'Cancer is by no means invincible'

Around this time last year, I was getting radiation after a long surgery and a painful recovery period. Though I did not see the tumour, my wife Dr Gayatri, who is a pathologist, saw it and was hoping that my diagnosis would not be malignant. Prior to that, I was suffering from severe pain, inability to eat, pain while passing urine and even motion in my urine. All this while, my tests were negative and there were only suspicions and conflict of opinion as to how to manage me.

Finally, I was taken up for surgery which lasted for seven hours. My physicians made every attempt to hide the diagnosis so that I could recover before the news was conveyed to me.

I still remember those painful days. The first day was tough with Ryles Tube in my mouth which was extremely uncomfortable. I had tubes and wires all over my body — tube in my mouth, urinary catheter, and two drains in my operated site, a suprapubic catheter, ECG leads and pulse oximeter.

Even a small movement was extremely painful. I still could not forget the looks on the face of my children.

I was at a loss and couldn’t accept the fact that I had cancer and kept asking the question, “Why does God have to be so unfair to me?”

A day before my discharge from the hospital, I was informed of the stage of my disease and about anti-cancer drug treatment.
Although I was willing to accept it, I was still in a shock about my diagnosis.

I started to take anti-cancer drug every week by IV and oral drugs for six months. Those days, I used to have severe nausea/vomiting and could not take anything by mouth. My weight went down by about 20 kg. As if that was not enough, I used to have severe reaction to the drugs with painful rashes and pustules all over the body.

Once I even had life-threatening reaction and had to be off anti-cancer medications. And now, I wonder how time changed within a year. During this period, I started blogging about my experiences and progress to educate people. In this process, I have become an inspiration for people worldwide.

The uneasiness and dejection has gone. More so when I realised that I had this disease probably to pass on the message that cancer is curable and tell people that a positive mindset would change things for the better.

It has been more than a year since I was diagnosed with cancer and I hope people start realising at least after reading my story and seeing me that cancer is by no means invincible.
(Dr Kumaresh Krishnamurthy is consultant, ENT, Apollo Hospital)