Today, I turn Two

At the crack of dawn, the first message I receive on my smart phone is from #SahyadriHospital, Pune. It congratulates me on my completing two years as a #LiverTransplant recipient. 

On September 6, 2016, I had received a cadaveric liver from a brain-dead stranger to undergo a transplant at this hospital, and thanks to the loving care I received from a very competent team; I’ve lived to tell this tale.  

Coming Sunday, I would be at the same hospital, to celebrate another remarkable feat of Dr Bipin B. Vibhute’s team - 100 Liver Transplants with 89% success rate in 2.5 years!

If I am lucky, I may get to rub shoulders with my anonymous "donor family." Officially, their identity cannot be divulged to me --- ever. But, I am told they would be present there, and my eyes would keep searching for them, as doubtlessly, they too would be looking out for me.

Health wise, these two years have gone by remarkably smooth. But going forward may not be as simple or easy. Yesterday’s blood report indicated that my AFP level has shot up again, so I am scheduled to undergo another PET scan tomorrow to rule out the recurrence of the dreaded #HCC. These past three years, I’ve lost count of how many tests, and scans I’ve undergone; and how much money and effort has gone into keeping me alive. It should eventually, be worth something – hence, my feeble attempts at sharing my experiences with other patients.

My surgeon, Dr Vibhute assures me I need not worry, and having come this far, I really shouldn't, although I know from experience that life has seldom been a smooth stretch. There have been more troughs than crests; more valleys than peaks; and then one fine day, the curtains will finally get drawn, as they do for all. So why allow myself to die, before my fated death?

This month is extremely significant for me for another reason. My publisher, Shikha Sabharwal at Fingerprints, has assured me that my book, #SecondGo (www.radhikasachdev.in) that recounts my journey thus far as a #liver transplant recipient will hopefully hit the stands by the end of this month.

Having learnt to earn my living from my words, as #copywriter and #ghostwriter for #www.writesolutions.co, my late mother, Asha Sachdev's would always prod me on to one day write my own book. Of course, she had no idea then, that I would have to pay a heavy price for being able to do that, or she may not have wished it for me.

Such is life! It throws surprises at every bend of the road. From a prospective #organdonor, I became a #organrecipient!

The day, I completed my "successful" #antiretroviraltherapy for #Hepatitis-C, under #BombayHospital's Dr #DeepakAmrapurkar, who met with a tragic end last year, I discovered that the virus I was happy to have flushed out from my body, had left a deadly trace, a cancerous tumour, for which I needed to undergo an urgent liver transplant.

Luckily for me, I received a timely call for Sahayadri Hospital and got a new leash of life. Luckily, I also had the sale proceeds from my Ghaziabad house in my bank that I'd kept aside for a shelter in Mumbai, to divert to meet my transplant expenses. Since liver transplant is still not recourse for the poor in India, nor for the faint-hearted, luckily for me, I couldn’t be bracketed into either category, so got wheeled into the OT!

Another lifeline that the Super Intelligence (For some reason, I’ve never preferred the word God) threw my way was a top-up policy that I found on my table, on the day I discovered I needed a liver transplant!

It was offered to me just a month in advance by #NationalInsurance on the basis of my 23-old policy from another insurance company, a full month after I completed my treatment under Dr Amrapurkar, and was pronounced virus-free.

But this is not the end of the ironies that fill my topsy-turvy life. #NationalInsurance denied me the claim, and the fighter in me, petitioned the Ombusman. I made my case at last month’s final hearing. Honourable Bima Lokpal patiently heard me out, said he needed to take the counsel of a medical expert and reserved the ruling.

The verdict would be pronounced sometime by mid-month, I have been assured.

Another secret venture I have been working on is www.textileportfolio.com. I’ve been labouring on this product, a news portal, covering the whole textile value chain, for the past two months, with one designer and one web developer, not knowing how I am going to run it, once it’s off the ground, as I have no monetisation backing for it. Yet, I’ve shot in the dark, and hope to hear back from those quarters, sometime in September - again.

Thus, you see, September is a very important month for me in more ways than one. If I manage to scrape through all hurdles as before, I would surely be a survivor. I just wish my luck does not run out on me, this time too!

In any case, writing has always been a hugely cathartic exercise for me, and gives me the strength to wade on nonetheless, through my life's choppy waters.

Till then, so long….

PS: Let me also confess that dramatizing my life relieves some of my bottled-up tension, and I appear to breathe easy…so…