Last
Sunday, the 18th of August 2013 – at 8.35 am to be precise – I lost
my father-in-law to carcinoma of the
pancreas. He was 58.
58
is no age to die. It’s not even the legal age to retire from work, much less
from life. It’s the age to saunter into the autumn of existence, where one
walks with a hop and a hum, knowing that sweat and hard work are blurs in the
rearview mirror and a life of rest, relaxation and richness waits. Much like a
long-paying FD that finally matures, and tax free.
The
irony is this: for a long while after he was diagnosed, my father-in-law, a
natural skeptic of hospitals and medical witchery, felt he was doomed. We had heard
the C word in February, and while the months rolled by, he was still counting
his days. Then something happened. He gave in to hope. He began to believe. He
gave the doctors the benefit of the doubt and himself a fighting chance. And he
put on the boxing gloves.
Every
three days, he would give a blood sample to see how his body was coping. He
would also receive blood – platelet transfusions when his own levels dropped.
Also Sodium, Potassium and Glucose refills every now and then. He sparred
with Chemotherapy – over 12 cycles in the beginning, and walked away without
losing his hair. Chemo was followed up with Immunotherapy, where the
anti-cancer medics were chased with an 8-hour IV drip of drugs to cut off power
to the malignant cells. He also ate a big fistful of pills everyday, swallowing
them down gamely with the stoic smile of one who knows that sometimes you have
to get dirty to win. His back ached so much that he couldn’t sleep and his
stomach hurt so bad that he couldn’t be awake without pain. But he never cried.
If anything, he was amazed at the thing
eating up his insides. As he lost weight, he was surprised at his trousers falling rather than being worried at what it meant.
Not
that he wasn’t a smart man. He was a Mechanical Engineer from IIT Madras, and
he had said yes to me as a son-in-law. But he was a simple man. One who didn’t
read more into things than was required. Yes, he spoke about making a will, but
never made one. And when the reports (for a long while) showed that the cancer was
spreading, he believed the doctor’s stubborn litany that the results were wrong.
We thought the doctor was nuts – certainly he was eccentric enough – but he was
the only one who spoke of a cure while everyone else we went to for a second
(third/fourth/fifth) opinion believed otherwise. Truth be told – that doctor
was the only one who believed even when we, the family, did not.
And
he was almost right.
My
father-in-law was next put on Radiotherapy, 10-minute sessions five days a
week. Boosted with a Chemo dose every alternate Saturday. And the results were wonderful.
His appetite was better, he gained a kilo and even resumed making his own
early-morning coffee. The physical signs were for once, backed by science. The scan
made happy reading – the secondary growth (in the lungs/liver) was dissolving
and the primary (in the pancreas) was necrotic – dying or dead and incapable of
evil.
It
was a wow moment. It was epiphany and poetry and drunken-glee. Six months of
dreading were finally getting over. I remember my father-in-law telling me that he was "completely cured", his voice carrying the conviction of the doctor's prognosis. This was around the 13th of the month. My wife and 11-month old son had spent some
two weeks in Chennai, and I was getting off a crazy work month, and so we took off to Coorg for a
3-day road trip. We got back to Bangalore on the night of the 16th –
tired, sapped and also fatigued – when my mom-in-law called at 11 p.m. My
father-in-law had fallen on the floor thrice and had vomited blood once. He was
conscious but they were taking him to the hospital.
We
booked tickets on the first flight out and packed afresh. The night had become
a nightmare.
The
hospital was like it always had been, but not quite. My father-in-law had tubes
sticking in his nose, drips attached to the back of his hands and electrodes
zigging out of his chest. He was in coma and on the ventilator. He never gained
consciousness.
The
root problem was internal bleeding, a result of a skyfall in platelet levels.
Platelets (good for you if you don’t know) keep the blood coagulated, and a
drop in count means that your blood thins so much that you bleed. Or to be more
graphically honest, your blood bleeds. A
fall in platelets was an expected side effect of radiation, but the severity of
internal bleeding wasn’t. It also led to such low BP that it wouldn’t show up
on the machine. Which in turn meant that blood wasn’t being supplied to the
brain, the kidney or other important parts of the body.
There
was just enough juice in the BP to keep the heart functioning (though it had
failed once the night before, and defibrillators and injections had just about
gotten the beat back). And thus passed Saturday. In status quo that was bleak
blank limbo, a tableaux of uncertainty. Little did we know that dawn would
bring clarity of the worst kind.
My
father-in-law’s heart rate fell once more on Sunday morning, and CPR again brought
him back to life. From 112 bpm to 30 bpm and now back to 80. We were called in
to say our goodbyes. But how does one say goodbye? This is not like putting the
phone down or seeing a friend off at the lift. This is final. But this cannot
be final.
Or
so we believed. Even when the duty doctor said that if we were short of cash,
we could stop the medicines. We believed because the man on the ICU bed did. We
believed because here was a heart that was still beating and wanting to beat
death.
In
15 more minutes, it would all be over.
My
wife’s maternal uncle called us back from a walk to the coffee station, saying
that the heart rate had fallen again. As we ran back, my wife asked me to go in,
as she was scared. As I walked up to the bed, the heart monitor was a straight
line. A dull, numbing flat. The duty doctor told me it was all over, and took
an ECG to confirm.
Everyone
cried, though some of us hid our tears well. The ride back home in the
ambulance – with my wife, her sister, me and the man who used to be my
father-in-law – was the worst I’ve ever taken so far.
The
cremation was on expected cultural lines but was also a revelation. My
father-in-law did not have a funeral but a 21-gun send off. The house was
filled with people and the street wasn’t enough. Neighbours, relatives, friends
and those with whom he had a fleeting acquaintance – like the ironing woman –
were there in full strength. Most stayed for over 5 hours. There wasn’t a dry
eye in the room.
The
turnout was remarkable because my father-in-law has always been a low-profile
man. A regular, ordinary man. A man with no bigger faults than an inability to
suffer incompetence and bad driving. A man with no obvious talents, save
perhaps a most special one.
He
was a good man.
To
quote Harvey Dent, he was a decent man in an indecent time. He cared. He would
go out of his way to help others. He was childlike (for instance, before the
disease, he couldn’t stay up after 9 p.m. no matter what). And he was cool.
Truth
is, he didn’t lose to cancer. We all did. Dear second-father-of-mine, I know
you’re in a nice place. How can you not be when we all saw you off with so much
love? And I know you’re chuckling away as you watch your grandson – the twinkle
of your eye – amaze you and us with his new tricks. He may not know it yet –
but he’ll miss you just as much as you do. As much as we all do.
Peace,
love, empathy
Ram
Cobain
No comments:
Post a Comment