CPAA - Overcoming Cancer & Bringing Hope into their Lives

Sufala gifts a rose – a symbol of hope - to this young boy

Veena Gaikwad cheers up a patient with gifts and smiles 

Roses and gift packs for each patient on the occasion of Rose Day 

An Awareness and Detection Camp in progress

Team Miracle helps CPAA’s ‘Make a Patient Smile’ program with our very own Musical Group

22 Dec, 2011. Although 5-year old Deepak* sat quietly in his mother’s lap, it was evident that he was enjoying the Christmas Party. His eyes followed the Musical Chairs, and his face lit up when Santa gave him sweets and a brightly-wrapped gift. Deepak had been discharged just an hour ago from hospital, after a long chemo session. He was supposed to be going straight home, but he had heard his father saying on the phone, ‘Sorry madam, party nahi aa sakta’. He immediately understood that CPAA was organizing a party, and, having attended their lively get-togethers earlier, he had stubbornly insisted on coming to this one. So even though Deepak was so exhausted, his father had given in.

As for us, we were happy that the little boy was there. We didn’t know it then…it was his last Christmas party!

Celebrating special days like Diwali, Christmas, or Women’s Day is just one of the ways for CPAA to spread some smiles among the cancer patients who come to them for help. CPAA (Cancer Patients Aid Association) which first started in Mumbai, followed up with a branch in Pune. The patients they help, come from the lowest socio-economic strata of society – daily wage labourers, vegetable/fruit sellers, maids etc. As it is, life is difficult for them – meager wages, insufficient holidays, no savings. And when cancer strikes, they are at a total loss. While there are days when they barely manage a proper nutritious meal, the costs of  treatment are prohibitive! It is here that they turn to CPAA for help.

CPAA helps these poor patients with medicines, money for treatment, and also with monthly supplies of grains and certain dry food items to provide some nutrition. Sanjivani who has had a breast removed needs a prosthesis; Bhau who now has a mechanical voice box cannot afford the special cleaning brush. Sometimes, a patient may just need a few pain-killers.

Maharukh Mehta, who heads the Pune office is forever juggling finances in such a way that no patient is turned away empty-handed. She is helped tirelessly by social workers Sumangala, Veena, Najiya, Sufala and Asha who try to get in more donors, visit patients and also hold Awareness & Detection Camps.

The work is arduous… and when they lose a patient, the mood in the office becomes grey and bleak. “There are times when we call up a patient to invite her/him for a party, and learn that he has just passed away! It feels terrible,” says Maharukh.

Not all cases are doomed. Many of them recover. 5-year-old Sumaiya’s leukaemia has been subdued, and for that, we also thank one of our Team Miracle helpers, Tenaz, who had partly funded her treatment.

Would you like to save a life? Would you like to give some hope? Even a little goes a long way. Life is not in our hands…and even if the patient you fund finally passes away, you can at least find solace that your gift gave a longer lease of life…or a less painful end. There are many more avenues to help …just get in touch with Team Miracle…and we will open a vista of ways to spread kindness and create smiles!

* Name changed

************

THE ONLY SURVIVOR

Missed death by a Whisker - Paraplegic Soban  Singh

He is a paraplegic, but his arms and torso are still powerful as he pushes his wheelchair swiftly towards us. The strength, determination, discipline and training are evident, even at 58, and his only regret is “All my contemporaries are now Subedar-Majors. I would have been one too, if not for this injury.”

Given the severe nature of his spinal cord injuries, Soban Singh will never become a Subedar-Major, but he is much more than that – he is a war hero, who has survived one of the most horrifying attacks that warfare can inflict.

“It was 15 October, 1988. I was then 26 and posted in Sri Lanka, as part of the IPKF’s Operation Pawan. Our Major had discovered some weapons in a village and we were ordered to carry out a search-and-capture for suspected terrorists. We were traveling in two 3-ton Shaktiman trucks. I was in the last one with five others, and we were laughing and joking as we sped along the roads. Suddenly there was a huge explosion!”

When Soban Singh recovered consciousness nine days later, he was in a hospital in Chennai (where he had been air-lifted). His first thought was “Where are my legs?” he looked down and saw them there, but couldn’t feel anything, except terrible pain all over his body.

He became unconscious again, only waking up in a hospital in Pune after a month. From others he heard the details of what had happened that fateful day. “Our truck had been blown up by a landmine so powerful, that the vehicle was flung more than 35 feet in the air. All my five other companions had been blown to bits (their body parts had to be gathered up in blankets). I was the only survivor, but the doctors had not much hope because of the extent of injuries. My stomach was ruptured, my head was broken, my ribs shattered, and I had to be kept alive with an oxygen tank. Most important, my spine was shattered, paralyzing me completely below the waist.”

It was the thought of his wife and three young children which (and yes, his physical strength and determination) which kept him fighting for his life. After three years in hospital, three years of healing and rigorous physio-therapy, Soban Singh was transferred to the Paraplegic Rehabilitation Centre. He lives there, going to his native Nainital once in two years. “My village is in a remote area, and the hilly terrain makes it difficult to negotiate on a wheelchair.”

These brave jawans do not talk about their difficult life – a life lived on a wheelchair, but let me tell you in short what it means to be paraplegic

Injury to the spinal cord causes loss of  sensation and control, not just in the limbs, but also in areas such as bowel and bladder control, sexual function, digestion, breathing and other functions. Because their limbs do not function, and they cannot move their body normally like the rest of us, they are prone to pressure (bed) sores, spasms, frozen joints, osteoporosis and fractures. Because their lungs do not function properly, they cannot cough out phlegm, and even a simple cold can lead to pneumonia and breathing complications. Because their hearts lose muscle power, they are prone to cardio-vascular disease.  Since emptying their bladders regularly is a problem (and is done lifelong using a catheter) they are prone to urinary tract infection, and kidney failure.

************