Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Women in my life are all blind !!!

Proven now ! Starting from close friends, to wife to mom to mom-in-law. Everyone is unable to see any thing wrong with my face at all post surgery.

While, at the same time, I enjoy enormous immunity in office corridors, walking through them almost invisible to many many people who used to stop me earlier at every opportunity !

While the pictures taken, shows a heavily deformed face. While the kids come around and make faces at me, imitating me. 

Women in my life are blind ! Such a blessing. Thank you all.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

A check point .. and an opportunity !

Its been 6 months since the radiation has been concluded. And the time has been very very eventful, busy.

However, today morning, I had 5 mins to speak to fellow employees on Cancer Awareness. All I could utter is "ITs NOT WORTH IT !!!"

Hope the message did reach the right audience.

More over, it was also the day to get an 6 monthly check up with ultra sound and a doctor visit. Both came out very clean.

One more blessing to count and appreciate :)

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Alternate medicine.. simillar philosophy !!

Multiple reasons to go for alternate therapy !!

- Since the day of identifying that I have Cancer, a lot of well wishers have advised drinking Wheat grass juice regularly, and multiple different other so called miracle juices.

- There is a ton of reference coming in for ayurvedic and homeopathic treatment. All promising cure and citing cases

- Even one particular Cancer Homeo Specialist in the city .. it is impossible to get his appointment! After days and days of multiple people trying also, no one picked up to give an appointment.

Point here is, when someone is scared, they will look for any thing to provide them some hope. And a little bit of hope, brings a bit of positivity to mind, and mind directs the body to fight out the causes of illness. Eventually, its our own body that has the process to heal, while the medication either focuses on the symptoms, or aids the immunity to fight better. But none of that would matter if not all the glands in body are working ok, which wont happen if the brain is not positive.

Now, even a tiny ulcer in my throat and mouth freaks me and the people around and the conventional allopathy of course suggests to go for endoscopy, ultra sound scanning, etc. And only deterministic way to find out between and ulcer or a tumor is again invasive - biopsy !

So, treatment it self eventually is more scary and painful. With enormous pressure, eventually I cave in to go see the "homeopathic doctor".

The doctor makes of course a very confident claim that, he is suggesting medicine that is going to address cancer, and immunity both.

While that is not most important, I want to mention a few sections of our conversation here !!

Me : " Before this incident, I do not remember catching even a seasonal flu for 15 yrs. But after the Chemo and radiation, I ve had runny nose, soar throat and cold at least 3 to 4 times"

Dr: "Don't be proud of that.. 15 yrs no cold or fever. That was an indication, your immunity is not reacting the right way. Your body should fight back when there is presence of anti bodies, but it did not for so long ".

Hmmm ..... I was always thinking, my body fights it off even before the temperature rises up !! Some twisted logic here, but to his credit, I saw one example during my severe infection of jaws, during Chemo, I did not get any fever. Although the infection was way too advanced....

Second thought from the conversation ---

Me: "Whenever I used to travel a couple of weeks internationally, flights, hotels, waiting in airports, tight meetings schedules etc, I used to get mouth blisters"

Dr: "That was your warning system. You should have gotten treated from that time. When the Tsunami happened in East coast, no animal died, if they were not tied up. But a lot of human being died. Animal's get simple warnings of nature and because they do not have EGO they just run to safe place or take some action. While human beings intellect and ego prevent them to act on the warning the nature or the body gives them"

Profound .. I say !

The alternate treatment has begun ... ! While I know, the right solution is not being disease free, but eventually being "unafraid".

Saturday, October 26, 2013

The worst "cancer" is to believe "You are the body"

Mooji-ji have become a constant inspiration through this phase of life.

Here is one article where he talks about why he loves "sick" people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-2CQJ-NoCA

Sick people are more grounded, more humble, more compassionate, more loving. The moment they get better, their cockiness start coming back. Their arrogance pops back in to their actions.

Amazing narration and explanation of sickness and how to deal with it in this above link.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Fragility of hope ....

Back to back shocking news from close quarters.

My close friend, who had spent most of the days in hospital attending me, called to let me know his mom passed away. Recurrence of blood cancer ! She has cancer for 16 yrs, it recurred 4 time in 4 yr intervals. The brave lady went through the torture of radiation and chemo each time until she could not take it any longer.

If that was not shocking enough, I got a call from my surgeon, who did my cancer surgery ! And it was to deliver another bad news. One of his other patients, who went through surgery, radiation and chemo along with me had a nasty case of recurrence ! He is of my age, same industry, quite positive person.  Same Head and Neck cancer ! While being treated together, we built great bonhomie.

The only difference is, he never abused tobacco. We gave each other good company in keeping us up-beat during the treatment. More so our spouses, who shared a few chit-chats outside the radiation room when we went through the treatment !

A recurrence, when the hope was on the upswing  :(

Saturday, September 14, 2013

First travel outside the city ..

11 September 2013

6 months from the day of surgery and 3 months from the day of completion of all therapy.

Also, a significant milestone in terms of travel. A day trip to Chennai, to meet the extended team. 1 hr to Airport. 1 hr in flight and 1 hr to office. Total 3 hours multiplied by 2 ways. And another 6 hours of back to back meetings with various teams.

All handled with usual energy ! The security guards at the airport did take a look at the ID cards before letting me in, but did not raise any eye brows (what check they really do ? :) !

Team in Chennai - quite a few of them, did not recognize me until I started talking !!

Overall, not so bad ! I should target an international business trip early 2014.

Hope to have the mustache / beard back to stand more stringent ID checking by immigration. 

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Tennis .. ! Back to the first "S"

Well.. when a doctor in Chemo ward asked what are this things I really enjoy in my life I said "SSS". One of the S was Sports !!

Today, after what is seemed like a long long break, I was back on the tennis court in the morning.
The coach just fed a couple of baskets. Max 15-20 mins of running, trying to connect the ball.

Yes.. lil rusty already. But its not out of me.

2 weeks, of intermediate practice, I should be ready for my usual opponents (who were all cheering me today at the club in the morning - just my presence there).

S ... !!!