–Martin Joseph Thypodath, CEO & MD of Freedom Holidays

On March 23 a back-to-life again Martin Joseph Thypodath celebrates his birthday and on April 26 the 31st anniversary of Freedom Holidays…after a battle royal with blood cancer (otherwise known as leukemia). He says he now believes in only three cardinal principals to stay alive happily ever after: dietary changes, laughter, dietary changes, staying positive in all circumstances. Here’s a man to listen to in our times of so much depression all around!

By Tara Narayan

MOST people are reluctant or will never share details of how an insidious Big C as in cancer crept into their life and proceeded to set up a hellish home in body beautiful! But Martin Joseph Thypodath of one of Goa’s most respected and largest travel agency Freedom Holidays is not most people.
He is a very special patient who decided it was too early to die off and he has no problem talking about how he beat blood cancer which struck him down in the prime of his life…with a change of attitude, a change in eating habits and learning how to laugh day in and day out. It’s a rivetting story worth listening to and I’m going to tell you his story here.
Now 58 years old Martin Joseph has seen a lot of life come and go in half-a-lifetime, plus a few more years, “I’m an Aries and am going to be 58 this March 23, I’m going to take a break in Sri Lanka…” It’s been a remarkable life in the sense that he’s lived through two marriages come and go, and has the gift of a daughter he adores, Katie lives in London where his first wife Caroline Tollworthy also lives, “my daughter Katie is chasing a career in fashion and all I want to do now is to live to see her get married and see my grandchildren!”

IT HAPPENED POST-COVID
BUT for a while there some three years ago, just post-Covid and after he had taken both his vaccine shots. One day when he was feeling low, weak and down with fatigue he dropped in at the JMJ hospital at Porvorim to check out his hearing difficulty actually. He told Dr Ehrlson d’Souza here that he was not feeling well, his weight was down from 110 kg to 65 kg, he had lost his appetite. The good doctor did a routine test and alarmed told him his blood count was very low, it’s not to be taken lightly, don’t waste time. Do a fuller, more complex blood test.
At Manipal Hospital he met the young oncologist Dr Mahadeva Swamy (hailing from Karwad, only hematologist in Goa). This blood test went to a Pune lab and when it returned he was shocked with the news that his blood counts had come down so much that it was now affecting his bone marrow. What? Blood cancer, otherwise known as leukemia. It took a while to digest it, says Martin, “This was all in 2022, post-Covid…”
Martin Joseph shared his story of battling blood cancer when I visited him at his Freedom Holidays offices at Patto in Panjim, he asked his Man Friday Anjit Kumar Malik (from Dharbanga in Bihar) to serve me two cups of green tea to sip..in between talking to me he took his phone calls, for that day he said they were handling some charters from Iran, “Iran charters only we handle…I find that even in Goa if you’re a Mallu talking to a Mallu works better!”

RETURNING to his battle with cancer, he said, that is more or less all over with today in March 2025. He is fine, only thing is he has a hearing problem so I better ask my questions a little loudly. In between talking he introduced me to his staff one by one, “I hire Goans.” The travel business is hard work but it’s getting better…
About his cancer treatment, it’s over, “Recently, when Dr Mahadeva told me I was zero…from 8.96% blood count in 2022, I am zero today! The first thing I did was thank God and hug the doctor! I was so close to death, I got pneumonia, they removed seven liters of water from my lungs…”
For a while for some months there he thought his life was over, this was the end, the ground moved under his feet, “I was sunk in depression at home, wallowing on my sofa before the TV set… I didn’t know what to do, I was waiting for death!” Then he said he wanted to live and he didn’t want anyone’s pity or sympathy either, “It’s not your fault, why should you be sorry!”
It’s one amazing story to listen to from a man who has much to live for. Daughter Katie he adores, a first wife Caroline who is his best friend even if his second wife is not and in court demanding an incredible amount of alimony for making his life miserable for 17 years, “I’m a Roman Catholic, she wanted to be something else…” But to move on, he thanks God again and again for his English wife and their daughter Katie who comes and goes, “I want to live long enough to see her married and see my grandchildren!”

GOODBYE OLD LIFESTYLE!
ABOUT the cancer, the blood leukemia, “It’s over. My old lifestyle of drinking two or three cokes, drinking energy drinks like Red Bull, liquor of course, feasting on KFC, burgers, pizzas, all kinds of food good and bad while traveling the world for business deals…I used to smoke, at least one pack a day.” All that is over with.
The worst months when he was really bad his office boy Anjit took care of him, cooked for him; now he has a wonderful housekeeper from Kolhapur called Amrita who cooks simple Maharashtrian meals for him. He drinks green tea, eats a variety of fruit, soups, simple dal-roti-chaval…red Kerala rice! It’s a very rationalized, circumspect and healthier lifestyle. If he wanted to live, he had to find this discipline and little by little it worked. He is still on cancer drug “Itinib. “It kills cancer cells bad and good too! 400 mg tablets, a strip costs Rs550 or so, at first I used to go for check-up every 15 days, then every month, three months, six months…my doctor tells me this kind of cancer is due to bad food intake.”
He’s feeling great today for he has found the three ingredients to stay alive and happy: Laughter, eating better (yes, he has become a vegetarian with the occasional fish), always being positive no matter what the bad situation. Martin shares, “When I was really bad I watched a lot of funny shows on TV just to laugh! Tom & Jerry, Charlie Chaplin, Pink Party…they lifted me out of my blues!” He is a funny man, come back to life!
MOTHER PASSED ON
A MUCH recovered and refreshed cancer patient today, Martin may well ask: What doesn’t he have? He misses his mother who passed away on April 29, 2021 …but look at the bright side, he is gifted with a supportive first wife and daughter. He has seen the world with only a few countries left, he speaks seven languages…yes, he now occasionally dreams of selling off everything and retiring, living in peace, cherishing whatever he has left or so to speak!
I also sensed all this while saying goodbye to him, he walks me to the lift, asked his boy to Anjit to accompany down. A most memorable man to talk to is Martin Joseph Thypodath of Freedom Holidays, as he gets ready to celebrate his company’s 31st anniversary on April 26, 2025 by throwing a party! It’s time for thanksgiving, and I wish him “jug jug jiyo,” enjoy the last of life for which the first was made or not made!

What is leukemia?

AMONGST the many cancers which afflict human beings there is leukemia, a common blood cancer. This cancer of the blood affect blood forming tissues which hinder the body’s ability to fight infections. When immunity is low and inflammation in the body high many diseases strike…and this includes leukemia.
There are several types of leukemia. Is there a cure. The consensus is that while there is no real cure for leukemia many patients may achieve long-term remission with treatment and lifestyle changes; though some types of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia have high cure rates. It is the adult onset leukemia which has to be treated with all round treatment aggressively with drugs and sweeping changes in lifestyle habits acquired over a lifetime, for example, smoking is often singled out and indicted in cancer, several types of cancer including leukemia.
Leukemia patients may make enough changes in their lifestyles to achieve remission when there is no more sign of the cancer, but this is not a cure and there is a possibility of return if the patient is not careful and relapses anew into old bad habits. A cure is defined only when a cancer is gone and there is no risk of return.
Usually it is people over 65 years who are vulnerable to leukemia, although the demographics say anyone can develop leukemia, white males are statistically most susceptible and this could be because of excessive radiation exposure. It has been pointed out that exposure to radiation like say in the case of an atom bomb explosion, radiation exposure leads to an increase in leukemia cells forming. At all times it is the ratio of red blood cells and white blood cells in the body which make all the difference between health and ill-health. That is why every blood test will first check on RBC and WBC count and this is indicative of healthy or unhealthy blood.
Is it a painful cancer? Yes, leukemia is known to be a very painful cancer, particularly in the bone and joints as abnormal white blood cells accumulate in these areas and cause inflammation – massive inflammation as mentioned before being the single largest case of disease in the body.
One more thing. In leukemia treatment is usually through chemo or drug therapy and rarely through radiation. This is because here the cancer cells do not cluster together into a single, removable tumor but rather they are spread out widely throughout the body as the blood circulates…surgical removal is impossible.

The best way to protect yourself from leukemia or any cancer for that matter: Quit bad habits of stressful living with smoking or chewing tobacco, quite smoking; adopt healthy habits of drinking and eating – choosing natural nutritious beverages instead of artificial soft drinks of the food and drink industry; also, eat fresh fruit and vegetables organically cultivated…maintain a healthy weight for obesity is the root cause of many diseases.
Finally, note these six signs of leukemia: fatigue, feeling tired all the time even when resting; bleeding and bruising easily; frequent infections of severity and long lasting infections; unexplained weight loss; swollen lymph nodes under the skin in the area of the neck, armpits or groin; fever; constant shortness of breath; pale complexion; dizziness; nosebleeds; tiny red spots on the skin called petechiae; visual disturbances and headaches.
While acute leukemia symptoms may come on suddenly within days or weeks, there is also chronic leukemia symptoms which develop gradually from very mild at first. Leukemia occurs at any age although it’s most common in elderly people starting from the 60s and 70s for a variety of reasons which need to be analysed.
However, this is the most common malignant cancer in children. The conclusion is that 70 out of 100 people (70%) will survive leukemia for five years after being diagnosed, but much depends on what the patients do by way of transforming their lifestyle habits, attitudes and many things imbibed over half-a-lifetime of bad and stressful living.
Today, vaccines for leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are being developed and are on clinical trials, but the goal of vaccine therapy is to make the immune system attack any cancer cells. This doesn’t always work for various reasons. Most leukemia patients are prescribed chemotherapy, a protein diet of lean meats such as chicken, fish, or turkey and eggs. Many today say the key to better immune health today – to be fighting fit – is to hydrate better (some of us have forgotten how to drink water) and eat better, exercise better, and change negative ways of thinking into positive ways of thinking which is sometimes hard to do considering how hard it is to be just happy in today’s times. We should subscribe making one another happy instead of unhappy all the time in family and friends circles!