Swinging both ways

Short recap for all those who joined late..... My problems started eight months back with frequent fevers ... doctors brushed those off as viral ... start December - X-ray showed huge growth in chest ... wrongly identified as Tuberculosis ... one and a half month of wrong medication ... a lot of small biopsies and inconclusive pathology reports followed ... finally video assisted thoracoscopy got out some good tissue samples ... these were found to be malignant ... alarm bells rang ... I had cancer ... in two days rushed to CMC Vellore ... CMC identified "Mediastinal Large B-Cell Lymphoma" as the technical name of my condition ... Started on a 12 dose, weekly, intensive chemo therapy regime called MACOP-B + Rituximab... 5 weeks are over ... 7 more to go...

Now on to the funny situation ... the latest thing that is bothering me is not my cancer, but my blood sugar levels ... they have been thrown haywire by one of the steroids that I have to take ... and to some extent by the anti-diabetic medication that is being given to control the sugar ... Early in the mornings (5 am) my blood sugar level goes extremely low (Hypoglycaemia - with sugar levels around 40 -50) ... by late afternoon it shoots up to extremely high levels (Hyperglyceamia - sugar 300 -400) ... So my sugar is swinging both ways ... in fact its swinging wildly ...

So yesterday an endocrinologist (someone who deals with the endocrine system ... I have no clue what this system is ... Wikipedia says it produces hormones) came ... He has made some suggestions to my doctors ... lets see how his gyan gets my drug-induced-diabetes in control.

Othewise, I am doing fine here ... have met lots of interesting patients ... most of whom are doing well in their treatment ... Shaheer, the pakistani 3 year old with Thalassemia has been taken into the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit ... He will remain in the BMT unit till his marrow graft gets accepted and will come out after about a month ... Mr Matthew ... the patient who has been fighting Leukaemia for six years and who boldly proclaimed all cancer patients to be "Thick Skinned Buffalloes" comes down from Chennai every 3-4 days to continue is ongoing Chemo.

On my part, I have taken up the task of making a Hindustani (not Hindi or Urdu, but Hindustani) adaptation of a children's story book called "Rahul's Challenge" . This book was written by Sister Ann Bothamly, Ex- Head Nurse, Haematology Department. She is a Britisher who has made India her home since 1968. After retiring, she runs a home for children. In her day time she visits cancer patients, especially children at the hospital. The book is a story of a boy who has leukaemia and has to undergo Bone Marrow Transplant. Sister Ann uses it as a preparatory book for all BMT children ... it gives the kids an idea of all the things that they would have to go thru ... my adaptation should help Hindi speaking kids who are not comfortable with English ... Right now haven't begun work yet ... What should I call the story ? "Rahul ki Chunauti" or "Rahul Ka Mukaabla" or a totally different name ... These are the interesting choices that I have to make now....

Rest all is cool ... Should be discharged from the hospital in another week's time ...