CHARULATHA Born : 3 September, 1970 Died : 9 January, 2010.

The fourth daughter of Smt. Vasantha and Shri G. Rangachari and the youngest sister of Smt. Srividhya, Ms. Sripriya, Smt. Malavika and the elder sister of Dr. Vijayaraghavan.

Charu was diagnosed as case of cancer of the Colon and she was operated upon for removal of tumor on 11 June, 2009 at the City Hospital (affiliated to Sir Gangaram Hospital), New Delhi by Dr. Adarsh Choudhry, Surgical Gastroenterologist. On the day of the operation, he had told that the disease has spread to the liver and is in the last stage. Her life span would be from six to eighteen months. Other opinions from Dr. Ranga Rao of the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute, New Delhi, Dr. Ratnesh Srivastava of the Max Hospitals, Patparganj and Dr. Rajaram, Oncologist of Chennai revealed similar view.

But, being the youngest in the family with two young children and related commitments, the whole family was fully geared to somehow try and extend her life for a few years so that her sons would grow to understand things and manage on their own. For this, we took to extensive prayers to all Vaishnavite Gods and started her on with chemotherapy and target medicines. This was non-stop for four continuous months which led to damage of good cells instead of the cancerous ones. She had become very weak and she was unable to take food due to the after effects of chemo and target medicine. The after effects are constipation, nausea, piles, rashes which bled, back-pain, abdominal pain and extreme weakness. We stopped those medicines after 8 October, 2009. Even after stopping, many of the effects continued to affect her and we had to go for 2 simple chemotherapies from the Delhi State Cancer Institute, GTB Hospital, Dilshad Garden. Simultaneously, she was given medication by alternate therapies viz. Sino-Vedic cancer treatment, Lavanya Ayurveda and also Cow’s urine treatment. Nothing helped. She suffered and suffered.

The last 15 days were a nightmare. Both her feet were swollen and she could not move her limbs. On 1 January, 2010, she was admitted to Jeevan Mala hospital, New Rohtak Road, Delhi. The tests revealed that she was deficient in sodium, calcium, potassium, albumin, low haemoglobin, high billirubin count due to obstructive jaundice and infection of blood. She was given blood transfusions, 8 bottles of albumin, en-number of sodium, potassium and calcium, dextrose etc. for 5 days. There was no improvement. On the 5^th January, the doctor had opined that she may collapse at any time. At that time the blood transfusion was on. On that night, she was speaking as if in delirium which alarmed all of us. We knew that it was not a good sign. On 6^th, we asked the doctor to discharge her and brought her back home with a time-schedule of 2 or 3 days for her life to end.

6^th and 7^th January, she was suffering from excruciating pain. We could give her only one ounce of milk/water every two hours. Though she identified everyone who came to meet her, she was simultaneously suffering. While she was lying with head on the east direction and legs on the west, her left hand was facing south and right hand, north. She was holding the hands of my mother and said time and again, ‘Please hold me Amma. I need you. Don’t ever leave me’. At the same time, extending her left hand towards the wall (facing south), she said ‘Wait’. We later surmised that she must be asking the God of Death ‘Yama’ (according to the Hindu beliefs) to wait and asking Amma to hold her and not to leave her. Whenever she opened her eyes, I could see excruciating pain in them and an yearning for help from us to relieve her from the torture of the disease. We were lamely watching her die.

On 8^th evening by 5.30 p.m., she started bleeding from the mouth. Every two minutes, I had to remove blood and clots with cotton. This continued till 4.00 a.m. the next day. In between, the doctor had given her three shots of ‘Fortwin’ to ease her pain. But, they did not work on her. She continued to fidget in her bed. Had she not been immobile, she would have jumped out of her bed. By four in the morning on 9^th, she started sleeping. All of us were watching her helplessly with tears in our eyes the whole night.

On 9^th morning, all the members of the family were in her room watching her breath slowing down. Many times she wanted to open her yes but in vain. At 10.07 a.m., suddenly her beautiful eyes opened fully with the balls making a circle and pointing to a particular direction, with a trickle of tear from her right eye and a trickle of blood from the right side of the mouth, her breathing suddenly stopped. She passed away in front of every one of us through her eyes.

The sad part of this episode is that all along my mother who had been the backbone for trying to salvage her from the disease for the last seven months, has been witness to the death of her beloved young daughter. In fact, she being the mother who had prayed God to save her daughter by any means, herself on Friday prostrated before the Lord to take her life away from the miseries of life. The 39 year old woman had undergone tremendous torture in the hands of cancer.

The whole Rangachari family and relatives and friends were shattered by the news of Charu’s disease. Everyone did their best to give solace to her from the clutches of this dreaded disease. But the efforts of physical, mental and financial stress was in a big way shared by Shri R. Raghavan, my husband in the first place. He did a lot to Charu not as a brother-in-law but as a real brother to her. He was so moved when Charu embraced him in the hospital amidst her severe pain. This was in acknowledgement of his affection towards Charu which she had realized. At the age of 70, my mother, Smt. Vasantha, not bothering about her own health demands, had, with a singular goal in mind, served Charu and was sure that she would bring her back to good health. She is a very brave woman. Shri Rangachari, my father is a man who had broken inside to see his beloved and special daughter Charu in pain. He also contributed his mite by rubbing her back to ease her back pain almost during the wee hours every day. Last, but not the least, my sister Priya has done her best in serving her little sister by doing the work of an Aaya, right from applying medicine to Charu’s anal portion for piles, collecting vomit, taking her to the doctor, giving her medicines at correct periods of time, giving her oil massage and attending to all her physical needs right from changing her dress to taking her to the bath room for bath. We were all doing this with only a single goal and determined mind that we would bring her back to normalcy. But God had other wishes !!

Charu was a very strong, brave and a lively person with bubbling spirits. She wanted to live a simple and peaceful life, see her children grow to become good human beings in a healthy environment. She was very much appreciated in her office for her efficient and diligent work that her M.D. told me that even if garbage is given to her, she would extract something good out of it. She added that her Company was much privileged to have her in their rolls. I was very over-whelmed by these words and felt so proud of my little sister.

This whole episode has been recounted for the benefit of patients who are suffering from cancer and their families. The message is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO CURE FOR CANCER. Nor this disease gets detected at the earlier stages. The Oncologists keep on giving chemotherapy and target medicines which will only weaken the patient and at the same time give a great financial crunch to the patient and his/her family.