knowing what the report was. We were at the doctors place he called us and asked us that we let PAPA stay behind in the waiting room. He conveyed us that he had a tumor and it was pretty bad. He talked over phone to the cousin bhaiya who had referred us to him. He told him in details about the the butterfly glioma that my father had acquired. This doctor then gave us some containing medicines and asked us to rush to C.M.C. Vellore to doctor Rajshekharan for a surgery. PAPA while waiting tried to get in the doctors chamber and got teary eyed when he was asked to wait out itself. But still did not ask us what was it. We told him the doctors think you should get some more checkup at C.M.C. Vellore. As soon as we reached home Dheeraj my younger brother told mummy : "PAPA ko brain tumor ho gaya hai". She took it as a death sentence for my father. Started crying then and there my brother stopped her saying PAPA does not know so she should avoid. Some more near and dear(PAPA's friends and brother) ones where informed who dropped in the same day.The next day and following days were arranging for most recent ticket, arranging for funds deciding which resource to use for funding his treatment. A day or two and lots of people just dropped in to meet my father. My father did not ask us anything as we always maintained that we were going for further checkup. But some of the people who knew came in and did a lot of silly talk in front of my father. The next day my father's brothers came from village to meet him. Assured him he would get well. PAPA probably between all such talk was sensing he was suffering from something very bad. PAPA told to my mother on one of those moments that ."Jo reh jaata hai usi ko sab dekhana karna padta hai." He for some reason did not insist on we telling him any details.We got an appointment for the concerned doctor on 3rd. We were to leave Ranchi on 30th of December. Some coincidence it's my PAPA's Birthday on 30th of December. We welcomed our new year in a train to Vellore.
1st January 2008
Papa had been convinced by a few friends in Ranchi and had already made his plans to visit Tirupati on the 1st of January. So on first we left for Tirupati with little awareness that we were to be denied darashan today. A lot of people around Tirupati from the point of view of welcoming the new year by offering prayers. We visited most of what was worth a sight without actually getting an opportunity to go inside and offer our prayers. By now I was able to notice signs of tiring up much quickly but still no such evident difference to suggest that he was carrying a tumor that was multiplying inside his head.
2nd January 2008
Next day was spent pretty much in the lodge idling away gossiping(Papa did not show any anxiety as such given he had come for his treatment). Me and mamaji visited the hospital to know where exactly in the hospital we were supposed to be the next day for seeing the doctor. This was 2nd of January my birthday and thankfully pretty much uneventful.(As they say no news is good news.)
3rd January 2008
3rd was the D day. The I would never ever forget in my life. We were supposed to meet Dr. Rajshekharan on this day. We had an appointment for 11.00 O' clock but the doctor was running a little late and we got to meet the doctor only around 12 O' clock. In the mean, seating in the waiting area my father made a small list of symptoms to be discussed with the doctor. This had been his habit since forever to note down the troubles and problems before talking to a doctor. He asked me for a small piece of paper and jotted down some points. I still have that piece of paper.
He wrote the ten points on that piece of paper.
We entered the doctors room and while along with my father was trying to describe the problems my father was facing, I had handed him the MRI scan that we had brought from Ranchi. He looked at the MRI almost as flatly as I would probably look at a tree and asked my father to sit outside in the waiting area. He did not let my father complete what he was saying in his symptoms. I had helped him sit outside and walked back with a pounding heart. The doctor told me in unequivocal terms that he had one of the most malignant forms of brain tumor. He will gradually forget everything and it might not be long before everything happens. He asked me to get a will etc. if my father intends and also tell us anything he would like to tell us. My world had stopped. I has scarcely able to speak. He said we could admit him today and go for a surgery as soon as possible but that would just be able to delay things .. and said nothing about how much delay that would cause. 'It could be 3 months or 6 months or may be an year.' Nothing could be said for sure but for whats always certain "Death". I asked him what could be the reason for such deadly and dreadly illness that does not give you time even to realize what went wrong where. He said there aren't any. It just happens for no reason at all. I dried my cheeks of tears before I could walk back to my father. I could not contain my tears. I helped my parents to a restaurant for meals and said nothing about this to my mother, Just that we would have to admit Papa for surgery.
I was cold in every sense of the word.
4th January 2008
He was admitted to the hospital the very hospital the very same day. Vellore has a strange norm saying that only female attendants could stay over. So my mother stayed over for Papa. Next day the doctors came reviewed him for what the doctors (neurologists) call deficiency, the extent of damage to his senses. They also informed that left half of the brain is not operable as it could cause him to be totally disabled. So the they would operate only right half of this butterfly glioma(as they called it). They told us that one pint of blood would be required so we should get doner for that purpose. Through all this Papa was not told about the complications of his problem or even that he had a brain tumor. I at times felt guilty not telling him and not giving him any last chances for expressing his last wishes, so I asked the doctor if I could tell him something. He said it does not matter he would forget any way. So that made it clear that we are not saying anything to Papa about this.
5th January 2008
Doctor Rajshekharan was not in for rounds that day. Hence a junior was on rounds. I had gone to donate the blood to be used in the surgery on Monday. I walked in when this stud junior doctor was telling my father that he had a tumor in his brain. That spread across both left and the right brain and that the left part was inoperable. He also told them the risks of the surgery: namely he could go in a coma, he could not make it, he could be paralyzed etc. etc. when I entered the scenario and asked him to just stop speaking. I saw tears in the eyes of both my father and mother. Though Papa still did not ask me later about anything, just left that topic there.
6th January 2008
It was Sunday Papa was to be operated the day after. He undertook anesthesia tests etc. Owing to his yoga and all he did not have any sugar or blood pressure problems. So there were no hindrances as such and the surgery could be performed on 7th of January.
7th January 2008
The time for his surgery was around 11 O' Clock. They had shaved his head for the surgery. He was taken for to the operation theater around 11:30 I accompanied his trolley up to the operation theater. He did not show any anxiety none at all. He was in there for almost 6 and a half to 7 never ending, fidgety hours. It ended and the doctor said that they removed most of the right half of the tumor as was intended.
While his stretcher was still being pulled out of the operation theater, he was a painful sight. The doctors in order to test his senses asked him to show his tongue and he did so. Meaning his senses were working fine. The drainage mechanism for the blood was still on. He was taken to the ICU next. Few minutes later the doctor said we could see him in turns one at a time and give him juice in small gulps. My mother was too frightened to walk in. So I went in with the juice. On fasting since the morning he took the juice with a kids delight.
7th January 2008
Papa did not wake up the same person the next morning. He was a lot more irritable and was for the first time quiet a bit shall we say disoriented. He did not know where he was or what he had gone through, neither was he aware that he was in Vellore for a surgery. He felt as if he was still in Ranchi and at times called out for people around the hospital as some acquaintance of his in Ranchi. He would start looking for mummy as soon as she was out of sight as he did not remember that she had got to the lodge to get food for him. The doctors called it space time disorientation and were of the opinion that this problem could either go away with time or may be be his problem for ever depending on the fact if it was due to the effect of prolonged surgery under the effect of anaesthesia of if it was owing to loss due to the tumor. He was advised 6 weeks of radiation and 6 months of chemotherapy. Since he was doing well he was released by 10th of January. But every time we were reminded that this was dreadliest of tumors and he would not have long. The doctors heartlessly with little or no euphemism stated that as the tumor grows on he will have progressive dificiencies and that there was no way to tell what would happen first or what would happen at all for that matter. There was a simple reply to most of the questions with tumor like that any thing could happen. Papa was changed for ever( a for ever which was not even long enough to be for ever ) with less than 5 minutes of memory.
10th January 2008
He was released from the hospital with a swollen head due to the surgery. He developed a fever on the day he was released and as it turned could be due to some infection. All this lead to all the more delay in his radiotherapy. At every stage of the treatment one had to go through one question always are you aware of the prognosis of the disease. The stress was always on the fact that don't be hopeful of any miracle and try and accept that all care that the doctors were trying was only palliative.
When I had started I had planned I had thought I will probably write what all he had to go through. But what followed, should not be described on a public forum like this just like one should avoid portraying excessive violence in public in general interest. I believe enormous pain of this kind should also not be described in a public forum like this. His pain was not physical (even when it was physical there was no way to know when he had lost his ability for expression). The mental pain caused by strangest of hallucinations cannot even be described. I can tell u just that .. one cannot live while he has time like serveral movies on terminal illness like Anand(Has been my favourite Movie since I first saw it as a kid) or a Dasvidaniyan or a Rock On(Rob had a 4th Grade brain tumor as well) show. Life especially in a frontal lobe trumor like this is hell on earth!!!
He passed away on 25th of August 2008.
had left him with mummy around the hospital OPD while I was away in a queue getting his medicines. When I returned mummy told me he was looking for me searching me around the OPD. He said,
