The diagnosis - June 2008

Dad was a very active person, you could say an antidote to laziness. Never a minute wasted , never a minute spared. He loved his work and vice versa. His passion for it grew right from the time he was in his early teens and continued to 3 months before he passed away, a whopping 4 decades of incessant passion for work!

Symptoms

How did we even there was something wrong? Here are the answers for you.

1. Owing to his active lifestyle, and lack of habits like smoking, drinking and eating non vegetarian food, and given the fact that he loved his walks and yoga everyday, the initial loss of weight, was attributed to moving towards a fit body. 

2. He bled when he passed motion, twice. While he never suffered from piles or related problems ,this one was a shocker.

Initial Run for diagnosis

When dad bled when passing motion, he consulted the family physician first, who directed him to get a colonoscopy done. The colonoscopy revealed a growth about 6 inches above the end of the rectum. 

He thereafter, consulted a gastroenterologist, who extracted a sample from the growth and sent it for biopsy, for confirmation. The biopsy confirmed the presence of cancer, as 2 out of 6 nodes tested positive for colorectal cancer.

Pointers for families/patients

1. Whenever there is something wrong with your body and you either see it physically, or feel it internally, don't ignore it or keep quiet. Get it checked and speak to your family about what you exactly feel. Oh and yes, do not delay. Time is life.

2. While genetics have a huge role to play in the incidence of contracting cancer, in today's world it is equally, if not more important to maintain a healthy lifestyle. With sedentary jobs on the rise, and your laptop/blackberry/ipad/smart phone , seeming more appealing to spend time with as compared to walking/exercising, please take sometime out to physically oil your machine :)

A beginning from the end - Opening Note

Its been close to 3 months since I lost my dad to cancer. The suffering and the pain, he endured,for 5 years ever since he was diagnosed with it, will forever remain like your popular hit movie running in your head, for me. Simply because, seeing is believing. And I have seen it all. Right through to the end.

Yes, its an irreparable loss, and its tough to talk about him in past tense. For me, he will always be a part of my life and I know he will be up there, maybe a star in his own bright space :)

The purpose of this blog, first up, is to convert this loss, into something positive and try to spread awareness about cancer, dad's 5 year journey through it, what we could have prevented, knowledge we should have read up about and been prepared for, so on and so forth.

Its an end to dad's life, but a beginning of hopefully a journey to preventing and helping families of cancer diagnosed people to go through it. 

Its a humble moment for me, as I have been asked to enlist as a member of the ColoRectal Cancer Foundation, also in its nascent stages, founded in Delhi. I will be endeavoring to devote time to spreading awareness through writing, in the initial phases, and once I am able to devote time to it, will continue this cause offline as well.

Hoping this beginning will prove bright and successful.

Archana