That evening, as the sky wore a crimson red blanket, bidding adieu to the sun, I was travelling in a bus back home. There was air of tension in the bus, as though everyone was mourning over some loss already. With water welling in my eyes, for the first time ever I wished ‘god’ was one among us, travelling in the same bus. I wished he could occupy the empty place next to me and ask me ‘Can I help you?’
As impossible as this was, I was wading to fulfill an equally impossible task of saving my mother- the nucleus of my existence. “Last stage of Adino Carcinoma of the lungs” the doctor had declared, asserting that the patient may not live for more than 6 months! “It might last for two months or it might go up to six months,” the doctor had said. 
Walking out of the doctor’s chamber and returning to the room where my healthy mother without any obvious signs of cancer laid was the most difficult task. “To reveal it or not.” I, my sister and Dad discussed. While one part of us said that we should let her know about it because we are nobody to decide what her life should look like tomorrow, a silent grieving voice inside us said we should hide it from her so that she could die a peaceful death.
Mom’s knowledge of cancer was restricted to the mandatory manifestation of lumps in the body. This ignorance was bliss for us because we had now decided to hide the news from her. Since her mother too had died of this fatal ogress, she always had this fear in the back of her mind. Mom, after persistent cough for ten days, had visited a specialist, who said that more than half of her lungs were filled with water (as told to a common man). It is called plural effusion but we told mom it was some sort of TB which can be treated only over a prolonged period of treatment.
From here onwards, the difficult journey began. On one hand we were seeing Mom being eaten away by the tentacles of cancer and on the other hand we were to stage a ‘drama of being all happy’ in front of her.
When crisis strikes we all become more spiritual and all the more secular. I resorted to god. I visited all the possible temples, all possible churches and mosques begging for miracle to happen. My sis used to sit in the hospital with mom surfing all possible methods which could add some more life to mom’s countable days. She would surf about renowned oncologists across the world, send mom’s reports and wait only to get immensely painful replies like ‘Nothing much can be done’, ‘it is too late’ and also ‘Do not hold on to it…Let go of her… Give her all that she wants and let her die peacefully’
Cancer and peaceful death … that is probably the biggest oxymoron that the world can ever think of. While we could not find ways to tide over our pain, what added to the grief was some set of highly talented, renowned and ‘great’ doctors who in the course of being great had lost sensitivity. During the course of mom’s illness we did encounter some of the very big names who would always treat the patients just as a mass of bone and muscles, an ailing body which is awaiting death or as ward number so and so. Very rarely did we ever get through a doctor who had the patience to treat a patient as a human being. In a particular hospital owned by a renowned general physician, after minor surgical intervention, mom was even deprived of a sponge and clean set of clothes. The blood soaked cotton laid in the tray in the room for two days. This is the hospital where even cleaning staff would enter the operation theatre, sit on the bed and chat with the staff. Less told, the better because despite the name of the hospital meaning ‘politeness’ that was a rare thing here! A heavy weight warden used to linger in the corridors of the hospital like a ghost and if family members of the patients complained of shortcomings, she would scream her lungs out and protect her erring staff saying, “we will tell sir, it was patient’s family’s mistake!’. The chief, who was available only in the mornings during his rounds was then to be seen only around mid-night. If any patient was to die, they had to time it around mid night.
On seeing that nothing much could be done in this hospital we shifted home to take a break and decide the next move, another hospital, which would probably have human touch. We were not let down, at least not by the nursing staff. Subsequently a stroke rendered mom bed-ridden leaving her dependent on us for every small thing. She disliked the fact that her kids were to clean the bed pan. Mom was fixed with a little pipe tucked into the thin wall of the lung to drain out the liquid. Every time the pipe would slip off, we had to call the doctor whom we had consulted who would ask us to 
rush to hospital where he would be on rounds. Calling an ambulance, shifting a bed-ridden patient into the ambulance and rushing to the said hospital is all said and done a difficult task. Several times, the doctor would have had completed the rounds and left to another hospital, which meant hiring another ambulance and rushing to another hospital. What made the situation worse were the groups of interns in almost every hospital looking at the patient as though they had accidently seen an alien and proclaiming out laud… ‘There is a case of CA’…. Thanks to my one million gods for not telling mom what CA meant!!
The phase ended within two months for us. The ‘Emperor of all maladies’ did not just claim mom but it also hijacked a family of this beautiful feeling called togetherness. A part of us was dead as we saw her body merge with her maker.
As the world observes World Cancer Day today, Feb 4, I wonder why medical professionals (though not all) can’t be little more humane in their approach. Why can’t a case written off as ‘too late’ can’t die a dignified death with all attention and care from medical professionals? It is said that the physical pain that a cancer patient goes through cannot be explained in words. Mom never complained of pain and because of this she did die a peaceful death. Today, when I look back, I actually thank ‘Adino Carcinoma’ for being so kind on Mom, but not the doctors!!
This is purely a personal account. Thousands will agree and thousands will certainly not. It has been penned in good taste and carries no malice against anyone. Having said that I will fail in my duty, if I don’t thank the caring nurses of Fr Muller’s Hospital for taking care of my bed-ridden mom like a little kid.
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