Wednesday 21 January 2015

Lorsque l'enfant parait

Six years ago to the day, a little bundle of joy came into my life and turned its on its head! Six years ago to the day I became a grandmother to Agastya. It is uncanny how you fall in love the moment you hold the tiny bundle and feel his warmth. Suddenly, a huge hole you did not even know existed in your heart gets filled to the brim and you realise that there was a part if you missing till that blessed moment. And the magic does not end there as each day after that moment is more wondrous than the previous and you wonder whether your heart is big enough for all the joy that comes your way. But you soon realise it is as I guess granny's hearts are bottomless pits, or at least grow with quantum leaps as long as they can beat.

It would take me reams and reams of paper to convey all that I have experienced in the last 2190 days. What I can say though is that I never could have imagined what a grandchild brings in your life. His little smile can lift the old biddy out of the deepest blues, his hugs add a spring to her walk and work magic on the aching knees that no pill could. Grannies are a little dotty I know, so please be indulgent.

I just hope God grants me enough days to see him a grow a little more.

There is a touching poem written by Victor Hugo and entitled Lorsque l'enfant parait ( when the child appears). I do not know why, I remembered it today.

The English title is Infantile Influence.

The child comes toddling in, and young and old
With smiling eyes its smiling eyes behold,
And artless, babyish joy;
A playful welcome greets it through the room,
The saddest brow unfolds its wrinkled gloom,
To greet the happy boy.

If June with flowers has spangled all the ground,
Or winter bleak the flickering hearth around
Draws close the circling seat;
The child still sheds a never-failing light;
We call; Mamma with mingled joy and fright
Watches its tottering feet.

Perhaps at eve as round the fire we draw,
We speak of heaven, or poetry, or law,
Or politics, or prayer;
The child comes in, 'tis now all smiles and play,
Farewell to grave discourse and poet's lay,
Philosophy and care.

When fancy wakes, but sense in heaviest sleep
Lies steeped, and like the sobs of them that weep
The dark stream sinks and swells,
The dawn, like Pharos gleaming o'er the sea,
Bursts forth, and sudden wakes the minstrelsy
Of birds and chiming bells;

Thou art my dawn; my soul is as the field,
Where sweetest flowers their balmy perfumes yield
When breathed upon by thee,
Of forest, where thy voice like zephyr plays,
And morn pours out its flood of golden rays,
When thy sweet smile I see.

Oh, sweetest eyes, like founts of liquid blue;
And little hands that evil never knew,
Pure as the new-formed snow;
Thy feet are still unstained by this world's mire,
Thy golden locks like aureole of fire
Circle thy cherub brow!

Dove of our ark, thine angel spirit flies
On azure wings forth from thy beaming eyes.
Though weak thine infant feet,
What strange amaze this new and strange world gives
To thy sweet virgin soul, that spotless lives
In virgin body sweet.

Oh, gentle face, radiant with happy smile,
And eager prattling tongue that knows no guile,
Quick changing tears and bliss;
Thy soul expands to catch this new world's light,
Thy mazed eyes to drink each wondrous sight,
Thy lips to taste the kiss.

Oh, God! bless me and mine, and these I love,
And e'en my foes that still triumphant prove
Victors by force or guile;
A flowerless summer may we never see,
Or nest of bird bereft, or hive of bee,
Or home of infant's smile.

Tuesday 13 January 2015

Blessed

You may wonder what makes a seemingly intelligent, reasonable and sensible person perform an act that would be deemed demeaning and even repulsive to some. And yet despite the Cartesian principles I live by, I crawled yesterday from the entrance of the Kalkaji temple to the shrine. For those of you who have never been to this temple, the half a mile or so walk is along an oft crowded path littered with every kind of dirt and muck that man and beast can create. To the scientific mind this stretch of partly cemented partly tiled expanse would be home to every bacteria, germs, bacilli and pathogens under the sun. People walk on it, spit on it, dogs poo and pee on it and I presume children too! It is supposedly cleaned twice a day but in a perfunctory manner. And yet I crawled all the way, to the feet of Goddess Kalka to redeem a pledge I had made in July 2013 when I performed a 'challis' which means going for 40 days to the shrine. You maybe wondering why!

That was the time when Ranjan was very sick and we had not been able to get a diagnosis. His blood counts were taking a free fall, he was melting away and I was helpless and powerless. Everything that I could have done, had been done. Every test and investigation had been performed and gave no incline. I had knocked at the door of every kind of doctor possible and come empty handed. I had prayed and prayed but God remained mute. But one thing I did not lose was my Faith. And it those times of despair, it was the only rock I could hold on to. I knew my faith was being tested and I was ready for the test.

One the last day of my 40 day pilgrimage, I had pledged that I would come crawling to the Goddess is she were to show me the way and the day Ranjan's haemoglobin would touch 13. Actually the reason I knew about this 40 day pilgrimage and the crawling pledge was because many in the slums perform it. I guess on the other side of the fence it remains unknown! On that side God is propitiated in lavish ways that can be bought through money. Not so with the poor.

When I took that pledge, I was in the deepest of despair and this pledge was my way of accepting defeat in front of God. It was the undoing of all my hubris, and megalomania as well as my firm belief that God would not let me down. I simply needed to find what God wanted from me any how far I was prepared to go to save Ranjan. The pact was sealed. The fact that I had been heard was revealed a few days later when we got a diagnosis and I felt in charge again.

It would take 17 months for the haemoglobin to cross the 13 mark. It did last week and I wads ready to fulfil my part. I must admit that I was a little scared as the ritual requires you standing than lying and extending your hands and that standing again from the point your hands were and lying again to be repeated for the whole distance. At 62, with ageing knees and stiff back it is no mean task. Add to it the filth, the damp and even wet patches makes it even harder.

I did it yesterday, and it went like a dream. The filth did not matter, it was as if it did not exist. Once I began, it was as if I was transposed to another realm and that the God I held on to was by my side all the time. I did the run in 15 minutes and for those 15 minutes I felt in deep communion with my God.

It was a humbling and yet uplifting experience that filled me with hope and joy.

I felt blessed.



Friday 9 January 2015

From 7 to 16.. booting the elephant out of the room and out of our lives

For all those who love my better half and have been following our battle with Sir Hodgkin, here is an update and good news. R's last reports are A+! All parameters are good and the haemoglobin which at one time had reaches its nadir: 7, has now shot up to 16! This could only have happened with the guidance of two exceptional doctors, my GP and my Tibetan doctor and the unstinted support of all my friends from the world over. But above all it is because Ranjan trusted me implicitly and agreed to swallow all the potions and brews I made for him. Not to forget the Internet that allowed me to get all the information I needed. I so wish I could have done the same for my parents. I know have a greater admiration for my mother who refused all conventional treatment. Sadly I could offer her nothing in lieu.

We did have 10 chemo sessions but again with the approval of my two doctors. The oncologist wanted 2 more but I decided to stop when I realised that Ranjan was saturated with the poisoning. All along my Tibetan doctor and I prayed that his immune system would remain intact and it has.

I did not follow any protocol. I trusted my intuition and made choices when I felt them to be right. I would call it the Anou Protocol which was a medley of diet changes, supplements, jumping of the trampoline, exercising and above all not accepting to live in 'survival' mode. We just lived as we had when he was well. We absolutely did not return to the conventional options of post chemo tests and scans and all else. We booted the elephant out of the room and of our lives.

I recently read two articles on cancer. Frightening. The first is about a doctor profiting from selling toxic chemotherapy. It is only the tip of the iceberg. The second article is about the lifting of the hold on a breakthrough cancer treatment by the FDA. Dr Burzynski does not believe in 'one size fits all' and offers personalised care. This is a point I had raised with R's oncologist when I insisted that he did not need the last 2 chemos that were part of the 'protocol'.

What modern medicine or let us rather call it bizMedicine is a almost total corruption and manipulation of the Hippocratic Oath, and we are falling for it. I am reading a fascinating book by Rana Dasgupta entitled Capital, and urge you to read Chapter Five to see what is happening in our city. It is terrifying.

We all need to make the right choices, to inform ourselves before rushing into treatments proffered with alacrity and impunity, to listen to our body and above all to keep positive. Laughter is indeed the best medicine!






Tuesday 6 January 2015

Not bad luck

A new study doing the virtual rounds of the world wide web wants us to believe that most cancers are caused by bad luck! I guess this is the easiest answer a doctor can provide a patient when he has nothing else to proffer. All patients want to know what caused their cancer and the doctors do not have any answer in spite of the gazillions spent on cancer research. So the medical fraternity must be thrilled and relieved at now having a study emanating from none other than John Hopkins giving them an answer that fits all, satisfies all and needs no further explanation. Come on if you have bad luck mutations then what can anyone day, bar God I guess! That makes the big C beyond any ones control and bad luck a scientific phenomenon. I wonder whose agendas are being met by such a study.

In an interesting rebuttal cancer survivor Chris Wark makes some interesting remarks. This study seems to suggest that if you have cancer, you drew the bad lot and lost the lottery. Simplistic? Not quite as if we were to accept this rather absurd view then changing your lifestyle and eating habits may not help; the only thing that will help is to find out as early as possible whether you are in the lucky lot or the unlucky one. And how do you do that? By early detection and more research. And whose pockets are filled: research and conventional and expensive investigations and treatment. Luck cannot be changed by eating broccoli or giving up sugar. Accepting this study would actually push you to eat, drink and be merry as if you are lucky nothing will happen to you, but if you are unlucky then why not live recklessly. This study, if it were to be believed, sweeps all other options away.

I have had cancer in my life since 1958 when I was just 6. My grandma died of liver cancer. Then four decades later it took my mom and pa away. At that time I knew nothing of alternative therapies and other options. In 1993 when I net to Paris a month after my father's demise and had to visit a doctor for some minor problem, I was asked my medical history and when the doctor realised that both my parents had cancer, it was suggested that I have a detection test every year. Mercifully for me, I never do anything without thinking and I decided I did not want to live a life of yearly remission. I would wait for my body to send me a signal and then decide. When I came back to India I met my Tibetan doctor and since have been taking Tibetan medicine.

I however also took the decision of finding out more about cancer and even though the Internet had not arrived in our lived I did find books and articles that talked of diets, and life style and alternative therapies. I made some radical lifestyle and dietary changes and am still going strong.

Two years ago Cancer came into my like in the worst way possible. My husband wad diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. But I was ready and bad luck was not one of the things on my check list. As the Internet has arrived in our lives, I spend days and nights looking for information and making informed choices to prepare my own protocol. I only agreed to chemotherapy because my Tibetan doctor told me that Hodgkin's was one of the three cancers that responded well to chemotherapy. She gave medication to keep the immune system going and also to soften the side effects of the lethal and legal poisoning. My husband had no side effects. When I felt that he as saturated I bullied the oncologist to agree to stop the chemos.

I have shared my battle with Hodgkin's in this blog. My protocol for Ranjan was a mix of dietary changes, supplements, cannabis leaves, soursop tea, and more. Even today, he follows that protocol. Ranjan is golfing, and even jet setting and is off to Helsinki in a few days and then to a gourmet weekend in Paris with his best friend. I do not know where luck stands in all this.

Coming back to the study and to Chris Wark's rebuttal, I agree with him when he states: Bad luck is perhaps the most dangerous idea to permeate the cancer community because it renders the patient powerless.  Nothing you did caused cancer, therefore nothing you can do will make any difference in healing it. Now you are completely dependent on early detection to prevent cancer, and if that doesn’t work, your only hope is surgery, chemo and radiation to save you. There’s no use in changing your diet or lifestyle. This is absurd. Only by changing your like style and even jumping on a trampoline you can beat the big C!

There are innumerable studies that show that you can reverse your cancer. Chris Wark mentions some in his article should you be interested in knowing more and as he also says: There are 21 African nations with less than 1/3 of the cancer rates of the United States. Niger has 1/5th, but their starchy plant-based diet and physical activity has nothing to do with it. They are just 80% luckier.

Changing your life style, exercising and thinking positive can reverse your cancer. I speak from experience.