Coping with Cancer

A diagnosis of cancer is a devastating experience. When you are first told that you have cancer you may feel shocked, numb and unable to believe what is happening or to feel any emotion. When cancer is diagnosed, it takes away one’s sense of security and control and this can be very frightening. There is no type of cancer from which people have not recovered. The road to recovery generally is not very easy and requires real determination. Statistics show that over 50% of all serious cancers can be cured.

Once diagnosed, the biggest and the hardest single thing that you will be required to do is to make up your mind to really fight it. You must, on your own, make the commitment that you will do everything in your power to fight the disease. To give up requires no commitment. Fighting means a complete change of lifestyle, absolutely leaving your comfort zone. Fighting cancer is not a simple matter of thinking positively, wishing it away. It is a matter of knowledge. It is a matter of educating yourself about every detail and mustering all your resources. Use every drop of energy in an organized fashion to constructively concentrate on getting rid of cancer.

The main hurdle to most cancer patients is the cost factor associated with it. Cancer diagnosis and treatment is expensive all over the world. The same applies for India. For western countries, the cost of cancer treatment is met by medical insurance company, which is not the case for the bulk of Indians. While some of our patients have private medical insurance and state-run mediclaim policies, the bulk of the cost of treatment is borne by the patient himself. There are, however, a number of societies providing financial help for patients seeking cancer treatment, including cancer support groups. A few organizations that I recently bumped upon are www.indiacancer.org, www.cpaaindia.org, www.canceraid.org and I am sure there are many more like this. Patients can contact them and register with them to get help from the kind hearted people. They are many hospitals that offer the same kind of treatment at a subsidized cost. For example, Adyar Cancer Institute in Chennai, allocates funds to treat the patience based on the family income. Now, don’t mistake it for the treatment, it is just the cost that they consider and not the treatment. Media also plays a vital role in helping people with treatment costs. A few months back there was news in CNN-IBN about a small kid named P.Subash, who was suffering from Leukemia and required funds for immediate treatment which the middle class family was unable to afford. The news got so much response and funds poured in to help the kid. Wish it could have saved the life though.

Once the financial part is taken care of, its upto the individual to build a positive outlook towards life. Positive attitude works wonders. Nothing is more wondrous than the billions of neurons in the human brain and their ability to convert thoughts, hopes, ideas, and attitudes into chemical substances. Keep yourself mentally and physically active during the term of your recuperation. It is important that you exercise regularly. Recognize in advance that your recuperation will not always be a smooth easy road. It will have its ups and downs. Don't mistake the side effects of the treatments for the symptoms of the disease. Many treatments can make you tired, weak or upset your stomach. This is absolutely normal and expected and could even indicate that the treatments are doing their job rather than the disease is getting worse.

Cancer is often an eye-opener, teaching us that life is too short to postpone what we really want. It starts us thinking about how much we really enjoy life. In that respect, it can really be a positive experience because those who have cancer can use it in positive ways, to grow and to change their ways for the better and to profoundly affect the lives of loved ones around them in deeply positive ways. There is an old saying, "Worry is like a rocking chair. It keeps you busy but gets you nowhere." If we allow ourselves to feel like a victim, we feel we have no control over our situation. We can't control everything in our lives, but we can learn to become an active participant and have a strong influence on what happens to us.

60 Years of Freedom.

August 15th, India’s 60th Independence Day. It's that time of the year when we take stock of our progress as a nation. It’s a day where eminent writers, newsreaders and our “Nethas” will attempt to articulate whether we have made progress and chalk the road map ahead. Former President Abdul Kalaam had challenged the country to first begin envisioning as a country by sharing his 2020 vision. Now we have people beginning to talk of India in the next 60 years. I believe, we have made a lot of progress (with Indian democracy, Indian mentality, culture and tradition), I am not unhappy with what we have achieved till now. And I'm optimistic about the road ahead. But will dreams alone reap results?

India has been independent now for 60 years. Like every young country it has been through ups and downs. It does have serious challenges, but it also has some strong confidence accumulated in the last few years. The biggest challenge India faces is building its physical, social, and educational infrastructure. And the challenges here are truly monumental. Yet life remains nasty, cruel and short for far too many Indians. India languishes in the bottom third of the human development index. Poverty levels are horrific, illiteracy is still a major problem, access to safe water and sanitation remains a dream for most people, and disease is widespread. The public sector is too large and parasitical, public debt too high, and the labor market far too rigid. Bribery is rampant. Petty corruption is especially prevalent at the lower, clerical levels of administration.

We are proud of being the largest democracy in the world in the sense that we have elections every five years or sooner, but a good question to ask is if the common man thought that this was adequate enough, then why would insurgency flourish in so many parts of the country? We have the right symbol in the shape of a reasonably fair electoral process, but without giving people a sense of belonging and emotional integration, we don’t quite have the substance of democracy. Primitive and tribal beliefs are still deeply embedded in our psyche. In dress and demeanor, we have become modern but mentally we remain tribal and barbaric.

India is a country with strong intellectual traditions, good cultural values, and reasonable natural resources. It definitely deserves better leaders than it has and had at least for most of its independent life. Democracy is its strength and unfortunate in democracy, one can not blame leaders because people elect them and India has been electing leaders and changing them. Hopefully, India can really build on all the positives of the last few years and get rid of the problems that are hurdles in building its social, educational, and physical infrastructure.

Happy 60th birthday, India!