A memorable visit to the Cancer Institute

It was a desolate place. Filled with disease and sorrow, you could feel that chill descend on you. It almost engulfs your mind. But it had an added effect on me. An almost surreal happiness. It was then that it dawned on me how lucky I am - a healthy body and a functioning mind. No diseases. No need to go to hospitals often. No scans no tests no therapy. Atleast not yet! No it’s not funny and this is not a funny post so if you’re looking for one you might as well leave now. And yes, I am talking about the Cancer Institute here in Chennai. Yet for all the distressing things that I have mentioned, it is the place which is the hope for many people here. For some it’s their last hope to life. For most it’s their only hope. If you want one disease which has been most talked about - from street talk to movie satire - it’s cancer. Its much vaunted status stems from the long struggle it took to find the cure for this disease. Now that we finally have some medicines for it, it has changed from a quest to find the cure to a quest to finding the money to buy them. Many people for quite obvious reasons struggle to come to terms with the fact that they have cancer. Its ways and means of penetrating a body are versatile that sometimes one doesn’t know how he happened to get it in the first place. Overcoming this mental trauma is just the first part as one of my own family found out. Its such an expensive disease to treat that even the simplest therapies could cost you your life’s savings. 

And cost, it does. Even if the Cancer Institute does provide free treatment the medicines could cost you a lot. But still its probably one-tenth of what the private hospitals charge. So, there I went, to see him. It happened by chance. My only task was to pick up my mom once she had completed her visit there. She was there to see one of my family who has had a sudden unexpected attack of Throat Cancer. Read that as unexpected discovery because the disease had been there for about 3 years. Ultimately it’s when you don’t give much importance to your own body these things happen. So, coming back, I just had to pick up my mom. Simple job. Oh what a coward I would have been if I had done only that! What I felt there is unspeakable in terms of words, and “un-typeable” in this blog. An experience of a life-time. The entrance has a temple - a place of hope. But one look at the persons sitting lost there, you realize they have very little hope if any. I move on.

I went inside the block where he was admitted. Again it was a bit of shock. I ashamedly admit that I haven’t gone to a Government Hospital before. So having got used to those cosy private hospitals with their clean tiled floors and air conditioned rooms, this was a place which was down to earth to put it exactly. It had simple things with simple people around. There was even a small B/W Tv to watch for the persons staying with the patients. Yes it wasn’t sparkling clean but it surely wasn’t dirty. It didn’t smell of those sick-sweet hospital fragrances but it didn’t stink either. There weren’t any air conditioners nor would anyone demand for that here. For if they could afford that, they wouldn’t be here in the first place. I realized it wasn’t a place of clinical efficiency which guarantees you absolute certainty of recovery. It was rather a place of survival. A place where they use the Government funds to provide the patients with a bare minimum- medicine, food a comforting bed and most of all a way back to their lives. People here fight to survive. There are no easy ways here. No so called “pain-killers.” It’s you and the disease and you fight it albeit with some help from the medicines. 

I could see that when I saw him. He was a broken man. He had gone through a lot in his whole life and now this. The last 3 months had been hell for him I guess. If I probably hadn’t gone there and seen him today, I would never have forgiven myself. His happiness on seeing me shone in his face. And I got that kind of feeling that even if my life ends now, I had probably done something worthwhile with it. He was in pain and couldn’t talk. His throat was in stitches. He couldn’t stop his tears as they came. His sheer despondency was obvious. He was probably wishing he could run away from all this and start a new life. I stayed for a while and talked some strength into him hopefully. What more can I do? I’m not God. Who knows he might be sleeping soundly right now because of my visit, the thought of which makes me sleep ever so sound. 

I don’t know why I wrote this in my blog. I had to get it out. It was such an experience that I don’t want it to fade away in time from my memory. I want it to remain here forever in this blog and it will. It’s a happy life that most of us reading this blog enjoy in so many ways. A very lucky life removed from all the possible suffering that may befall us. May we appreciate it and cherish it forever!!

Ramji