Chapter 17

Battling with cancer

I had started going to the Montefiore Hospital hardly for two years. When suddenly I developed bleeding. After a series of tests I came to know the shocking revelation that I was afflicted with cancer. I could not get to know why fate was so cruel to me. I was on sick bed.

Baby was back at home when it was confirmed that I had cancer. She had gone to see her mother who had been ailing for 15 years. She went alone because I could not get leave. Mother was suffering from diabetes and was in a serious condition, so she had to leave me alone she feared that she would not get a chance to see her alive. After her father's death in 1988, her mother was living in the house with the sick younger sister. Though we could meet all their needs, when her mother was sick, Baby was sorry that she could not take care of her personally. That was why I suggested she go home. Baby reached home in November and I fell sick in December.

I was admitted in the hospital where Baby's brother Johnson was working. The cancer-infected part of my colon was to be removed. The doctor recommended immediate surgery. All the tests required for the surgery were completed in three weeks. In these three weeks my weight was reduced to 120 pounds from 140 pounds.

Baby returned saying goodbye to her mother as soon as she came to know of my illness. Both never knew that that was her last farewell to her mother.

I became a cancer patient at a most unexpected time. Cancer which has been spreading all over the world has also taken in its violent clutches in the colder American continent also. We are witnesses to it as the staff of the hospitals. Nobody who goes to a house of death will ever feel that death visit his house also one day. People will die everywhere. But most of us think that death won't knock at our door.

It is the same with the case of this deadly disease. We realise its terrible power only when we also are affected with it. How many sick people I have seen in my life and how many lab test reports passed through my hand? At such times, I have never thought of its horrific hold or impact except that I should carry out my work efficiently. Hospitals are asylums for the sick. There is a general feeling in people's subconscious mind that all those who come to the hospitals get healed and return; probably that may be the reason why nobody thinks of illness beyond that. Now, a dreadful illness has subdued the person who is dealing with health and healing.

As we knew about the nature of the illness very well, we started delving deeper into it. The agony of a person on the brim of death could be understood only by those who have experienced it. I had such experiences at least three times earlier. All were quite unexpected.

I was only six years then. Unable to bear hunger I took and swallowed a banana from the bunch kept hanging in the shop. As I did it in a hurry, the banana blocked my throat and choked me. It wouldn't go in or out. My eyes were bulging out. It was Kunjhan, one who plucks coconuts, in the shop, who intervened in a time and saved me. He inserted his finger into my throat and took out the banana trapped there. If he had not seen me I would have choked to death at the tender age of six.

Another life-threatening incident took place when I was studying in the upper primary school. It happened while I was playing at the house of my friend Chandran. There was a thicket close to his house with some wild trees and creepers. It was our pastime during holidays to climb the trees and hang from the vines. You can have a taste of sweetness when you eat the sour gooseberry first and then drink water. We were eating the berries. For a prank, we were throwing the berries and trying to catch them in shirt pocket. Somehow, a berry found its way into my mouth and throttled me. It was Chandran's mother who came to my rescue. God came in the guise of Kunjhan and the mother of Chandran and extended my life.

There was one more incident of near death-experience which was not witnessed by anybody. I had gone to California for a training in 1992. As I was promoted as supervisor, I needed training in computer applications. After the training I stayed in a hotel. I took water before going to bed after supper and it went into my lungs. I was struggling and unable to breathe. I knew that everything would be over in a minute. What happened then? I can boldly say that I could survive then only by the helping hand of God.

Now, we had only each other, death has come to test me in the form of cancer. My thought were only of Baby in those days when my life was swinging to and fro as if in a balance. We were not lucky to have children. We had only each other. To whom should I entrust her? How can she live alone in the world without me? There was the bed-ridden mother in her house and her sister who was not married because of her illness. Where can Baby, who had resigned her job because of her sickness, get a shelter? It was like coal burning in my mind when I examined such problems. There was no answer for anything. We both were silent as if we were in a mortuary. We never made a phone call. The flowering plants started withering as there was nobody to care for them.

Often, I would open the account book of my life. My mind was burning like the quick-lime. What have I achieved in a life which had surmounted so many difficulties? What all have I lost? Was it not a big zero in the profit and loss account? I have underlined once again that the life is only a big zero. A great current which immerses, with the death, everything in a vacuum or dissipates in the earth. I had swum across this current. In spite of the weary hands and legs, I could succeed in the end. When the sand underfoot is slipping away, all the achievements were like a kite fluttering without any control and all experiences meaningless.

Baby might have been empowered by prayer. She would be with God whether in happiness or sorrow. Baby, who was fervently praying for me, might be so sure that I would get the healing. It is quite natural that a nurse, who has brought several patients back to life, will always have optimism. Without showing her own infirmities, she was with me like a shadow nursing and comforting me.

The life style in America generally guards against the spread of any illness. Personal and environmental cleanliness are paramount for the American people. This cannot be seen in any other populace of the world. Food and physical exercises go hand in hand there. Those who go for morning walk and those exercise on machines at home have sound knowledge of health. Unlike Keralites, they have very good eating habits. Bacteria-free meat and fish are available in the market. Without losing any nutrients, vegetables are frozen in the farm itself. In spite of all this, they rely a lot on the tin food. Lack of time for cooking and the problem of getting house maids are reasons for this. Nobody has bothered to study about the poisonous substances from the preservatives reaching the stomachs through the food items in the tins. Roasted food supplies a surfeit of oil to the body.

But we cook at home and prefer our native food. We depended on hotels only once in a while.

Still the villainous cancer has come to battle for my life. It would be unnecessary to talk much about the cause of cancer as it is not yet determined how it spreads -- through the life style, food habits or use of medicines. If the cause is radiation, how can we live in these modern days without using the mobile phones and other radiation emitting gadgets? Who can say there was no cancer in the days when these equipment were not in use? Nobody knew about it as we did not have the technical know-how then to detect cancer; there were no life and death struggles in hospitals; large sums were not spent for treatment. When death took the patient silently, the long-drawn battle comes to an end.

We used to have blood tests every month and confirmed that we did not have any illness. Still, the problem was detected only when the body had started showing the symptoms.

Baby who was with me all the time nursing me looked very weak just three weeks after my surgery. At first, we thought it to be some illness like varicose vein which would affect people who stand and work for longer hours. We went for detailed check-up when the pain had become intolerable, but could find nothing amiss. Finally, the problem was found out after undergoing the bone marrow test. It was leukaemia or blood cancer which was spreading through the entire body like wild fire. Oh God! What a fate! Was it necessary for you to test the selfless body which attended on and helped thousands of patients in their pain with the feather touch of consolation? I could not understand anything. The formula connecting God, fate and man has gone wrong suddenly.

I could realise that Baby who attended to me courageously had the greatest blow to her mind. I too was in a desperate state. I was totally broken unable to even cry as I succumbed to the fate. With what can I compare this pain? Why is this test? I could not get an answer. Finally, I arrived at a philosophy. The lines from the Teardrops (a poem written by Nalappattu Narayana Menon) , which I had learned in school, spoke to me: God, the creator of the world, is moulding the human hearts of pure gold to make some precious ornament!

Melting in the tears and
Immersing totally in them God the Creator,
The human heart of pure gold
To mould it into something precious (Kannuneerthulli/Tear drops)