By Rajan Narayan
AT 77 years of age I can speak from personal experience. I was beaten up savagely on the spine with iron rods by goons hired by a politician. This was on September 16, 1989 when I was exposing the politician’s sins of omission and commission in the OHeraldo of which I was the founder editor for 20 years. My experience later on in and out of hospitals was compounded by heavy doses of steroids the presumably well-meaning doctor at the GMC prescribed.
It’s a long story now mostly forgotten. But my medical situation was such that that I had to detox with my weight falling from 180 kg to 30 kg while de-toxing courtesy Dr Shrikanta at Mallya hospital in Bengaluru over some months. He saved my life. But all the treatments destroyed my gastrointestinal system and today I have a crushed spine and a severe rectum prolapse made worse with two surgeries. It means my rectum comes out and I have to literally do my morning ablutions painfully every time in the bathroom and clean up after that…it is unimaginable situation. I am sitting practically on my bones on the Western toilet and this is a very painful thing for whatever buttocks I have left because I thought by cutting down on my food intake and liquid intake I would suffer less. It is not so.
CRUSHED SPINE
LAST year in October I was in severe pain at my neck region and consulted neurosurgeon Dr Ajay Netalkar of Manipal hospital. He arranged for a three-hour long MRI for me at Radiance Centre which is very professional and the best. Besides acute cervical spondylosis it was suspected that I may have tuberculosis or Koch’s disease of the spine and referred me to Goa Medical College dean, Dr Shivanand Bandekar, as it was clear that I could not afford treatment at the private Manipal hospital.
Dr Bandekar thoroughly had me do all the X-rays and CT scans. Discovered a small in the lymph node under one armpit. An ultrasound and fine needle biopsy was done and various doctors quickly jumped the gun and said I should be given the standard treatment for tuberculosis…the treatment started in a private room of Ward No121 at the GMC which I was forced to take for want of a bathroom for myself which I always need for some comfort level. The TB treatment started and its side-effects were terrible for I was hit by nausea, vomiting and delirium with other medicines.
The sputum test, the gold standard test was done. There were no signs or evidence of TB and it was presumed I was suffering from clinical symptoms without proof, whatever that means. My discharge certificate insisted I suffered from TB of the spine along with other age-old health issues which crept up after my spinal beating up while I was editor of the OHeraldo over 20 years (and the newspaper I built up is now celebrating 40 years)…I was sure I didn’t have TB but suffered the agony of thinking that I may be just because the doctors said I must be, because I looked so famished and degenerated in body because of my starving myself.
NOT TB, THANK-YOU!
THEN someone referred me to neurologist Dr Sanat Bhatkar, son of my old friend Dinar Bhatkar. He has studied abroad and got impressive PG degrees. He checked me thoroughly and meticulously and studied my MRI scans and said: No TB, no Koch’s disease. It lifted the burden of sadness in my mind with his evaluation. Dr Sanat treated me and told me physiotherapy was best for me and to improve my nutrition.
However, my other earlier problem of prolapsed rectum became worse day by day. Then I had a fall in the washroom and injured my head at the collar bone although there were no fractures. Dr Sanat had told me that I was suffering from a “crushed spine” and so all the muscle and nerve pain was going haywire. My old beating up continues to haunt and trouble me and this time the impact was on my right leg and foot. I feel like I am semi-paralysed and soon I was not able to walk without the help of a walker even at home.
END OF SOCIAL LIFE
I STOPPED going out. When I get up in the morning terrible shoots of pain at shoulders and lower back drag me down in bed, as if my body is frozen with my right shoulder bone tilting down on right side, dragging my posture down …so that I may topple down one wrong move. I can’t get up from bed in the morning without some manipulation with hot and cold fomentation of my body and the medications.
Various doctors and my very good physiotherapist tells me I need multiple disciplinary approach and spine at neck region need urgent attention. Now there is also a creeping in prostate problem. All the pain at the shoulder blade region makes it impossible for me to bend and do my long ablutions in the morning and through the day. I can no longer bend from the waist down.
I have few friends left in the GMC anymore. I am told I may be admitted at the geriatric ward if I have influence. I would prefer to go to the Healthway but Now I am being referred to a proctologist in Mumbai where the last time in Mumbai I had terrible nightmare experiences with one Dr Roy Patankar. It seems Mumbai has all the best proctologists though, they are experts who deal with the collapse of the alimentary or digestive system right up to the prolapsed rectum stage. Maybe they can help me but I am too weak for another surgery and without surgery my insurance company won’t pay. Perhaps everything is too late for me now.
IF you ask ten different doctors their views on a particularly painful health condition you will get 15 opinions, like the story of the seven blind men and the elephant. Just 24 hours after I was admitted the Neurologist whom I trust implicitly insisted it was an ortho problem. The ortho people obsessed with broken bones want me to do more x-rays CT scans and a spinal MRI. Largest number of visits from neurosurgeon team did not include Head of the Department Ponraj Sundaram. They did not communicate any opinion. And finally, the HOD of Geriatrics whom my wife has been chasing turned up. He sneered at the other specialists. They are only concerned with body parts. Only we Medical people take a holistic view. The geriatric head asked if I had problems with my throat. When I said yes, he implied I may have cancer of the throat. He referred to the fact I used to smoke forty-plus cigarettes a day. I am now expecting a visit from Oncology and ENT. The people I need desperately are the physiotherapists. Yesterday neither Ortho nor Geriatrics wanted to admit me. Now that I have been admitted under the Superintendent of GMC and Prof of Surgery Dr Rajesh Patil they cannot ignore the reference Viva Dr Rajesh Patil.
BOTTOMLINE
THE bottom-line is that getting old with health issues not of my own making but of the political kind, and also being bankrupt is a deadly combination. It is not easy to grow old, it is very challenging. Why should I not stop eating and drinking like a monk bit by bit in the hope that I may one day soon close my eyes forever for a graceful exit from blows my life has dealt me? It’s is all the mind and it is also not all in the mind. Everyone at home and hospital is now researching me and psychoanalysing me and I no longer have the energy left to even get angry like once upon a time. The passion is spent.
I have learned patience with the injustices which may come in a media person’s life. Who came all the way from Mumbai in 1983 to take up what he then thought would be the exciting challenge of converting a Portuguese society paper into a contemporary investigating paper. There were no rewards, or very little rewards which count for something. What a price I am paying for the decision of mine to come to Goa today. It is che sera sera.