Life is all about living

Thanks to Maruti Peketi

Life is all about living

 

Exactly 1 year back things were looking all rosy with us ... Kenny turning 1 and Nissi growing fast and I was leading a reasonably successful life  as you could say with property in Sydney, and in India. You can't ask for more when you haven't even turned 30 and contracting in SAP without a break for 4 years.

 

Last June we visited India for Kenny's 1st birthday and before going there I was down with flu a few times but anti-biotics were doing their job reasonably well ,but not getting to that 100% you would want to. After returning  to Brisbane I started again seeing my GP to dig deep on why I was constantly falling sick(in other words not feeling 100%) but still feeling quite normal and was able to do my day-to-day activities without any drama.

 

Prognosis went on for 2 months and after a series of tests it was revealed that there is a lump on the left side of my neck which needed biopsy to find out what exactly is happening. But by that time my GP was confident it could be Lymphoma(haven' t heard that till then and so didn't really bother me when he delivered the news, should say ignorance is healthy). GP simply said it was unfortunate and something which is not good to have and can be treated fairly effectively. Thanks to the internet I came to know what it was and shocked to know what it could be, but life wasn't flashing in front of my eyes or nothing like that but was hugely upset that I might not see my kids grow or walk my daughter down the aisle on her big day. But I wasn't complaining WHY ME? because I never thought why me when I topped studies after ordinary preparations and never asked why me when I was making heaps of money when still friends of mine were still struggling. Told Priyanka after 2 days because I had a heamotologist appointment in 2 days and I didn't want to give her a shock on that day. News spread so quickly among friends here and people started praying and my wife fasted every day for few weeks before the surgery asking God for a  miracle. So after 2 months of prognosis and biopsy on the lump ... miracle didn't happen ... it was diagnosied as Hodgkin's Lymphoma which is favourable of the Lymphomas. It was at stage 3B and the hematologist decided that it would take 16 cycles of chemotherapy and radiation to treat it.

 

May be for the first time in my life I would have cried so badly for my future ... and I couldn't be out of work because of the commitments I have(investments ... too many in fact) ... my wife meet with her friends on friday's to pray and 1 of the girls told her that she had a vision from Jesus and I don't need to worry about finances because he is gonna provide. I am not a very religious person but anything that's in my favour am gonna take it, I was so revealed but once my treatment starts I didn't know how my physical condition would be in terms of work. No work no pay(downsides of contracting) .

 

Ironically my treatment started on 27th Nov, 2008 , the day after my 30th birthday ... what a start after a big birthday. Before the treatment started I just prayed that God give me the strength and energy to go through this challenge with a smile and positive attitude. Doctors were quite confident that it could be treated fairly effectively but still you will have your own doubts about the 'C' word. I had to take lot of needles for the treatment but just before the start of the treatment my 4 year old daughter had a vaccination and she took the needle with a smile . Then I said to myself -If my daughter can take it with a smile I should be able to do it and that really helped.

 

Finally chemo started and it wasn't a pleasant experience but thank God it's over now. Half-way through the treatment the doctor decided I don't need 16 as planned but 12 would do the job. In-fact may be 8 would have done but he wanted to give more chemo rather than less and his aim was to make sure I go through this if possible only once. 20 sittings of radiation everyday and after 7 months of treatment, I am successfully cured of cancer. I don't like to use the word but I have to live with that for the rest of my life.

 

Infact miracles do happen and I can say with a big smile that when it happened it was so pleasant . Could you believe that I only had to take 1 day-off every fortnight for the treatment and as an icing on the cake I made nearly 15000 dollars on stocks in 2 months after the treatment . God fulfilled the promise that he made through that girl and he has helped me to stay with postive attitude and as a matter of fact I wasn't even thinking about the disease through the journey. Having a caring wife and 2 innocent kids at home also helped during the journey because there was always fun at home and no real movie jaisa atmosphere. Even colleagues and friends made sure that I would be part of all their parties and never missed a thing except a couple of parties. A real blessing was one of our friends who left his job in Sydney and stayed with us on all the days of my treatment and he used to look after the kids when we were busy making the hospital trips.

 

Right now am back to normal and energy levels are back to pre-disease levels. Still need to put-on the 10 kilos I lost through disease.

 

The reason I am sharing this is to let you know that life could throw challenges at you but there are other people in the world who will be going through tougher things than you could imagine and also the need to not neglect health and see a doctor (there is no harm in going for a regular general check-up). Am not preachingJ