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I C U Stories This is a series of stories which are not fictitious, but real ones, of people who fought diseases caused by various factors. We take many things in our life for granted. We assume that we are hale and healthy and also presume that this will be the case forever. Here is to hoping that all of us remain healthy forever, but the reality unfortunately stares us in our face. We hear of people suddenly developing some sort of a problem or the other and it assumes grave proportions later. Let us take the case of Jayanthi, a housewife, who suddenly faced a crisis in her life.
Jayanthi is generally engaged in her day-to-day affairs and things are generally in control, but on that particular day, she had an intuition that some bad development was round the corner. The intuition was confirmed when she heard her husband's voice from the bedroom. She saw Shyam, her husband, bleeding from his nose. She was shocked to see this, as he had had a similar experience a year ago. They had then taken it lightly and assumed that it was due to severe winter conditions, but as days went by his cheeks had become numb, his eyes started swelling and became red, and it became absolutely necessary to take him to a doctor. They decided to meet an ENT specialist who gave him some antibiotics. They failed to give him complete relief, and the malady was growing with the passage of time. Then they tried homeopathy, which did not yield the desired results either, so they decided to consult their family doctor. "Shyam has developed a tumour in his head. This tumour is capable of growing and it is dangerous to let it develop, therefore, we need to go in for a surgery immediately." This came as a shock to everybody, including Jayanthi. The family members agreed on the strategy to go in for a surgery. Said Jayanthi, "They conducted the operation which was considered a success. They had cut a portion of Shyam's thigh, placed it in his mouth and had it stitched. He was then discharged from the hospital after 20 days. We were peaceful, but the peace lasted for a few days only. One day I entered the room and there was a strange odour. I was shocked when I realised it was emanating from Shyam's mouth. Only then I realised how important it is to be healthy. I resigned myself to the fact that he was not fully cured. My thoughts went back to the days when Shyam was not only hale and healthy, but also very handsome. When we went again to the doctor who conducted the operation, he coolly said that it was only because of the plastic surgery conducted on him. "You see, those pieces that we took from his thigh and stitched in his mouth must have got infected and those dead cells are causing this smell". So saying, he went on to remove them using a tool which was inserted into Shyam's mouth. He also added that Shyam had developed another tumour and we had better go in for a radiation treatment. The doctor felt sure that three sittings would be enough to cure him. But the radiation therapy only served to complicate matters further as his sufferings increased. As days passed, the situation worsened, he was bedridden. Due to the radiation, the tear sac from one of the eyes had to be removed, which made him unable to shed tears from one eye, and the tears were rolling from the other eye. Relatives, both from my side of the family as well his, started mourning for him as though it would be only a matter of days for the inevitable to take place. One day, my sister called me and suggested treating Shyam at the Apollo Hospital, and also assured me of the financial help that she could provide. It was a Herculean task for me to convince my husband when it came to changing the doctor, but I succeeded in this attempt.
After 15 hours of surgery, when I went in to see him, I expected to see his face swathed in bandages, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that he did not have a single plaster on his face. The bad odour that was emanating from his mouth had disappeared altogether! He was discharged after a couple of weeks, making me extremely happy. I do not have enough words to thank the Almighty and the doctors over there. In fact, when I went to thank the doctor, he expressed his appreciation of my composure and my ability to maintain a cool head through these trying times."
This 43-year-old gentleman (Mr S S) had already received radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery for malignant tumour involving the upper jaw. However, the tumour continued to grow and was causing severe pain. He had lost all hope. But his wife had not given up. She brought her husband's CT scan to discuss with me. The tumour had already affected the eye and could be seen below the skull base, which was also damaged at one place. We carried out an MRI scan, which showed the details of the brain. It showed the tumour 'involving the covering of the brain' in one area. Tumours in these regions were considered inoperable in the past. But the current skull base surgery techniques allow these tumours to be removed safely. Skull base tumour surgery requires a team approach. The team consists of ENT , Head & Neck surgeons, Neuro surgeons and Plastic surgeons. So in this case, Dr. Antony Arvind and Dr. Shivram Bharatwaj carried out the plastic surgery, while Dr. Siddharth Ghosh performed the neuro surgery. Prior to the surgery, a conference involving the team members was held to work out the details of the surgical approach and the methods of reconstruction. These surgeries take more than 12 hours and therefore a good anaesthetic team and post-operative care are essential.
Because of the new techniques of skull base surgery, many patients who were formerly considered incurable are now free of the ailment." N Rajeswari
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