For a man who has lost half his right leg, the function of his kidneys and had his chest cut open for a quadruple bypass, Riyaz Khatib, a sixty-year-old retired assistant bank manager, seems to have a particularly nonchalant attitude towards life.
Khatib is a Type 2 diabetic. He has been for about 20 years now. He is also a bit of a poet. He says his philosophy of life is encapsulated by the Urdu couplet: Aayi hayat aaye kazaa le chali chale/ Na apni khushi aaye na apni khushi chale (We live and then death takes us away/ We are neither born nor shall we die of our own will). “So why worry about life and death? I’m absolutely fine. I still travel by bus, autos, taxis, trains with my bum leg and I live life to the fullest extent I can,” he says.
Khatib was diagnosed with diabetes in 1990 at the age of 40. His is a hereditary case, “My father died of diabetes in 1994. Almost every member of my family has diabetes. You can’t escape fate,” he says. In 1999 Khatib had a slight wound on his right toe. It was innocuous at first, but because of his diabetes the wound just wouldn’t heal. It began to fester and after a consultation with his doctors at Hinduja Hospital, he was told that he had to get the toe amputated.
That wasn’t the end of it though. Gradually over the years Khatib began losing sensation in the lower extremity of his right leg. In 2004, he put a hot water bottle on his leg. It was very hot, but he couldn’t feel it. The hot water bottle ended up burning his leg. The burn turned septic and Khatib had to resort to a plastic surgery graft. “But some of the infection must have remained. An X-ray of my foot revealed that all the bones in my right foot had gone rotten. There was no option but to amputate my foot,” he says while taking off his Rs40,000 prosthetic foot to show off his stump.
Didn’t it scare him? “No. What has to be done has to be done. I told my doctor, let’s get it done as soon as possible. I just asked him to chop off as little of my leg as he could. I’ve never been scared of anything,” he says.
Khatib’s nonchalant bravery was called upon again in 2008. “I woke up one day with a searing pain around my collar bone so I went to the doctor. He took a look at my angiogram and asked me to get myself admitted immediately. I had four blocked arteries. Two were 80% blocked. One was 90% blocked and one had full 100% blockage. My doctor said Riyaz I’m going to cut your ribs open. I said when can you do it? Let’s get it done today if we can.”
Diabetes was not done with him yet. Earlier this year his kidneys began to fail. He gets dialysis done three times a week. This veritable panoply of diseases and treatments must be a financial burden. But like every other aspect of his life he’s blasé about the cost. “I’ve got my savings. And my daughters chip in. I’m alright actually.”
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