Cancer Patient's Son

I saw the LocalCircles Founder Sachin Taparia's post on information on D.S Research so sharing this experience of Rakesh Chowdhary (his fathers experiences with alternate therapy for cancer which includes DS Research). It is worth a read for all associated with cancer.

A Journey With Cancer
A journey to fight cancer is never like a set of steps to follow and you will end up with a smile. Its always a torture because cancer is very unpredictable and uncanny disease most of the time you hardly get to know until it becomes lethal.

I went through a lifetime experience in last three years and that changed my life altogether. I will never forget the afternoon of 18 June 2007. I was enjoying pleasant weather of Bangalore on the terrace of my office building. My phone rang and that moment changed the way I spent my life further.

Rectum cancer was behind my dad's illness, which was continuing from last 4-5 months. We tried many doctors but no one had diagnosed until we approached All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS), New Delhi. Late diagnosis is one of the main reason behind increased death toll by cancer in India. Earlier diagnosis would have increased survival chance of my dad. At the time of diagnosis cancer was in stage III.

My journey with cancer started. It continued for three years till the date we lost this battle. Through this blog I want to share my experience and approach I took from the best of my knowledge. We tried many therapies conventional and non-conventional. During this process I met many people, some of them were genuinely helping but others were just cashing our situation. Through this blog I will try to give fair opinion about the treatment we tried. That may help patient to take right decision.

Preventions:

Lets start with reason behind increased cancer threat and why masses are feeling threatened. I asked same question to oncology surgeon during the period of my dad's treatment. His answer made me realize that we can't pin point to one specific reason behind cancer. It is cumulative affect of our day to day activities. As per his suggestion if we improvise our daily habits, we can decrease the chances of cancer. Below I am mentioning some changes in usual lifestyle and the lifestyle having those activity, I called that as Green Lifestyle for the reference in this blog.

Avoid Tobacco (Tobacco in any means from Pan Masala to Cigarette) ,
Avoid alcohol in excessive amount,
Make an habit of some physical activity (Exercise, Sports, Yoga ect..),
Avoid constipation (Eat sprouts, Fresh Fruits on regular basis, Avoid junk foods as much as you can, Increase Anti-Oxidant food Item to decrease the toxicity of your body).
Avoid Stress as much as you can (One of the salient reason behind increasing cancer toll these days). Meditation and Yoga would be the best way, so make a routine of practicing it.
Any activity that increase your immune system.
Above mentioned habit would drastically decrease the chances of cancer but nothing nullify it 100%. So be positive and have Green Lifestyle. The best way of treating cancer is to not let it happen.

Treatments:

As I mentioned earlier late diagnosis is one of the prominent reason behind increase in death toll in India. Few developed countries do diagnose most of the cancer disease in either stage I or stage II. But in developing country like India, we don't have such qualified processes at place to diagnose early stage cancer and even people do not practice good medical habit like regular check-ups etc. Diagnosis is very important step of cancer treatment. Its timing is directly proportional to survival of patient. Early diagnosis means better survival chance.

In dad's case, it was a late diagnosis and done through Biopsy. Biopsy is the most practiced diagnosis process in India or may be all-over the world. Based on Biopsy report we consulted 3 hospitals(Tata Memorial Centre Mumbai, AIIMS New Delhi, Dhramsheel Cancer Hospital New Delhi) for treatment procedure and doctors from all three hospitals came up with almost a similar treatment procedure and I believe that was the standard procedure to be followed for stage III cancer.

Treatment procedure suggested was to go through 25 sitting of Radiotherapy with one month course of oral chemotherapy to reduce size of tumor then a surgery to remove tumor and final step was 6 cycle of chemotherapy.

Now the next question was that in which hospital we should start treatment? Since everywhere similar treatment procedure had to be followed so we rejected TMC on the basis of logistic, AIIMS was not ready to start treatment before one month. So finally we moved to Dharmsheela Cancer Hospital. It was quite expensive but we had no choice.

The whole course of treatment took 10 months to complete. It took another 2 to 3 months for him to recover from side effect of chemotherapy. He was quite well when we had another set back in the month of June 2008 after knowing another tumor growing in Left Lobe of Liver. Then we started trying unconventional treatment methods such as Ayurveda, Touch therapy, A Medicine Claiming to Cure Cancer, Rituals Believes & Faiths, Cyclotron Treatment, Medicine of D.S. Research Centre Banaras and Wave Therapy. Only few of above mentioned really helped us to some extent but none of them really worked 100% as per their claim. I will come to each treatment methods separately and give a fair opinion based on my experience. I hope that may help people to take informed decision. And they can avoid mistakes which we did either due to lack of information or false hope.

All treatment methods continued till Oct 2009. Dad became completely bed ridden and was unable to stand because of tumor growth in spinal cord as well as in bones of other part of body. At the end of Oct 2009 there were around 9 tumors in his body. That made his body partially paralyzed. He was completely dependent on Morphin for pain relief and doctor called that as a termination stage. And finally termination stage ended on early hours of 6th Dec 2009 with few rounds of hospital giving him relief from all his pain and worries of life.

Lets discuss therapies

* Touch therapy.
* Ayurveda.
* A Medicine Claiming to Cure Cancer.
* Rituals Believes & Faiths.
* Cytotron Therapy.
* Medicine of D.S. Research Centre Banaras.
* Wave Therapy.
* Kalyan Banarjee.

Touch Therapy: Touch therapy is not very popular among people. It works on the philosophy of balancing energy of your body. Its assumption of disease starts with negative energy surpasses the positive energy of body and then we need external force to balance them.

Mr. Mulkraj Das is a very respected personality in Massoorie India. People say he is having god gift ability to soak negative energy of body to cure your disease. He has cured many paralyzed people as well as many other disease. He is having frequent visitors from many places of India. In my father's cases we didn't find it very effective. As per my dad's statement he didn't feel any change in his body. So we didn't continue for long just returned back. He treats you free of cost except registration fee and that was around Rs. 300 at that time.

Ayurveda: A Kamlnath Baba Ashram located nearby Alwar in Rajsthan. We got to know about this Ashram through someone. And we visited this place right away after Massoorie trip. The Ashram treats people free of cost and provides medicine from their own fund. I should agree that many people got benefited from this noble effort including me. I met few people there who got completely cured by these medicine. We had benefit from these medicine and it improved quality of life after chemotherapy. Based on my experience people should give it a try. Early stage cancer patient have fair chance of recovery.

Direction from Delhi given below :
Direction :
Drive along NH8 towards Manesar. Once you reach Daruheda leave NH8 and switch to Alwar highway. You keep driving straight towards Alwar, you will reach near Tijara. That is a circle and from circle continue on Alwar highway. A just 10 KM drive and you will reach Bhindusa. Bhindusa is very small village market. Take right turn from Bhindusa and go along the road, you will reach Ashram. You can ask anybody about Kamalnath Baba Ashram, they will guide you.

A Medicine Claiming to Cure Cancer: It was Medicine of Munir Khan from Mumbai, who was claiming to cure cancer by his own developed medicine. I paid him Rs 16000/- for 100 ml. His office sent me a 100 ml bottle without any label and it was completely a waste.

Rituals Believes & Faiths: We drove to a place called Baggar in Rajsthan after being informed by one of our known. The Kuan Dham placed in Baggar and lots of people have great faith in prayer done at that Dham. I met few people who travelled from Delhi. But we didn't feel any improvement in our case so we didn't make second visit.

Cytotron Therapy: I got to know about this through advertisement made on television. We followed it through internet and found origin of this treatment in one of the lab situated in Bangalore. I spoke to them and found this treatment is in very early stage and scientist were doing their trials. We decided to give it a try. We tried to get treatment done in Lab but was refused and directed to Dr. Sibia Clinic in Ludhiana Panjab. My father stayed in Ludhiana more than a month for treatment. We paid Dr Sibia Rs. 100000/- for treatment excluding MRIs and accommodation cost. We didn't find this helpful and tumor size kept increasing. I met one lady patient from Dhanbad who died in few weeks after she got discharged from clinic. I feel this treatment would be working theoretically but practically I don't find it effective.

Medicine from D.S. Research Centre Banaras: A pack of Ayurvedic Medicine on the cost of Rs 3800/- for 14 days. I heard about many people who were getting treatment from there and improving. We continued medicine for 3 months but no improvement. At the same time my dad's condition was degrading day by day and finally he reached in a condition where he was not in position gulp medicine.

Wave Therapy: I don't want to write much about this treatment. The person who was claiming to have developed wave therapy through a long year of research was doing treatment through few magnets. He usually charge Rs 650 for a sitting but once he got know that we are in helpless condition he raised his charge to Rs. 2500/- per sitting. We had no choice except give it a try. We tried but no help just waste of money. I think there should be some law at place to stop this kind cheat from helpless patient. Anyways moving further.

Kalyan Banerjee: It was too late and my dad's body was completely paralyzed when we started his medicine. I feel there would have been some positive effect if we would have tried his treatment in early stage. Treatment is not costly here. Approx Rs. 300 for 8 days medicine.

During all non-conventional treatments we were always in touch with oncology doctor. I suggest to always consult your doctor before trying anything. And take informed decision. That is the whole purpose of this blog. You should keep your mindset positive. more