A Medical Saga back home, not christened but destined to happen, but hold on, handle with courage!

Being in health sector, working so closely with doctors & having helped about a thousand of patients get best advise from credible doctors, get priority in treatment & even help patients get discounts at the hospitals & labs across. But I never imaged that I would have close brush with the most dreaded of all diseases & that also for my Father.

My passion of helping friends, relatives & business associates on medical front kept my touch with doctors & hospitals alive, as in last 10 years the focus of my business in ‘healthcare’ went away from Hospitals & Drs because of multiple reasons, mainly being that I never found them the true B2B Partners. But my alignment with Patients’ journey took me to their corridors & also made me learn a lot, from how the Dr-Patient relationship is changing, how the role of Diagnostics is growing in patient’s life, who are the good & who are the not so good Drs (mainly from Patient’s perspective), what are the communication gaps & how are they created (solely Hospitals being responsible for it) & so on so forth.

What I definitely discovered was the fact that the trend of ‘patients becoming gunie-pigs’ was not only growing but also becoming common. And here I would blame the system w.r.t. the ‘Treatment Selection’ process as there were no credible mechanisms, neutral platforms to actually guide the Patients & Families on how to select their Treatment centres & Drs as it was purely a ‘loose referral’ & ‘immature word of mouth process’ which was followed, resulting into bad selection of the ‘exactly the right Dr at right place’.

So whenever it came to referring my Patients, I always used my industry knowledge & information as well as cross references & my own judgment & comfort level with the Hospital systems & the Drs, mainly their ‘dealing with patients’ perspective.

I remember my Mother going through chronic phase of medical management for 8-10 years continuously & we were taking her for all sorts of medical management from Diabetes to Cardio-vascular to kidney failure & when finally she succumbed to ‘multi-organ failure’, what kept us going was a close watch & most importantly a ‘close communication’ with the Treating Drs andthough we will always live with the urge of ‘her longer life & company’, but it was not at all a bad memory when it comes to her ‘medical management’ as we, including the Drs & Hospital, all gave our best & resorted to all available options of treatment/ medical & Psychological management.

My recent closest brush was when I spent a full day with a close relative of mine for getting his heart mended. The hospital was known, the Dr was known but what always came as a surprise was the ‘new situation’, which would inadvertently pop up  & it could be anything from the ‘Insurance Claim’ to ‘which stents to choose when you come to know that a simple Angioplasty has turned out to be a multi-vessel disease’ & it would now cost a BOMB, for which you were never prepared for!! One could clearly see the gaps in ‘Dr-Patient Communication’ & a great scope of improving it for better Patient outcome. And most importantly, what was coming out too sure was ‘negligence of people, mainly from small towns, towards prevention & timely diagnosis of their diseases’, which resulted in them coming to tertiary care centres for treatment at quite late stages, when things would have already gone out of control. This is not only resulting in poor treatment outcomes, but also further deteriorating the Patient’s quality of life & becoming a bigger financial burden for the family, increasing their suffering furthermore.

So when my Father got his Hb level much below the normal (7.5 instead of 12-13), we were not only alarmed, but also very careful that we should get a quick answer to this problem & not neglect it further, whatever diagnosis it takes. So it was very clear that we would go to the best centre & quickly get into a complete diagnosis work-out not leaving any possibility unexplored.

At 76 years with a couple of Stents placed inside, but having a very active & healthy lifestyle, at least for last 10 years, we were not sure what it would result into, but we were quite sure that even smaller symptoms like ‘low Hb levels’ should not be ignored. And thanks we were sitting at Delhi, the capital of Medical Treatment Hubs with best of Hospitals & technologies & most experienced Drs around, it boosted our confidence further. Here I would like to point-out, that such situation coming up in smaller towns are not dealt with the ‘desired speed’ resulting into delayed diagnosis & prognosis, affecting the treatment outcomes in a BIG way!

We got him admitted & started with normal blood check to a PET Scan followed by Biopsies & immediately when there was as a slight doubt/ movement come up in the Pet Scan, the experienced & well-entrenched doctors didn’t waste a moment in doing ‘Myeloma Work-up’ in form of Boon Marrow Biopsy & what came out was most dreaded- a Multiple-Myeloma at 3^rd stage, a form of CANCER which in medical terms is termed as ‘probably the best CANCER to have’, but Cancer is Cancer & it has conquered your family & your own Father is suffering from it, this thought itself has a tendency to make life miserable!

My Father though is a brave-heart when it comes to ‘dealing with life’, but here he also panicked & hence it was time for the whole family to act in a much matured way, get better knack of what is going to happen in next course & what would be the best way to handle it with utmost maturity & patience.

I think, that’s what we are trying to accomplish at this stage & few good lessons to share are: 1. Always be vigilant to your health & for that, a regular check, min. once every year from 45-60 years & once every quarter once you cross 60; 2) don’t ignore simplest symptoms of fluctuating Diabetes, BP, Hemolglobin or Cholestrol, Creatinine, etc. levels, get to the root cause & then only relax; 3) put faith on the Dr & Hospital selected properly, 2^nd opinion is your right & do get one at the right time, but don’t play with your Dr’s advise (don’t take it lightly); 4) once diagnosed with deadliest of Diseases, do not panic, Psychological balance is most vital, don’t give signs of losing hope & it is important for both Patient & the family to show the will-power grit to the fullest & not get demoralized; 5 & most important, there’s always a set of so called ‘intelligent ill-informed well-wishers’! It is always good to listen to them but do not fall prey to unsolicited advise which only creates confusion & tends to spoil the rhythm of ‘proper treatment regime’ & can become big SPOILER, affecting your Patient’s right choice of treatment & desired outcomes.

Shraddha. Saburi. & the best lines I read at a doctor’s chamber—‘I Treat, HE Cures’ may sum up the whole affair in true perspective.