Fight For Life - My Journey - From A Fatal Disease To Good Health

Author:
Shantanu Saha

A Note from the Author…

This book describes how accidentally at the
age of 25, during a routine checkup I discover
that I suffer from a near fatal disease without a
cure. How it affects me mentally to know that I
may not live long. How I choose to initially live
in denial but then fight it out, making some
avoidable mistakes on the way. Eventually in
spite of a near death situation, I do conquer
the disease to get back to a normal life with
good health by the age of 39. The book
traverses my journey in these fateful 14 years,
where I did not let the disease affect my career
or daily life. It talks about my trials and
tribulations and the highs and the lows in my
fight for life.

Author: Shantanu Saha

Contents

Chapter 1: Discovering about my Genetic Disease
Chapter 2: Living in Denial
Chapter 3: My first serious health problems
Chapter 4: Alternate Therapies & Setbacks
Chapter 5: Trying to keep my mind off the disease
Chapter 6: The inevitable Happens
Chapter 7: My First Surgery
Chapter 8: Preparation for a Life Changing

Operation
Chapter 9: Tough Days
Chapter 10: Start of a new life


Chapter 1: Discovering about my Genetic
Disease
I was a normal healthy child all through my
school life if you exclude shortsightedness that
is. I wear high-‐powered glasses, probably a
result of reading too much fiction. In the year
1990, when I was in college I became more
health conscious. I joined my neighborhood
friends for jogging and exercising on a daily
basis. I did quite a few pushups including one-‐
hand pushups apart from pull-‐ups. We also
used to jog each evening from our houses in
Vasant Kunj to the Vasant Vihar market
around four kilometers away. The jogging
greatly increased my appetite. From three
chapattis for dinner, I straightaway jumped to
seven chapattis on the very first day I jogged.
Gradually I increased the time spent in doing
bodybuilding exercises to an hour in the
morning and an hour in the evening. The
efforts showed and I became physically much
stronger than ever within a year of this new
regimen.
During my MBA years, as my workload of

studies increased, I had to give up on jogging,
but I still spent one hour on bodybuilding
exercises everyday. Having built up a strong
muscular frame, this one-‐hour of exercise
helped me to maintain it. When I got placed
from campus in my first job in a large MNC

engineering firm, I went through my first
health checkup and my blood tests and other
parameters came out normal indicating as I
believed that I was in good shape. The initial
months immediately after joining the firm
were both physically and mentally demanding
as we travelled all over India for a detailed
induction and on–the-‐job training. I was
leading a group of thirty engineers in all these
trips. All through, I was always commended
for my high energy levels and stamina. In all I
spent around five years with this firm. It was
during my second posting in this firm, when I
was working in the company’s factory in
Faridabad, that I first got to know that I did
have some serious health issues.
It was a hot sunny summer afternoon, when a

group of IIT Engineers in our factory were
sitting in my office cabin and were discussing
about our company’s tie up with a large
Private hospital chain for employee health
checkups. Although not mandatory, the facility
was available for all employees free of cost. A
friend from IIT Kanpur joked that his body
was a 1972 make and he felt that a routine
checkup was overdue. Another guy did
mention about an incident where a factory
union leader who was absolutely hale and
hearty had gone for a checkup, but when he
found out that he had a heart problem, his
health deteriorated and he died within six

months. We then debated whether it was
better to know in advance about any health
issue and take precautions or wait till
something actually happened. The consensus
veered more towards the former.
So one fine morning in 1997, I drove in my

second hand fiat car all the way from my
Vasant Kunj residence to this Hospital situated
on Mathura Road in Delhi. I was on an empty
stomach all ready for a battery of tests to
cover each part of the body. Most of the tests
were routine and were going fine. However, it
was during the ultrasound that the Doctor
looking at the screen, looked worried and
turned to me to ask the reason for undergoing
that particular test. I told him that there was
no particular reason and that I had come for a
routine Executive Health Check up as a part of
our company’s policy and its tie-‐up with their
hospital. It was then that he revealed that the
ultrasound was showing numerous small cysts
in my kidney. He said that as I grew older
these cysts would grow larger and ultimately
my kidneys could fail. This news came as a bolt
from the blue to me and I was at a loss for
words. Anyway at the end of the whole
checkup, I was supposed to meet a Senior
Doctor to discuss all my reports. This Doctor
also looked quite grave and said that it seemed
I suffered from a potentially fatal disease
called the Adult Dominant Polycystic Kidney

Disease (ADPKD). He also noted that my blood
pressure was on the higher side at 130 / 90
and could be a direct consequence of this
disease. He asked me if my parents had any
kidney problems. I told him that I had lost my
Dad due to kidney failure way back in 1983,
but we did not know the reason and it was
believed at that time that he died due a
reaction from some wrong medication. He told
me that my disease was genetic in nature and
from what I had told him, it seemed to have
come from my father’s side since my mother
was healthy. He said that I had a fifty percent
chance of survival. He however qualified that
he was not a Nephrologist and that I should
take an appointment with a Nephrologist and
discuss this in detail. I nodded a faint yes and
left.
On the way back, while driving in my fiat back
home, the conversation with the Doctor just
kept playing in my mind and I was just
thinking about how much more time I had, to
live. Although I have a cheerful disposition and
it takes a lot to get me down I must say at that
time I did feel quite depressed. I was
wondering how I would break the news at
home. After a lot of thought I decided against
telling anyone at home about this whole
episode. In fact I thought that when the doctor
said that I had a fifty percent chance of
survival, he did not say anything new. After all

everyone at any moment in time can die for
any reason whatsoever, so everyone has a fifty
percent chance of survival. I also thought that
doctors tend to be alarmist at times. Let me
not think too much about what he said and let
me lead my life normally as before. Hence
within a few days I had put all negative
thoughts to the background and all but
forgotten about the incident. I also never went
to the Nephrologist as advised. One thing I
must mention here is that during those days,
we did not have the Internet, so I was not in a
position to do any independent research of my
own and hence ignorance was bliss at least for
the moment.


Chapter 2: Living in Denial
Within a couple of months of the Executive

Health checkup episode at the hospital, I had a
high in my career and received some fabulous
news. I was chosen by my company to head
my function, Human Resources, in a new joint
venture company of theirs in Satna in Madhya
Pradesh. I was extremely excited about this
and made all preparations for my transfer to
this small city, which was located just around a
hundred kilometers from the famous city of
Khajuraho. Once I moved there I found the job
extremely challenging and exciting. Also the
company CEO to whom I had to report was
one of the best bosses that I had in my entire
career. Needless to say the next two years
there were a dream and I went from one high
to another doing extremely well for myself and
winning many accolades from my company. I
felt that I was mentally and physically in great
form and the whole two years that I spent
there flew by in no time.
It was the year 2000, when I decided to move
on from my cushy job and take on some new
challenges in a new company, that a seemingly
exciting offer came my way from a leading
chain of 5 star hotels in India. The role was to
head the HR for their property in Agra. The job

seemed exciting since the place had a huge
Industrial Relations challenge and I had made
that my area of expertise in the last 5 years of
my career. So I readily accepted the offer. The
job was challenging, though there were huge
mental and physical pressures. Apart from my
HR role, I was also expected to be the Duty
Manager of the hotel at least thrice a month, a
role shared by all heads of departments. This
role required one to stay in the hotel after the
normal day shift and be responsible as a
supervisor for all activities of the hotel till the
next morning when one did the normal day
shift again. The role was extremely
challenging but also a lot of fun as one got to
interact with guests who came from all over
the globe. It also meant handling all kinds of
emergencies from fire alarms, angry guests, to
medical emergencies. Hence there was an on
call Doctor on our panel. He was a very
friendly and nice chap with whom I used to
frequently chat and have the evening tea. A
couple of times that I decided to visit him in
the Doctors room in our hotel, he insisted on
checking my blood pressure. He was alarmed
to see that it was always very high.
Remembering, my tryst with the Doctors
during my health check up in my last company,
this was the last thing I wanted to discuss, and
I quickly changed the topic and gave some
excuse for the high BP. During the rest of my
stint in this hotel, I made sure that he never

checked my BP. My philosophy at that time
was that the more I dwell on things like these,
the more I would spoil my health.
However it was not long before I was forced to

dwell on my health issue once again. My next
job offer in the year 2001 was from a startup
BPO in Delhi that was expected to grow on a
very large scale and I was hired as one of the
founding members of their HR team. After
receiving the offer, I was expected to go for a
pre-‐employment health check up. Though not
as comprehensive as the previous one that I
had undertaken when I had been diagnosed
with my kidney disease, it still required both
blood and urine tests apart from a BP checkup.
Thankfully everything came normal, but when
the doctor checked my BP, he again nodded
his head gravely and rechecked. Then he
looked at me and said that he was surprised
that with such a high BP I was walking about.
He said my BP was 160 / 110 and he could not
give me the employment clearance unless I
immediately started some BP medication that
he prescribed and got my BP under control. So
I decided to do the needful and for the first
time in my life I started taking daily
medication for BP. Thankfully it did come
under control and I joined the company.
The job in this company was very different

from what I had done till now and so was the

profile of people that I dealt with. Till now in
HR, I had mostly been in organizations with a
large category of workmen, mostly male
dominated and I had to face industrial
relations issues, but this company and sector
was different. 2001 was the year when BPOs
were just about starting out in the country.
The workforce was young and educated and
had an equal gender ratio. Our firm was one of
the initial starters and it was interesting to be
part of a company that worked all through the
day and night in three shifts. When I joined the
company there were less than 200 employees
but very soon we got a large contract and were
required to hire around 1500 people in less
than six months. I was given the task of
leading this project and the job entailed my
team meeting 100s of candidates each day,
putting them through multiple tests and
interviews. I not only designed and monitored
the entire operations but also took all the final
interviews. After the interviews finished for
the day, my team made calls to candidates till
10 pm to line them up for the next day. Once
the calls got over my team made the
appointment letters for all hires that I was
required to sign. By the time we wound up for
the day, it would be between 12 midnight to 1
am. I used to go home, have a late dinner and
then a short sleep before I was back in office
by 9 am the next day. There were times when
because of the deadlines, we continued with

the interviews even on Sunday and so worked
non-‐stop. Since all of us were young and the
job was loads of fun, we did not even think
twice before volunteering to do all this stretch.
Off course it required tremendous energy and
stamina and I must say, that irrespective of
whatever underlying health issue I might have
had, I never even once got the time to dwell on
it, nor did I ever feel that anything was wrong
with me health wise.
The hard work paid off rich dividends in terms
of my career. I was given the Company’s
leadership Award and I rose to head the HR
for a prestigious business unit in this rapidly
growing company and shortly got an attractive
offer from another competitor as a Vice
President HR with a 100% hike in salary.
Thankfully the next company did not have the
pre employment health check up. Actually, the
numbers hired in the BPO sector were so large
and the shortfall of suitable candidates so high,
that we very soon realized that not only was
there not enough bandwidth to check on all
medical reports but also that we were not
competent enough to decide if a health issue
that might crop up should be reason enough to
drop an otherwise perfectly suitable candidate.
We were just not competent to decide if it
would affect the work that required to be done.
Hence even the management of my previous
company with a strong vote of support from

me had decided to drop these tests after a
while. It saved them a lot of money, since they
realized that in this sector a large number of
candidates after undergoing all tests and after
collecting the offer, failed to join and hence the
expenditure on their tests was anyway going
waste.
The next two years, as a Vice President in this
new startup BPO, I did quite well for myself
managing to get a special increment from the
company’s president within six months of
joining. I also managed to beat my previous
records of stretch at work by working
sometimes from 10 am in the morning till 3
am the next morning. While working here,
someone in my family recommended that I
should not neglect my health and that I should
regularly show a doctor at least a local
physician near our house just to keep a check
on my BP.

The local physician that I had been
recommended was a very nice South Indian
lady in her fifties. Her clinic was in a ground
floor flat near our locality where she saw
patients every evening from 5 pm onwards.
She did a good job and also charged quite less,
hence there was always a huge crowd waiting
at her house just before the clinic doors

opened. When I met her for the first time I was
wearing a T-‐shirt and Jeans and she thought
that I was a college student. This has happened
often with me and I was not surprised. I look
much younger than my age and in my
profession of HR it’s a big disadvantage, as you
need to put in much more effort to be taken
seriously by employees especially when they
happen to be workers in a factory.
She was very sympathetic when she heard that
I suffered from ADPKD. However she told me
not to think too much about it since she said
that she had herself seen a patient who was in
his late sixties who had come to her with some
minor problems and had been diagnosed with
ADPKD for the first time. Till then that person
had not even known that he suffered from any
health problems whatsoever. That was quite
reassuring. She took my BP and it was 150 /
110. She started by prescribing me a small
dose of Amcard 5 mg and over the next six
months had to try out different medications in
different doses before she hit on the
combination that had any effect on controlling
my BP. It was a combination of Eslo 2.5 mg
and Losar H. I used to meet the Doctor every
fortnight and got my BP checked. Not only was
the fee nominal, she would even refuse to take
money most of the time. Apparently, she did
this with most patients and I often wondered

that where in today’s day and age could you
find such a Doctor.
My job as a VP -‐ HR was interesting, however
when I got the next attractive offer for a Head
– HR role by yet another foreign startup, I
decided to skip it and instead put in all the
hard work that I had been putting in other
peoples organization’s into creating a venture
of my own where I would be my own boss. By
now, I was also realizing that I needed to get a
life of my own and stop being a complete
workaholic. Probably the health issues also
awakened me to the fact that I should not take
good health for granted.
I started my own recruitment firm. I had the
option of catering to all levels for hiring, but
that would have meant more staff and a more
exhausting role for me. Instead I decided to
focus on the higher end of the spectrum,
where with a few good employees I could
work for some high-‐end companies catering to
their middle and senior management
recruitment needs. I could then have few
closures but still make decent revenue with a
lot less of physical labour and stress. Off
course it needed more mental acumen and
finesse.
I set up my first office from a bungalow in

Saket and did quite well to start with. Within

six months of starting my business I broke
even and also developed an impressive client
portfolio of large multinationals. In fact my
huge network as a VP – HR came in quite
handy. Although not all folks whom I knew
earlier were helpful, only some were. In fact
that was another insight into human
personality. How people treat and behave
differently when you hold an exalted
corporate position and how they treat you
when that chair is no longer there and they
cannot expect to get much from you in return.
I was glad I got to see this earlier in life. At a
later stage, say post retirement if someone
loses a senior position, it must be difficult to
adjust when people who till the other day
fawn all over you, suddenly turn indifferent.
During my setting up of the business phase, I
continued to regularly visit the local Doctor for
my BP checkups. She was quite impressed by
my discipline. I maintained a detailed excel
sheet of all my BP readings and medications
prescribed during each visit. She told me that
if I maintained this discipline I should have
nothing to worry. She also asked me to get
annual blood tests done especially to check on
my kidney function. I used to go to a local lab
near my house in Vasant Kunj. At this time I
was quite anxious about these tests, not so
much for the outcome but because of the fear
of the needle and the sight of blood being

taken out that made me all nervous and dizzy.
In fact I used to carry a bottle of juice with me
whenever I went for this test, as I felt quite
weak after blood was drawn. Off course all this
was all in the mind than anything else.


Chapter 3: My first serious health problems
In Dec 2006 I was forced to shift my office

temporarily to a floor above my residence, as
there was a sealing drive against commercial
establishments operating from houses
especially on main roads. I was unable to get a
commercial place at short notice and any
commercial space that was available had
increased their rates substantially on account
of the sudden demand. It did cause a lot of
stress. I am not sure if it had any direct effect
on my health. My blood test reports, especially
of Creatinine though normal and within the
labs range at least till mid 2007, did see a
slight increase and it inched closer to the
upper end of the normal range. I asked the lab
folks if they had any patients who were
beyond the range, and they replied in the
affirmative. Beyond that they said nothing and
I did not try to find out either.
The down side of working out of home during
this period was that I had little by way of
exercise as even the trip to and from office was
just a climb up and down a flight of stairs.
However, I still continued with a half hour
routine each morning of exercising in my room.
I did some pushups, some spot jogging, some
stretching exercises and weights with

dumbbells. This routine had continued since
my college days although the time that I gave
to it had gradually reduced.
Work wise I faced no problems by shifting our

office to a floor above my residence as the
middle and senior level hiring that my firm did,
our interviews were mostly telephonic and
rarely face-‐to-‐face. In fact it actually saved on
costs, as I was not paying any rentals now
since I was operating from a self owned
property instead of a rented one. However, I
soon faced some major health issues. It was
late one evening in July 2007, I was sitting in
my drawing room watching television when I
happened to press my finger against my left
ankle. Immediately there was a shooting pain
and within minutes the pain was unbearable
and my ankle had swollen and become red. My
elder sister rushed me to the nearest hospital
where in the emergency OPD they examined
the ankle and by a physical examination they
concluded that there was no fracture. The
Doctor on duty wrapped a Crepe Bandage and
gave some painkillers. He suggested that I
come and get an X-‐Ray done the next day as
the department had closed for the day, to rule
out any hairline fracture. In case of a fracture
he said, I could go for a plaster cast or just use
the Crepe Bandage and rest for a fortnight. The
next day I got the X-‐Ray done and also met the
Head of Orthopedics. He saw the X-‐ray and

ruled out a fracture, but after careful
examination of my ankle came to the
conclusion that it was most likely a ligament
tear. He told me to wear the crepe bandage for
a fortnight and rest so that the tear could heal
on its own. However when he looked at my
medical file and saw that my hemoglobin was
a little lower than normal he was concerned. It
was 11 in my last annual blood test, which I
had undertaken just a fortnight back. I then
told him about my underlying condition of
ADPKD. He then wondered if my leg injury
could have some correlation with my kidney
condition and referred me to a Nephrologist in
the same hospital.
Around that time my elder sister was also
regularly visiting the same Nephrologist in this
hospital. Actually some years after the
detection of ADPKD in my comprehensive
health checkup, I had shared the details with
my family. I have two elder sisters. The eldest
one is married and has two sons, while the one
elder to me is not married and stays with my
mother and me. Both my sisters had got
themselves screened for ADPKD and it was
found that both suffered from the same
genetic condition. However my eldest sister
had normal kidney parameters, the sister
elder to me was showing signs of kidney
malfunction with higher than normal
Creatinine levels and had started visiting a

nephrologist. In fact the hospital had recently
set up a nephrology department and she was
the Nephrologists first patient. A former army
Doctor, this Nephrologist had also worked in
AIIMS and had considerable experience. Hence
I decided to meet him as well.
So the week after my meeting with the
orthopedic, my sister took me along and
introduced me to this Nephrologist. He was a
friendly old gentleman who examined me and
wrote a whole host of blood tests. When the
results of the tests came I was worried to see
that for the first time my Serum Creatinine
reading was at 1.7 which was above the lab
range, although the other parameters were
still more or less normal except for
hemoglobin which had come down further to
around 10.9. He wondered if because of my
kidney condition I was suffering from Gout,
and if he needed to prescribe more tests for
checking on that. I was already a little
distressed with my kidney test results that I
wanted to avoid any more tests and I told the
Doctor that my leg was fine now and there was
no need to do any further tests. In Gout, the
Uric acid levels in the blood rise and crystals of
uric acid accumulate near the ankle or toe
leading to inflammation. I did read up on it on
the net, but I was too worried to get a detailed
check up, as I did not want to add to the list of

medical conditions that I needed to worry
about.
I had suspended my daily exercise schedule
for a fortnight in order to rest my injured leg.
However once I started feeling normal I
resumed my routine activity including spot
jogging. Unfortunately within a week, while I
was at work and was climbing down the stairs
I again felt the shooting pain in my left ankle. I
came down to my room and my office boy
decided to get some warm water to dip my
feet in to alleviate the pain. It was not of much
help. It was later when I read up on the
Internet, I realized that I should have put a
cold compress with ice for more effective
results. My ankle had swollen up quite a bit
and it was so painful that I just could not move
or put any weight on that leg. I called up the
Orthopedic who had seen me earlier and he
said that I could put back the crepe bandage,
use a cold pack of ice on the swollen area and
come and see him when he was in the hospital
next after a couple of days. I soon realized that
this would be impossible as by the next day, I
was barely able to hop across in one leg upto
the bath. I called the Orthopedic back to check
if he did home visits but he refused. So I was
pretty much on my own till I got better enough
to move.

I decided to continue my office work from my
bedroom and not go to the office upstairs.
Since I did not a have a Wi-‐Fi Internet modem,
I got LAN cabling done till my room and
moved my computer table into my room. No
amount of rest helped and my swollen ankle
remained as it is for the next few weeks and I
wondered if my leg would ever be normal
again. It was a month and a half later that I
saw an advert insert in our paper where this
clinic had put an ad saying that it was
conducting free sessions of Pulse
Electromagnetic Therapy that was supposed
to cure among other things, non-‐healing sports
injuries and swollen legs and feet. Initially I
was hesitant, but by evening I decided I must
give it a try if I want to ever get moving and I
called on the numbers given in the leaflet. The
caller mentioned that their free session was
over, but I could come over to their office and
get a checkup done the next day. For the
treatment they said they could come home and
do it, but I needed to manage and come over at
least once to their clinic in Kailash Colony for a
detailed checkup first.
So I asked my elder sister to take me there the
very next day. I had to wear slippers since my
feet were swollen and there was no way that I
could wear my shoes. Once there, they
checked something called the Ankle Brachial
Pressure Index. Based on the readings, they

decided on the dosage of the Pulse
Electromagnetic Therapy. The first session
was a half hour sample session and I
immediately felt a huge relief and my ankle
pain reduced quite a bit. I was thrilled. My
sister who was also suffering from pain and
swelling in the legs due to malfunctioning
kidneys decided to try out the half hour trial
session. Over the years, due to poor kidney
function, she had developed dark spots around
her ankles and somehow after this session
these spots spread across the entire leg. She
was quite alarmed and we wondered if this
treatment was harmful for a kidney patient.
The clinic folks quickly contacted their
principals abroad and they were informed that
this treatment was actually contraindicated
for kidney patients. Hence we decided against
any more sessions for my sister, but in my case
they felt since the kidneys were functioning
fairly normally they could go ahead with the
treatment. I heaved a sigh of relief since I
wanted to get my ankle back to normal so that
I could walk normally again. They said they
would send their technician to my house for
the treatment each day for a week to ten days
till my leg was fine and it would cost around
500 bucks per visit. I agreed and from the very
next day the half hour sessions started. The
electromagnetic therapy as such did not cause
any sensation or feeling in the body, but
because it was supposed to increase blood

circulation to the affected area and thus
induce quick healing, it did cause a slight rise
in blood pressure after the treatment session,
though this was minor. Within ten days as
promised, my swelling and pain had gone and
I could walk normally. I started attending my
office back in my office room upstairs after a
gap of around two months. This had been my
first ever break in my life due to any medical
reason.
I realized that the electromagnetic therapy
would have been useful whether it was a
ligament tear or Gout. In the first case the
improved blood circulation would have healed
the tear, and in the latter case, it would have
removed uric acid crystal accumulation.
However, later I was to realize that this
therapy might have been one of the factors
that could have aggravated my kidney function
decline by probably putting pressure on my
weakened kidneys.
Although I was back in office, I soon realized
that I was not as normal as before. The left leg
had become weak and I could no longer wear
my heavy soled shoes as it immediately caused
pain. It so happened, that I had a
physiotherapist in the recruitment team
working in my office. She had decided to
change careers after finishing her course in
Physiotherapy from a leading University in

Delhi. She suggested, that my ankle muscles
might have weakened due to the long bed rest
and I needed to do strengthening exercises.
She got a device to measure my ankle
movement and saw that it was restricted and
prescribed daily exercises. After a few days
when my left leg still remained weak she
suggested I meet her professor who practiced
Physiotherapy in the hospital attached to the
University. I decided to go and meet him. He
was a very knowledgeable and was a very
good physiotherapist. He agreed to come
home and visit me and treat my leg to regain
its strength.
The professor suggested that I try out an
ultrasound therapy on the affected area of the
leg apart from doing some physiotherapy
exercises in order to strengthen the weakened
muscles. He said this therapy had no negative
side effects and basically caused the affected
tissues, ligaments and tendons to vibrate at a
very high frequency helping in cell repair. The
therapy along with the exercises that he made
me do, helped tremendously in regaining
strength in the leg and the weakness in my
ankle diminished. I continued with his
treatment for a fortnight and felt a huge
improvement. Although he did say that it
would take some years for the weakness to
completely go away.

Meanwhile I renewed my visits to the
Nephrologist my sister had introduced me to.
He asked me to get my tests done monthly and
by now he had put me on a lot of medication to
control not just my BP, but also my calcium
levels, iron levels, and phosphorous levels.
Though all of them were normal, they were
closer to the upper limits of the range
specified in the lab reports, and the Doctor
wanted to prevent them from deteriorating
further and moving out of range. However in
my next monthly tests in January 2008, I was
not too pleased to see that my Serum
Creatinine had moved up to 2. I asked my
Nephrologist if it would remain stable at 2 or
did he expect it to increase further. He did not
answer my question directly but took a pen
and paper to draw a graph. He showed me by
drawing that graph that once the Creatinine
had crossed the upper end of the lab range, it
meant the kidney function was already at 50%
of normal kidney function. He then drew a
downward line on the graph to indicate the
decline in kidney function over time to show
that it would be within 3 years by when I
could expect to suffer a complete kidney
failure. I got a sinking feeling on hearing this
and I actually felt angry with the Doctor for
sharing such a disappointing prognosis. I knew
it would be difficult for me now to keep this
out of my mind. I then asked him about my
sister’s condition and by when she would have

to undergo dialysis and he said that currently
her kidney function was at about 25% and by
the time it was around 10 – 15%, the need for
dialysis will arise.


Chapter 4: Alternate Therapies & Setbacks
My Physiotherapist Professor while treating
my injured leg had asked me if I had ever tried
Unani medicines for my kidney problems. I
told him that I was not aware of any such
Doctors and had not tried any other
alternative therapies apart from Allopathic. He
said that his university specialized in Unani
Medicines and they had Unani Doctors and he
could take me there. I readily agreed.
Unani Medicine means Greek Medicine and is a

form of traditional medicine widely practiced
in South Asia. Unani medicine first arrived in
India around 12-‐13th century and
subsequently flourished under the Mughal
Empire.
So on a Saturday morning I reached his
university and he took me to the hospital
where all Unani Doctors were seeing patients.
There was a huge crowd. However since the
professor was a faculty in the university he
managed to take me directly to the room
where the Doctor along with 3 to 4 assistants
were seeing multiple patients simultaneously.
While the assistants checked the patients BP
and collected past medical history and wrote
all that down, the doctor once he had the
information sheet from the assistant asked
further questions and then prescribed Unani

medicines. When my turn came, I told him that
I had multiple cysts in my kidneys. His first
reaction was “let it be, it should not harm you
why do you want medication”. I then told him
that the cysts were numerous and my
Creatinine had already risen to 2. He then got a
little serious and prescribed a whole hot of
medication and the different ways in which
they had to be taken. He wrote the entire
prescription in Urdu, so I could not
understand it. I then went to the medicine
shop within the hospital and bought all the
medicines. There were all sorts of herbs and
tonics. Out of these some were ground then
and there and handed over to me. All the
medicines hardly cost anything compared to
the allopathic medicines that I had taken till
now.
I tried the medicines for a month and then
went for a blood test again. There was no
change in my Creatinine figure so I decided to
discontinue this therapy as the medicines
were really horrible to taste and results if any
should have shown up in a month as per the
Unani Doctor.
In July 2008 my sisters Creatinine suddenly
shot up to 5. Our Nephrologist asked her to get
a fistula made in her hand so that it would be
mature and ready by the time the need for
dialysis arose. He also asked her to register

with the Cadaver donation registry at AIIMS as
a recipient for kidney transplant since we did
not have a donor in our immediate family. The
only living person in our immediate family
without a kidney problem was my mother but
she was above 65 years and hypertensive and
hence not really suitable for kidney donation.
The fistula surgery in my sister’s case was a
disaster, as the first fistula that the surgeon
made in her left wrist did not work. The
surgeon tried to rectify his error and tried
making another fistula a little above the earlier
one, but even that failed. She decided to desist
from any more risky attempts at a fistula
surgery and face the consequences as and
when the need for dialysis arose.
Around this time one day I was attending an

event related to my work, where a middle
aged CEO of a software company was speaking
to a small group of entrepreneurs that
included me. His talk was on entrepreneurship
and how he had created and grown his
company and the challenges that he had faced
and overcome while doing so. The talk was
interesting and towards the end of it, he
introduced his wife who was sitting next to
him. She said that she was into “Past Life
Regression” (PLR) therapy and hypnotherapy
for healing of diseases. All of us were
immediately very interested and curious to

know what that was and put up a lot of
questions to her.
Past Life Regression is a technique that
uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners
believe are memories of past lives
or incarnations, though others regard them as
fantasies or delusions. Past Life Regression
(PLR) is typically undertaken either in pursuit
of a spiritual experience, or in
a psychotherapeutic setting. Most advocates
loosely adhere to beliefs about reincarnation.
In this, one recollects ones past lives, and
understands the incident or factors that may
have led to a disease / illness or phobia in the
present life. Once one understands that, it is
easier to cure the disease. As per the lady it
could help cure many diseases that were
incurable. Though PLR dates back to the 4th
century BC when Patanjali, the ancient Indian
philosopher who codified yoga, instructed
how past lives can be recalled through
meditation, it made a comeback in modern
times around the early 20th century
Psychologists, psychiatrists and mediums have
developed PLR therapy since the 1950s. The
belief gained credibility because some of the
advocates possess legitimate credentials,
though these credentials were in areas
unrelated to religion, psychotherapy or other
domains dealing with past lives and mental
health.

Immediately after the event was over I went
up to this lady and mentioned about the health
issues that my elder sister was facing and if
she could heal her with PLR therapy. She said
that although she used to practice earlier, she
did not do so anymore and she only trained
others on how to do PLR therapy. Instead she
suggested, that I meet her Guruji who was a
spiritual Guru and he should surely be able to
help cure us of our health issues. I took the
address of the Guruji and thanked her.
The very next day was a Sunday and I went
looking for the Gurujis house located in a flat
in South Delhi. On reaching there I was told
that he was traveling to the USA to meet his
disciples there and I could come back on
Wednesday evening when he would be back
and would be seeing disciples again here.
On Wednesday, I reached the flat promptly at
7 pm as directed. There were already at least
40 pairs of shoes and slippers outside the
house where disciples were to remove their
footwear before entering his residence. There
was a large drawing cum dining hall with
carpets spread out for disciples to sit. I
entered with some trepidation, but most
people who were sitting there smiled and
welcomed me. There were people of all age
groups, gender and religion. There were some
devotional songs playing in Punjabi. A “Sevak”

who is basically a volunteer came up to me
and asked if I wanted to meet “Guruji”. I said
“yes” and he took me to another smaller room
which had a lot of incense lit and had a small
temple also built in a corner that everyone
who entered the room paid their respects at,
before sitting down. I did likewise. There were
a group of around 15 disciples sitting here.
Right at the entrance of the door was a Sikh
gentleman wearing a normal dress of a pant
and a shirt. He had calm and soothing eyes,
and he was talking to all the people in the
room. He was talking about life and how it has
its twists and turns and how one should have
faith and one can sail through it. Somebody
then addressed him as “Guruji” and he
immediately pointed out that he was just a
humble disciple of “Guruji” who had taken the
task of carrying on Guruji’s work ahead after
his sudden death a couple of years before. It
was then I realized that although the main
“Guruji” who had created this movement and
who had his dedicated large group of spiritual
followers had passed on, and this Sikh
gentleman had taken on the mantle and was
taking his good work forward. The small
temple in the room had some personal items
of “Guruji” and hence all disciples paid their
respects to that temple on entering the room
before sitting down. The disciples however
insisted on calling the Sikh gentleman their
“Guruji” as well as they felt he was his worthy

successor. I sat on the floor right in front of the
Sikh gentleman at the closest possible space
available. He just smiled and carried on
interacting with the people who had
numerous general questions. Someone came
from the kitchen that was just next to this
room and handed me a glass of tea and plate of
2 Samosas and some sweets. I tried to decline,
but the “sevak” who had got it told me that this
was Guruji’s “prashad” and should not be
refused. I ate the offered snacks and realized
that it was actually very tasty and one of the
best samosas that I had ever had. After around
10 minutes, I mustered up the courage to tell
“Guruji” that I had come on the reference of a
lady who was his follower and had something
urgent on which I needed his help. He was able
to recollect the lady instantly and asked about
her wellbeing and said that he would discuss
my problems in a couple of minutes.
Some time later he got up and asked me to
accompany him to another room that was full
of “Prasad” and other “food items” that were to
be offered to disciples for dinner. He asked me
to tell him my problems. I narrated to him
about the kidney failure of my elder sister and
her two failed fistula surgeries. He asked me to
get her reports on Friday and not to worry too
much as all would be fine. He took two toffees
and prayed and gave them to me and asked me
to give it to my sister at home. He also asked

me to have dinner before leaving. I saw that all
disciples were served dinner that was quite
elaborate with two vegetables, rice, chapatti’s,
dal and a sweet dish at the end. While leaving
a “sevak” near the door again gave me a bunch
of toffees as “prashad”. This was being given to
every visitor.
I went back on Friday and again had a one to
one chat in the small room with Guruji. He
looked at all the reports and prayed. I asked
him if I needed to get my sister too. He said,
sure if she was in a position to come it would
be good if she came here and was a part of this
gathering every Wednesday and Friday. From
then on, we started visiting the Guruji twice a
week every week. I finally told him about my
health issue as well and that my kidney
condition had deteriorated and my Creatinine
was up to 2. He told me not to worry and that I
would not have to suffer any more and that I
would be just fine. To hear someone say this
so confidently and so positively does wonders
to ones morale and immediately one starts
feeling as if a huge weight has been lifted off
ones heart and feels better.
We saw and heard many wonderful cases of
people who had been coming to Guruji for
years and had been cured of serious maladies.
Food was an important part of the rituals that
were held in these prayer meets at his house.

First people would come and sit and share
their experiences and miracles that they had
experienced with their problems in life while
they were offered snacks and tea. Then there
was a prayer session followed by some
bhajans and then dinner was served. The
number of disciples only increased by the day
and the initial 40 people that I had seen on day
1 had grown to 100 within 2 months. In fact
beyond a point, people had to stand as they
ran out of place to sit. However there was
always enough food for dinner for everybody. I
also noticed that no one ever asked or gave
donations to fund all the expenses. However
each time someone had some problem
resolved from their life, they would get sweets,
which would then be distributed among all the
disciples.
The environment here was nice and it was
good to interact with people who were also
facing challenging situations in life and learn
from their experiences. Also, we realized that
almost everyone irrespective of whatever
health problems they had could have the food
offered at Guruji’s place without any problems.
My sister who had little appetite and felt
unwell most of the time managed to finish the
vast amounts of food offered in dinner here
with ease. I even saw diabetics relishing
sweets offered here without any problems
later. In fact in my sisters next Creatinine test

her values had come down by 0.5. We were
really pleased to see this. This went on for the
next three months until one day “Guruji” fell ill
and we were told that meetings would remain
suspended till he recovered.
In November 2008, we were watching

television when we saw a channel by a
renowned Yoga guru and a proponent of
Ayurveda on how Ayurvedic medicines were
helpful in curing kidney problems.
Ayurveda or Ayurvedic medicine is a Hindu
system of traditional medicine native to India
and a form of alternative medicine. The
earliest literature on this Indian medical
practice appeared during the Vedic period in
India, i.e., in the mid-‐second millennium BC.
We decided to visit the Ayurveda pharmacy.
There was free consultation by the “Vaid”, a
name given to an Ayurveda Doctor. He looked
at our medical reports and then prescribed
different types of medicines that according to
him would improve the functioning of our
kidneys. The medicines were all herbs and the
various herbs had to be taken in different
ways. Some herbs that looked like barks of a
tree had to be boiled and the bitter drink left
over had to be filtered in a muslin cloth and
then drunk. It was actually quite bitter. My
sister vomited the very first time she took the

medicines, so she gave up on it immediately. I
decided to continue for a while.
The very next day, my sister started feeling
unwell and started shivering as well. We called
a neighborhood physician and he prescribed
some blood tests including tests for malaria.
Since we had told him that my sister was a
kidney patient, he also prescribed all kidney
function tests. The next day evening I was the
first to see the test results and it was not good
at all. Although Malaria was ruled out, my
sisters Creatinine had risen to 9.0. I decided to
call her consulting Nephrologist. He was
unfortunately out of town, but he
recommended that we admit her immediately
to another hospital nearby which was also
part of a very renowned and large chain of
hospitals in India. We admitted her in the
Emergency Ward where the Nephrologist was
not in as it was around 9 pm by then. He was
called and he took around half hour to reach
the hospital. He examined my sister and said
that since a fistula was not ready they would
have to put a catheter in the neck and do an
emergency dialysis and then attempt another
fistula surgery.
The next few days were difficult, as we had to
witness a lot of pain and suffering. Around the
second day of admission, news broke of the
26/11 terrorist attack in Mumbai which was

being broadcast non stop in all the TV
channels installed in the TV sets in the
Hospital. We realized, life can be tough in
more ways than one and one needs to have the
courage to bear whatever comes your way. If
you survive, it will only make you stronger for
it.
The fistula that was made here also did not
work out as it was too deep and the dialysis
needle could not be inserted that deep. Hence
we had to get her to undertake another
surgery in another major hospital that we had
heard a lot about but which was quite far from
our house. The fistula surgery done here was
finally successful. Within a week after this
surgery, my sister got a call from AIIMS saying
that a cadaver kidney was available and that
we should rush to the hospital within 2 hours.
When we reached there, we got to know that
they had called three more patients whose
blood group matched. They then conducted
tests to check which patient matched the best
with the cadaver available and which patient
was in the best shape to undertake the surgery
immediately. On all these parameters, my
sister was not found to be the best fit and
hence we had to come back home
disappointed.
As time passed by my sister got used to the

dialysis process and took it in her stride and

her health improved a little. Since she was still
doing a regular job she had to go to work in
the day and twice a week she would go for
Night Dialysis for the 6-‐hour slot after coming
back from work. This continued for the next 3
years.


Chapter 5: Trying to keep my mind off the
disease
While all this was happening, I had a hard time
trying to keep my mind focused on work. The
problem was aggravated since my office was
just a floor above my house and I was not
getting away to a different environment even
for a few hours. Since I knew that I also had
the same genetic condition and since my
Creatinine was now above the normal range, I
had got it in my mind that it was just a matter
of time before I suffered from Kidney failure as
well. Especially since the day the Nephrologist
had told me that I had maximum 3 years
before I suffered from Kidney failure myself.
In January 2009 I decided to take a second

opinion from the consulting Nephrologist
under whom my sister was getting her dialysis
done. He was a young chap. He immediately
rubbished the theory of my previous
Nephrologist about definite Kidney failure
within 3 years. He said that he had seen many
patients stable with a Creatinine of 2 and he
said that we should try and keep a goal of
keeping my Creatinine stable between 2 and
2.5. I was quite happy to hear this. I asked him
if I could take Ayurvedic medicines and he told
me to avoid as these medicines could contain
metals that were harmful for the kidney.

However, I thought that what if I could bring
down my Creatinine a little by taking the
Ayurvedic medicines, I would have more time
on hand before I suffered from Kidney failure.
So I started with the medicines again. Now the
medicine had an effect of enlarging the kidney.
Typically in a lot of kidney patients, the kidney
size shrinks and its functioning decreases and
hence these Ayurvedic medicines worked by
enlarging the kidney back again and
improving its functioning. However as I was a
polycystic Kidney Patient kidney my kidney
size was already large due to numerous cysts.
After ten days of taking these medicines I
suddenly woke up one day with tremendous
pain in my flanks where the kidney is located. I
rushed to the Nephrologist who was not too
pleased to hear that I had taken Ayurvedic
medicines inspite of him telling me not to. He
examined me and came to the conclusion that
there was internal hemorrhage in my kidneys
and hence the pain. He asked me to get an
ultrasound of my kidneys done and show him
immediately. When I got the ultrasound report
and went to him, he was speaking with the
surgeon in the hospital. He said that they could
carry out a surgery to drain the blood and
stitch any source of hemorrhage that they find.
I was quite alarmed to hear that and refused to
think about a surgery. So he said ok lets get an
MRI done and a hemoglobin test. If MRI shows
bleeding and if the hemoglobin has come

down it would confirm hemorrhage and then I
should come for the surgery otherwise not.
I rushed to the other hospital that had an MRI
Machine. Getting an MRI is not easy. I was
made to lie down on a bed attached to a very
large machine and while I was lying down, my
hand and feet were strapped to the bed. The
bed was then gradually moved into the
machine that enveloped me completely. It got
quite claustrophobic. I could hear loud
hammering noises while the machine went
about its work of taking detailed pictures of
my internal organs. Thankfully, this hospitals
machine was the latest and it was open a little
above the head level reducing the
claustrophobic feeling to some extent. Also
they gave me earphones with music playing on
it to reduce the effect of the hammering sound,
however it was not able to suppress it that
much.
When I went to collect the MRI report, the

radiologist at the MRI machine center in that
hospital, could not conclusively say where the
hemorrhage was in the kidney as the cysts
were numerous in numbers and some of them
were filled with blood. Any one of them could
have ruptured as the kidney tried to expand
due to the effect of Ayurvedic medicines.
However he told me to stop ayurvedic
medicines immediately. The hemoglobin test

showed that it had come down, but I was not
too keen to go back to my Doctor for any
surgery.
The same day my brother-‐in-‐law who is in the

army had come over home and once I shared
my fears about a surgery, he made me speak to
a senior army doctor on the phone. The Doctor
said that surgery would not be of much help
and that the hemorrhage could heal on its own.
He told me that I could take some painkillers if
the pain was too much. I readily agreed and
decided to wait it out. The pain was really
quite unbearable and it took almost 5 days
before I felt ok. Needless to say I had stopped
the Ayurvedic medicines and threw it all in the
trash.
This was in February 2009 and I decided to
take my mind off my kidney problems and
avoid the Nephrologist for some time. I felt
that it would do me good if I stopped messing
with myself for sometime and get my mind off
my kidney failure. However it was easier said
than done. Whenever I had free time in office
or home I would look up the net for the latest
advances in treatment of kidney failure or
treatment of ADPKD (Adult Dominant
Polycystic Kidney Disease) from which I
suffered. What I read on the net was part
encouraging and part disappointing. I read
about medicines discovered that were

promising to cure ADPKD by reducing the
cysts and stopping growth of further kidney
cysts and were in various stages of clinical
trials but I also read that it would take
probably another 5 – 10 years before they
were available in the market for patients. I just
hoped that I would stay fine till then so that I
could benefit once these medicines became
available since the site also mentioned that
these medicines would be effective only in the
early stages when cysts were small, but if cysts
had enlarged the medicines would be able to
do precious little.
It was the month of August and just before my

37th Birthday that I decided to get my kidney
function tests done again. The lab physician
came to my house in the morning around 8 am
to take the blood sample. He told me that I
could get the report by the evening by either
viewing it online on the net or I could go to
their clinic nearby to collect the hardcopy. I
somehow had a bad premonition and I was
very nervous about seeing the report.From 4
pm onwards I kept checking the net to see if
the report was ready. It was only around 6 pm
that the report was uploaded and I was
horrified to see that my Creatinine had shot up
to 3.5. I was filled with dread of what lay
ahead. I decided to keep the report to myself
and just focus my mind away from the
problem and think positive. I had recently

read the book “The Secret” which talks about
the power of positive thoughts. I decided to
focus on my business and not think about my
ailment at all.
The first thing I did to divert my mind was to
look for a commercial office property that I
could buy and shift my office from my
residence. I surveyed properties in Delhi and
Gurgaon and finally zeroed in on a
wonderfully located good looking commercial
property located in a Mall next to the
upcoming metro route in Gurgaon. I purchased
it outright and spent the next 3 months
renovating and furnishing it. The excitement
of this whole activity kept me quite busy, but
the strain of going to supervise the work going
on there while the office was being renovated
was quite a bit. Since there was no place to sit
and workers were working there making the
air conditioning ducts, false ceiling, flooring
etc I had to go and stand there for 5 – 6 hours
a day and that was not good for my legs that
had already taken some trauma earlier and I
used to come back home with painful and
swollen feet.
In Dec 2009 I inaugurated my new office and
shifted my office from my house to this new
office in Gurgaon. As the number of employees
I had was less, I again realized that I had free
time and very soon I was again surfing the net

to check how kidney failure progresses once
you have a Creatinine above 3.5. I also looked
up videos on Dialysis and was not too pleased
to see the size of the dialysis needles. As I have
mentioned before, even the normal needle
prick for a routine blood test and the sight of
blood being taken out was quite something for
me to bear and here in the videos I was seeing
huge needles and 4 hours of blood moving in
and out of the body while a person was on
Dialysis.
I decided to increase the number of employees
so that I had no free time to let my mind
wander. I went to the campus of a large MBA
institute in Delhi known for churning out large
volume of students each year. This institute
then found it difficult to get placements for its
students and kept approaching firms like mine
regularly to come for campus hiring. So I went
and hired 5 students from there. I also took in
another 5 freelance consultants who were
folks from premier institutes and had work
experience. The next few months kept me
really busy training and supervising these
employees and consultants, going out with
them for client meetings, or for lunches on
events like employee birthdays etc. All this
improved the office environment and my mind
was sufficiently diverted. The year 2010
passed without any negative event health wise
and I did not get a single blood test done in the

whole year. However this peace and
tranquility was to be short lived.


Chapter 6: The inevitable Happens
It was a cold winter morning in January 2011.

I was in working in my office when I decided
to take a break and go for a stroll in the
supermarket at the basement of my office
building. As I got up from my seat and started
to walk, I felt a sharp shooting pain in the
center of the chest right below the rib cage.
Normally I am able to bear pain to a
considerable level. So I kept quiet and went
about my walk, hoping that it would go away
after some time. Unfortunately it did not. I
came back and did what I always do in such
cases – looked up on the Internet for a cause
for the pain.However after some net surfing I
found out that there were just too many
reasons for this kind of pain.Hence I tried my
best to ignore it for the moment.
Meanwhile day-‐by-‐day I felt that I was getting

weaker. In fact if I went out in the sun, I would
suddenly start feeling dizzy and my head
would spin. Even while talking to someone I
would suddenly feel a sense of nausea and
dizziness. Apart from this there was one more
thing that was worrying me and that was that
my stomach had bloated up and that was
unlike anyone in the family. I have always
been lean and so has everyone in my family

and it was strange to suddenly develop a
potbelly like most middle-‐aged people.
My folks at home also thought that I looked
weak and my sister who was on dialysis said
that it must be because of the poor state of my
kidneys and the consequential low
hemoglobin. She suggested that I start taking
the Erythropoietin injections so that my
Hemoglobin could improve. She also suggested
that I get my fistula made now itself so that I
did not have to suffer all the complications of
getting a catheter at the last stage as happened
in her case. I was not too pleased with her
suggestions, and I was upset with her for
putting my mind back on kidney failure when I
was trying my level best to forget it for the
past more than one year.
The next day in office, I kept reading up
articles on the net about the symptoms
associated with the last stages of kidney
failure. I realized I had most of them. I had
nausea, loss of appetite, frequent urination at
night, swelling in my feet, feeling of tiredness
etc. In fact I used to get breathless climbing up
to my house on the third floor of our building.
Hence with a heavy heart I decided to get my
kidney tests done on 25th January 2011. The
next day was a national holiday because of
26th January and hence the report was not
released as the lab was closed. I went to attend

my school alumni meet that happens on this
day each year and everyone commented on
how I looked very weak. In fact in the dazzling
sun, standing in my school grounds I did feel
quite dizzy and nauseous. I got back home
quickly to rest. When the report came it did
not look too good as my Hemoglobin was
down to 9.0 compared to 10.9 in my previous
report taken way back in August 2009. My
Creatinine had risen to 3.72 which I thought
over a period of 1.5 years was not much
compared to my last report of 3.5. Hence I
decided not to panic, but to just try and
improve my diet in order to improve my
hemoglobin.
Over the next month I ate a special type of fish
that increases hemoglobin. I wanted to have
Spinach for the same reason, but as my
Potassium was high at 5.56 and was above the
upper limit of the lab range, I could not take
potassium rich Spinach. The whole of
February I tried see if I could improve my
health with a better diet. But not only did
things not get better, they got worse. The
shooting pain under the rib cage was still
there. I still had poor appetite and I could not
have chapattis at all as I felt like vomiting if I
had chapattis. So I typically had rice at night.
My mother wondered if the increase in rice in
my diet was causing the potbelly. Apart from
all this I had a strange metallic taste in my

mouth that was quite sickening. I read up on
the net and saw that one of the end stage renal
failure symptoms wasthisammonia like
metallic taste in the mouth.
I still wanted to avoid going to a Nephrologist
so in the month of March I went to my local
General Physician, the South Indian lady about
whom I have mentioned earlier. I told her all
about my symptoms and how they matched
with end stage renal failure symptoms on the
net. I also told her how my stomach was
swollen. She told me to stop looking up the net
and stop worrying all the time. She examined
me and also asked me when I had done my
ultrasound. I told her it was more than a year
back but I really don’t want to go for it since
polycystic kidneys had clearly shown up in
that and I did not expect any further
revelations. After her examination, she
concluded that I suffered most likely from an
acute Gastritis and that was causing all the
problems. She prescribed tablets for Gas and
asked me to come back to her after a fortnight.
She also asked me to take some iron tablets to
help with my anemia. Initially after taking the
tablets for gas I felt better in the first 15 days
as the chest pain subsided and I had a little
better appetite, but after that things again
went back to where they were and my
weakness, nausea and dizziness continued. In
fact the metallic ammonia taste also became

stronger and though I had thought that I
would avoid going back to the Doctor as far as
possible, I was forced to go back to her in the
first week of April.
This time she took it quite seriously and
ordered immediate blood and urine tests apart
from the Ultrasound and told me to come back
as soon as I got all the reports. The reports
were really bad. My Serum Creatinine had shot
up to 4.52 from 3.7 just two months back. My
blood urea was up to a high of 99. My
potassium levels had further gone up. My PTH
had also shot up to 815, where the normal
range was only upto 68. Hemoglobin had
further come down to 8.9. All this was an eye
opener and I realized probably for the first
time that I had reached a point of no return. I
realized that now there was just no point in
hoping against hope that Kidney failure would
not happen. I realized that I had to accept fate
and do whatever was necessary as directed by
the Doctors. No more of running away from
reality. Somehow I felt much lighter and better
after this as all these years I was scared of
reaching this moment and now that the
moment had come, I had nothing further to
fear. I also felt so much better to accept the
facts. I went to my Physician with the reports
and she immediately referred me to a well
know Nephrologist in a large hospital and
asked me to meet him the very next day. In

fact she thought that I was crazy that all these
days I was always worried about reaching this
day and now that the day had come, I was
quite cool and relaxed about it and was
actually showing signs of relief on getting over
with the waiting bit.
The hospital where I went to meet the
Nephrologist was the same one where my
sister had her final successful fistula surgery
after three failed attempts. So she knew the
Doctor. So she came along when I went. When
we reached the Hospital, we saw that there
was a huge queue of people waiting ahead of
us. It was surprising to see that so many
people are afflicted by kidney ailments. The
hospital had a strange system where while the
Doctor saw one patient, the next in queue was
allowed into the Doctor’s room and waited
there. The purpose I presume was that the
patients and Doctors keep their conversations
brief when they see another patient standing
and waiting right behind them.
When we entered the Doctor’s room he
immediately recognized my sister and greeted
us warmly. He remembered how difficult and
complicated it had been to get her fistula
surgery done successfully due to her thin veins.
He asked her how she was doing and she told
him that her dialysis was going fine however
we had come as her brother and that was me

had now also reached the kidney failure stage.
I have rarely seen Doctors react emotionally as
they see so many distressful things each day,
but he looked so shocked and sad and
wondered how in one family we could be
undergoing so much suffering. He quickly
examined me, checked my reports and came
the conclusion that a fistula had to be made in
my case immediately and wrote a referral to
the same surgeon who had created my sisters
fistula. He also told me and my sister to start
thinking about and planning for a kidney
transplant soon since he was of the view that
the less time one spent on dialysis the better it
was for the body and for ones longevity and
long term health. He also prescribed a lot of
medicines for me to reduce the speed at which
my kidneys were failing and my Creatinine
was rising so that I had time for my fistula to
mature before the need for dialysis arose.
When I went home and counted, I realized that
after today’s prescription the number of
medicines per day that I was taking had risen
to 20 tablets a day.
In fact after coming back home that day I also

felt some of my symptoms worsening. I
constantly felt a sensation of pins and needles
in my hands and legs. Also at night I was
waking up and going at least 6 times to the loo
to urinate and that was making it difficult for
me to get any proper sleep. In the mornings by

4 am my swollen kidneys would pain so much
that I could hardly lie down. In fact even while
lying down I was for the past one month
finding it difficult to lie down on my sides as
my kidneys had swollen up so much that my
abdomen had protruded from all sides. I was
forced to sleep face up and not sideways.
Things were getting more and more difficult to
bear.


Chapter 7: My First Surgery
My fistula surgery was scheduled just two

days later. The actual surgery was to begin at 8
am, but I was to get admitted in day care at
6.30 am. The whole procedure would get over
in less than half a day and I could go home
after it. This was going to be my first
admission in a hospital and my first visit to an
operation theater ever. I had always wondered
how scary it would be to go for an operation or
what it would feel like while being wheeled
into the operation theater.
The day before the surgery my team members
in office had presented me with a PG
Wodehouse book, as they knew that I really
loved to read his books. His books have subtle
humor that I really enjoy. They told me that I
should read his book while on the way to the
hospital and while waiting for the surgery so
that I could keep my mind of worries. This
proved to be an excellent idea.
On 13th April 2011, the day of my fistula
surgery I woke up by 4 am to get ready, as I
was supposed to reach the hospital by 6.30am
and take admission in day care. It reminded of
my earlier days in my first job when I
frequently took early morning flights and had
to get ready this early. Today my sister was to

take me to the hospital. We left by 5.45am and
since there was hardly any traffic on the roads
this early we reached well before time by
around 6.10am. I immediately took out the PG
Wodehouse that had been gifted to me and
started reading it. SoonI got so engrossed in it
while waiting at the hospital reception waiting
for the counter to open that when the counter
finally opened they had to call my name out
twice before I heard them. I cleared the
formalities in the reception and went to the
room in the day care center. The room was
quite nice and I quickly made myself
comfortable. The nurse came to take a blood
sample for some tests and then asked me to
change in the hospital uniform. They had no
uniform in my size, as all sizes available were
extra large. I had a tough time wearing the
extra large pajamas and when I got the vest it
had laces that had to be tied up instead of
buttons and many of those laces were missing.
So much for the condition of the patient
uniforms in the most premier hospital of our
country.
After changing into my uniform, I got onto the

bed and the nurses came over once again to
put a cannula in my arm. It was put in without
any problem and I returned to my book, as it
was too interesting to leave. Soon I
remembered that this was my first ever visit
to a hospital as a patient and I wanted to

capture the moment. So I asked my sister to
take a couple of pictures and I uploaded them
to Facebook with a title of “my first tryst with
a hospital”. The nurses thought I was crazy to
make light of such a serious situation, but I felt
otherwise. Since one has already reached such
a situation, there is little to be gained by
brooding over it. Its better to be cheerful and
take it as it comes.
At around 7.45am a couple of attendants came
from the Operation Theater with a separate
patient bed on wheels. I was asked to shift to
that and I removed my spectacles and left my
book behind and shifted to that bed. I was then
wheeled into the floor where the OT rooms
were located. I was not taken directly to the
OT room, but instead was wheeled into a room
that was like a waiting room for patients. Here
another patient was also waiting in a similar
bed to move on for his operation. A nurse in
the room put our respective medical files on
our beds. She then asked me if I was to be
operated by certain surgeon whose name was
different from my surgeons. I replied in the
negative and gave her the correct surgeons
name. It seemed that she had mixed up my
surgeons name with the other patient waiting
in the room. However when she made the
same error a second time, I was worried and
quickly reached for my file to check if they had
the details right. Since I was not wearing my

spectacles I had to really peer into the file by
bringing close to my face to read and check
that they had all their data correct. Seeing this
the other patient also reached out for his file
to check. Thankfully all data was correct and
the nurse quickly corrected herself too. She
the asked me if I could walk from there to the
OT since the attendants to wheel the bed had
gone out somewhere. I said sure and was
directed to take the first turn right and go the
second OT room on the left.
That was simple enough and I went and
knocked on the OT door to check if this was
my surgeons OT room. The assistants inside
replied in the affirmative so I went in and lay
down on the OT table. The room was exactly
like what one sees of operation theaters in
movies. There were huge lights above the bed
and the OT bed itself was very narrow that I
almost felt that I would fall off any moment.
There was a large grill on the ceiling above the
bed which was an air-‐conditioning outlet and
the chilled air coming in thru that at full force
was making me really cold. The assistants
were busy preparing for the OT and were
arranging all equipment and loading all kinds
of liquid drips and other things. While talking
among themselves I overheard them mention
about a graft operation. I again wondered if I
was in the right OT room. I quickly asked them
if this was the OT for my fistula operation.

Thankfully they said yes. After that, every time
someone entered the OT room I would strain
my neck to check if my surgeon had come, as I
still wanted to be sure that I be in the right
place. Finally just around 5 minutes before
8am my surgeon entered and I heaved a sigh
of relief. She was at her cheerful best and
greeted me loudly right from the door.
The operation started soon after.My left arm

was extended horizontally and put on another
support table attached to the bed. A green
cloth was put in in front of my eyes to block
my view since the surgery was to happen
under local anesthesia and I was going to be
conscious throughout. However the surgeon
also gave me some sedatives, which made me
half asleep. She started taking to me about my
work and so on while she created the fistula. I
chatted with her and answered her questions
while floating in and out of sleep. In fact when
it finished, and I was wheeled back to my day
care room I thought just half an hour had
passed but it was actually close to three hours
that had elapsed. Strangely I felt no pain. I just
saw a bandage in my wrist and felt quite
normal. This was partly the effect of local
anesthesia and partly the effect of
painkillersadministered. Soon the surgeon
came to visit me and said that everything was
fine and that my fistula was working fine. She
told me to come back after a week to change

the dressing and asked me to take the
antibiotics and painkillers.
Since the Nephrologist in the hospital had also
asked me to come and meet him after the
surgery, I went to the OPD and waited in the
reception area outside his room. In half hour
my turn came and he immediately examined
my fistula. In fact he pressed so hard on the
bandage that I felt a sharp pain for the first
time after the surgery. When I screamed in
pain, he said that he had forgotten that I had
just had my surgery. Anyway he said the
fistula was excellent as the “thrill” or “flow”
was very good. I was glad to hear a
reaffirmation of what the surgeon had just
said.
Soon after meeting the Nephrologist, my sister
and I left for home. It was a hot day and the car
parked in the open had become quite hot.It
took some time to cool down after the AC was
switched on. My sister drove and I sat in the
passenger seat in front. After driving for a
while, I suddenly felt extremely nauseous and
felt like throwing up. I told my sister to
immediately stop the car by the side of the
road. I put my seat on full recline and put the
AC on full blast. After 5 minutes of rest in that
position I felt better. I then had some water,
which felt quite bitter because of the effect of

the medicines and then proceeded again on
our way.
I was feeling quite hungry by now. One has to
come on an empty stomach for an operation.
One is not allowed to even drink water. Since
midnight last I had had nothing to drink or eat.
I was feeling quite hungry now. Moreover, I
did not want to go home and eat some boring
food so I told my sister to stop at the branch of
a large restaurant food chain near our house
and had full Indian meal of Rajma-‐Chawal. On
reaching home I rested and went to sleep. I
was woken up by my brother-‐in-‐law’s call
wanting to know if all had gone fine with the
surgery. While speaking with him I again felt a
little bit of nausea but was able to suppress
that feeling. For dinner my eldest sister had
come over and got a lot of Idli’s for me as of
late that was one dish that I was fond of eating,
since I was finding it difficult to eat chapattis.
However as soon as I had a couple of Idli’s I
had such a strong sense of nausea that I could
not stop myself from vomiting. I was quite
worried as in the discharge summary it was
mentioned that in case of any symptoms post
surgery like vomiting, one should rush back to
the hospital. We decided to first call the
surgeon. However she did not take her call. So
we called our local lady doctor, the south
Indian lady whom had referred me to this
hospital. She told me not to worry and said

that normally one should avoid solid food for
24 hours after a surgery and vomiting in case
you eat after a surgery is quite common due to
the reaction of all the medication administered
during the surgery. She also told me to take a
tablet to prevent any further vomiting.
Thankfully there was no repeat of this and I
managed to go off to sleep for the night.
It was only after a few days after the fistula

surgery that I started feeling pain in my wrist
as by then my not only the effect of the local
anesthesia had worn off, even the painkillers
had been stopped. A week after the fistula
surgery I went to meet the surgeon to get my
wrist dressing changed. There was some relief
from pain after the dressing was changed. I
saw the scar of the surgery for the first time
and it looked quite horrible.


Chapter 8: Preparation for a Life Changing
Operation
Meanwhile not only my office colleagues but
my friends from school and work had gotten
to know about my kidney failure thanks to the
pictures from hospital that I had uploaded
onto Facebook.In fact I had two volunteers
who had come forward to donate their kidneys.
One was my office boy whom I refused
immediately as he was working in my office
and I had no intention to take advantage of
such a relation and one was my childhood
school classmate. Initially I refused him too,
but he was very insistent and almost spent an
hour trying to convince me that I should take
his kidney. He said there was no harm in at
least checking with the Doctors in the hospital
on the procedure and at least we could start
with the initial tests. When I mentioned about
him to the surgeon, she mentioned that the
legal process would require me to show proof
of knowing each other since childhood in
terms of photographs and other evidence. I
thought the process would be tedious so I let it
be.
However of late my bloated kidneys that had
led to my swollen stomach were my main
cause of discomfort and I asked the surgeon if

something could be done about it. She said
that the surgery to remove that called bilateral
nephrectomy would be very complicated and
life threatening. I told her that without that
how could I have a transplant if I ever decided
to go for that since there was hardly any space
to put the third kidney. But the Nephrologist
who had just then come into the surgeon’s
room to discuss some patient’s case said that
there was no need to remove the kidneys at all
in my case. He also reiterated that such a
surgery would be extremely risky. They tried
to explain that every surgery can go wrong
and there is no point in going in for such a
major operation unless absolutely essential. I
was not satisfied with their reply so I decided
to get a second opinion. I went to the large
hospital near my house and showed the
Nephrologist who was consulting for my sister
undergoing dialysis there. He examined me
carefully and he said that my kidneys were
grossly enlarged and a nephrectomy was
absolutely essential if I ever wanted to go for a
transplant. If not bilateral, a single kidney
would definitely have to be removed. Also, he
said that no Doctor would perform the
bilateral nephrectomy unless I had an
approval for a kidney transplant.
Till then I had not seriously considered the
transplant option since my sister had been on
Dialysis for the last close to three years and

had got accustomed to that life. I had also
mentally prepared myself for that life.
However the enlarged kidneys did put a twist
to the whole thing. Although my kidneys had
failed they still performed some functions and
they were still producing large amounts of
urine. The urine was mainly water and toxins
were not being effectively removed, but at
least I could drink water and fluids freely
without bothering about a fluid overload.
Removing both kidneys would mean dialysis
almost every alternate day unlike my sister
who was getting a six-‐hour night dialysis twice
a week. Also I had read on the net that in US in
some hospitals they did simultaneous bilateral
nephrectomy and transplant. But in India it
would mean two separate surgeries and both
major ones. I also realized that Bilateral
Nephrectomy was very rare and very few
surgeons in India would be competent to do it.
When I mentioned about the above to one of
our relatives in Kolkata, he told me about a
surgeon that he knew who had performed
close to 600 Kidney transplants there. He said
that this surgeon was really good especially
for Nephrology patients and that I should
come over and meet him. The surgeon was
attached to a well know hospital in Kolkata.
Meanwhile for the first time my mother spoke

to her relatives in Kolkata to check out if

anybody would be willing to donate kidneys to
me and my sister. I must mention here that my
mother is one among 9 sisters and 1 brother
and the further generations together make the
extended family of our relatives from her side
quite large. Also unlike my father’s side where
this kidney problem came from, my mother’s
side is quite healthy and virtually has no
health issues and has a high longevity. Once
the word spread we got many calls from our
relatives out of which some of them had seen
us only when we were kids volunteering to
donate their kidneys to us. Luckily most of
them had the A+ blood group, which was what
everyone in our family had including my
mother and sister.
My sister and I decided to go to Kolkata and

meet the particular surgeon recommended
and also initiate the process for our kidney
transplant. We booked our flight tickets in the
second week of May 2011. On landing there
we went to stay at one of our relatives place.
We decided to go to hospital the next day
along with our volunteer kidney donors. My
sister decided to go with a cousin sister who
was married and had two kids and was close
to her age. I decided to accept the kidney
donation offer from my first cousin brother
who was a little younger to me. He was also
married and had kids.

The next day at this large private hospital I
was surprised to see the large crowds of
kidney patients waiting outside the chamber
of theHead Nephrologist to meet him. Unlike
Delhi, the population in Kolkata is so large that
Doctors see maybe 150 patients a day and I
guess this explains their huge experience and
hence their ability to handle complex cases
like mine. After a very long wait when finally
our turn came, the Doctor was friendly and put
us all at ease. He met and examined all of us
including me my sister and our cousins who
were the donors. He explained the whole
process for kidney approvals for non near
family members and also wrote down a
battery of tests that had to be conducted on
each of us before the hospital gave its approval
to us for the transplant. Once the hospitals
approval would come, all documents needed a
government approval and he explained that
legal process as well. He also explained the
risks involved in the surgery, which is the
same as with any large surgery. He also
recommended us to the surgeon about whom
we had heard so much about. The
Nephrologist told me that many bilateral
nephrectomies had been done in that hospital
and that I need not worry.
The following week went in getting all the
tests and meeting the surgeon. He was really
busy and came down to the OPD in his OT

dress in between two surgeries. He also
examined all of us in detail. He told me that
although complicated, he did not see much of a
problem with my bilateral nephrectomy. He
told me not to worry and that I would feel
much better once these enlarged kidneys were
removed. In my sister’s case, he saw that
although she also suffered from ADPKD, she
did not need to have her kidneys removed as
they were only slightly enlarged and there was
enough space to fit in the donated kidney.
There are three main tests to check for kidney
compatibility. One off course is the blood
group match. The second is the HLA match. A
full match in this would mean no rejection.
However the immunosuppressant drugs
available in market today make it possible to
have a transplant between people with less
than a perfect match. The third is the
crossmatch test. It basically checks that the
recipient’s body does not have donor specific
antibodies in the blood that can reject the
donor kidney. Apart from these main tests, the
donors undergo a lot of tests to check if their
kidneys are in perfect condition. Also both the
recipient and donor need to undergo tests to
check if their heart condition and overall
health is good enough to undergo such a major
surgery. Thankfully all of us cleared all the
tests and we heaved a sigh of collective relief
when it was done.

Once the hospital paperwork was completed,
my relatives helped us out with the legal
paperwork before submitting the documents
to the state government for their approval.
Since this process was going to take some time
we came back to Delhi. Around mid July there
was a final interaction with the government
authorities before the approval for the
transplant was to be given. Our relatives went
this time to represent us. I was feeling too
unwell to travel again just for some
bureaucratic procedures as my Creatinine had
crossed 5. My sister had problems getting
dialysis in Kolkata and preferred to have it in
Delhi. Hence we could not go personally.
Thankfully the approval came thru without a
hitch. But we were in for a shock when we
called the hospital to get the OT dates. The
hospital had such a long waiting list that the
first available transplant date was only a
month away. Since it would mean both my
sister and I traveling to Kolkata, I decided to
have my Bilateral Nephrectomy around the
same time. In fact it was decided that I would
have my Bilateral Nephrectomy first and
within a week of that my sister would have her
transplant. The Doctors had told me that I
could have my transplant within two weeks of
the Nephrectomy. So hopefully within a month
we would be thru with all the surgeries.

After coming back to Delhi from our trip to
Kolkata I had got back to my business and my
sister had got back to her job. Once the OT
dates were fixed, we started making
arrangements for a long trip away. I paid all
my tax dues, filed my returns, organized funds
for the multiple surgeries, and tried to foresee
and cover whatever I could that might be
needed in my absence. My sister also decided
to leave her job as the break was going to be a
long one. Initially we had thought that our
mother would come with us when we got
admitted to hospital. But after our many trips
there we realized it would difficult for her to
do any running around in that large hospital
or even manage in the hot and humid weather
of Kolkata. So it was decided that our mother
would stay back in Delhi and my eldest sister
would come with us to look after us. Since my
brother-‐in-‐law is in the army and he was
posted out of Delhi, he took a month leave and
came over to look after their kids while my
sister came with us.


Chapter 9: Tough Days
On 8th August2011 I was admitted in the

hospital for my bilateral nephrectomy that
was scheduled two days later on 10th. Since I
had booked the private room I was quite
happy when I saw that the room was really big
and comfortable. Looking at the room made
me forget for sometime that I was due for a
major operation in the next couple of days.
However in spite of knowing the operation
was a tough one I was looking forward to have
my enlarged kidneys removed as not only
were they very painful, they made me look
horrible as well as my stomach had bloated up
from all sides.
The Nephrologist said that I needed to
undertake a couple of Dialysis before the OT
day. Since I had seen videos of Dialysis and
had seen my sister undergo it, I was kind of
mentally prepared. Still it was with a lot of
apprehension that I went when the wheelchair
was sent to my 8th Floor room to take me to
the Dialysis center on the 2nd Floor. The
dialysis room in this hospital was large hall
and had 24 beds in 4 rows of 8 beds each.
Along with each bed was a dialysis machine a
side table on wheels on which tea and biscuits
were kept for some of the patients along with

their medical files. I was taken first to an
electronic weighing machine where I got out of
my wheelchair and my weight was taken. I
was at 55 Kgs. Just six months back when I
was healthier I had been at around 62 kgs and
for my height of 5ft 7 inches that was quite
appropriate. The decline in weight had been
quite steep, as my health had deteriorated.
The nurse noted down my weight and I was

again taken in my wheelchair to the bed
allotted to me, which was actually the one
right next to the weighing machine. The
dialysis attendant who came in to prepare the
machine and fix the needle on my fistula knew
that it was my first dialysis and asked me if I
was nervous. I told him that I was ok, but he
should tell me when he puts in the needle
since I generally close my eyes and try to
divert my mind to something else. He said that
I need not worry and that he would tell me
and I should hold my breath when the needle
was put and It would hurt less. He also said
that someone I knew was in the bed diagonally
opposite and I was surprised to see my elder
sister also getting her dialysis. Actually both
my sisters were staying in a hotel near the
hospital and she was due for admission in
hospital for her transplant some days later so
she had come for her bi-‐weekly dialysis. She
waved to me and told me to stay calm and not
get too worried about the dialysis needles.

When the needle was actually put in, I had my
eyes closed, had held my breath and was
thinking of snow capped mountains to divert
my mind. This really worked and I hardly felt
the two needle pricks. Out of the two needles
one is connected to a tube to take blood from
our body to the dialysis machine and a second
needle is connected to a tube to take back the
filtered blood from the machine. After the
needles had been put in, the technician
wrapped a Tegaderm bandage around each
needle so that it was held in place securely.
The bandage wrapped around the needle
further reduced the feeling of the needle inside
the skin and I was surprised how quickly the
body adapted to the needles inserted in my
veins. One feels pain when the needle pierces
the skin as its quite thick but once its inside,
the pain subsides until the time when the
needle has to be taken out at the end of the
dialysis session. Initially there is some
sensation of blood flowing at a high speed and
reentering the body at a high speed, and this
does cause some pain further up in arm but
with time as the walls of the veins become
strong enough to take the pressure the pain
goes away. My dialysis session was a little
different from others, as I was not given
“Heparin” which prevents blood outside the
body from clotting. Instead they had to flush
the machine every half hour. This was
increasing my fluid input but was necessary

since giving heparin now would impair blood
clotting and healing after the surgery.
Once I got used to the feeling of pain and the
strange sensations of blood flow, I started
looking around and observing other people.
Most looked unconcerned with the needles
and the tubes wrapped around and were
involved in their own activities like having tea,
reading or just listening to music on the
headphones. It did seem surprising how the
thing I dreaded the most – the dialysis had
become a routine part in so many peoples
lives. These 4-‐hour dialysis sessions were now
going to be a part of my life’s routine too.
On the day of my operation, I was not allowed
to take any food or water. The OT was
scheduled for the afternoon at 2 pm. My ex-‐
boss who was the CEO of the company where I
headed HR in 1998 in Satna had flown down
from Bangalore to see me. This was his last
year in the company before retirement and
when he had heard about my admission in a
hospital in Kolkata he had insisted on coming
all the way from Bangalore and being by my
side. Both my sisters also came over and all of
us had a nice time chatting. In fact my sister
also connected with my brother-‐in-‐law on
Skype and he also wished me all the best for
my bilateral nephrectomy. When the Head
Nephrologist came over to see me and wish

me I asked him if he would be there in
Operation Theater during my operation. He
replied that it would not be necessary and the
Surgeons would be there. He said that if ever
he needed to go to the OT that was not a good
sign, as it would mean that there was some
major problem that required his presence.
At 1.30 pm the folks from the Operation
Theater came with their bed to take me. They
asked me to change from the hospital gown to
an OT dress. I did that, removed my spectacles
and got into their bed quite cheerfully. I was
then strapped to prevent me from falling off
and taken from my 8th floor room to the 1st
floor OT room. Again there was a waiting room
where the relevant entries were made and
then I was taken to the OT room. The room
was quite similar to the OT room in the Delhi
hospital where I had my fistula made. It had
the same large lights, the slim bed to lie on and
a large AC grill above the OT table from where
cold air was blasting inside. There the
anesthetist asked me if I was ok with an
Epidural being injected in my spinal cord, as it
would reduce the post OT pain considerably. I
asked her if it would hurt. She said that it
would feel as much like a cannula being put in.
Since I was used to a cannula being put in, I
said ok. However after the cannula was put in,
they made me sit on the OT bed and asked me
to bend with a pillow between my knees and

head and then injected the epidural. The pain
of the liquid being injected was so much that I
screamed so loud I am sure the whole floor
would have heard the scream. It was worse
than any pain that I have ever felt till date.
Thankfully after that they gave general
anesthesia and I was soon in deep sleep.
My eldest sister and my boss waited outside
the OT room while my elder sister went back
to the hotel since she herself was a patient and
was to get admitted to hospital in a couple of
days. Since this hospital did not encourage
attendants waiting on the OT floor, there were
no seats kept there. So finally they went down
to the ground floor and waited. There was a
“may I help you counter” where they could
check on the progress of the OT. Since the
Operation was expected to last around 4 hours
my sister asked my boss to go home and rest,
as it would have been a tiring wait. But he
insisted on waiting too. He said he had come
here all the way just to be with me when my
operation was to happen and he was not going
to stay away from the hospital till he knew I
was fine. At around 6 pm my sister went and
checked on my progress and they said that the
Operation had just finished and the Doctor
would call them shortly. There was a public
address system in the waiting area through
which patient’s attendants were called for the
multiple operations happening in the hospitals

various operation theaters. When the Doctor
did not call in the next one hour my sister
again went to the counter and this time they
said that the OT was still on. She got worried
and she along with my boss came upstairs to
the OT floor and peered thru the glass on the
main doors. A Doctor was coming out that way
and they accosted him to find out any
information but the Doctor only said that my
Operation was still on and that any
information could only be shared once it was
over. Since the surgery was not supposed to
take this long my sister decided to visit the
Head Nephrologist in his chamber in the
ground floor. There his assistant told her that
he had gone to the OT and mine was the only
surgery happening at that time under the
Nephrology department. This made my sister
really worried as he had mentioned earlier
that his being in the OT was not a good sign
and he went only if there was a problem. She
rushed back upstairs to see that the
Nephrologist and Surgeon had come out of the
OTand were talking to my boss in hushed
tones. They explained that there had been
some unforeseen complications.
It had so happened that my kidneys had

enlarged so much that both of them together
weighed around 5 kgs. Also the kidneys are
located a little towards the rear of the
abdominal cavity and since they were so

enlarged it was a tough task for the surgeons
to remove it thru a 14 cm vertical incision. The
incision was such that it was in the center of
the stomach passing thru the navel midway. In
the process I lost a lot of blood. Hence a lot of
blood needed to be transfused. After the
operation was over and they had stitched me
up and shifted me to the recovery room, but
they observed that my hemoglobin was down
to 4 inspite of giving me 9 units of blood. Also
they saw that I was a sinking with a weakened
pulse and heartbeat. Hence they had decided
to take me back into the OT again. While all
this was happening I do have a faint
recollection of hearing a lot of panicky voices
around me trying to revive me and I trying my
level best to open my eyes or lift my fingers
and move my toes, but no matter how much I
tried I just could not. Hence they had to open
up the stitches to see what was wrong. On
opening up they found a lot of clotted blood. In
fact they then removed around 1 litre of blood
clots and with a lot of difficulty managed to
stabilize me. I was put on ventilator support
and moved to the one of their bestIntensive
Care Units on the 7th floor. It was the ICU for
heart patients and had the best anesthetists
looking after it.
They had already shown the kidneys they had
removed to my boss. Since they were quite
enlarged and covered with cysts and blood,

they avoided showing it to my sister. However
they were hopeful that I would recover
consciousness soon. Thankfully my boss was
around else all this would have caused much
more distress to my sister. They went back
and thru the night my sister checked regularly
with the hospital to know if I had regained
consciousness. The next day they reached the
Doctors chambers as soon as he came in that
morning at 10 am. He was glad to tell them
that I had just then recovered consciousness.
In the ICU as soon as I regained consciousness
I was fully alert and my mind was active. I felt
much better as I felt lighter in my stomach
from where my heavy and painful kidneys had
been removed. However I was feeling thirsty
as the ventilator was pumping in oxygen
directly into my mouth. A ventilator blows air
into your airways through a breathing tube.
One end of the tube is inserted into your
windpipe and the other end is attached to the
ventilator. The breathing tube serves as an
airway by letting air and oxygen from the
ventilator flow into the lungs. I also had a
feeding tube put in thru my nose. Apart from
that I had a catheter in my neck for
administering various drips and medications. I
also had a femoral catheter that was inserted
during the OT for some emergency procedure.
I had two thick and long transparent plastic
pipes coming out of both sides of my stomach

attached to bags that had filled up partly with
blood and other fluids. These were basically
surgical drains put in order to drain out
excessive fluid, air and blood from the surgical
area. I also had wires attached to different
parts of my body connected to the ECG
monitor and finally a finger clip attached to a
wire to measure my oxygen saturation levels.
It must have looked quite messy, but
thankfully because of the epidural and other
pain killers administered intravenously, I was
not feeling much pain just as yet. Also the
combined effect of all the drugs kept me quite
sleepy initially to feel much discomfort.
I did ask a Doctor on the rounds the reason for
putting the femoral catheter since I knew that
it should be avoided for patients who are to go
for a transplant, but the doctor on duty told
me how it was an emergency and that they
had to put it there. He also told me that I was
given blood transfusions and how things had
gone bad but with the grace off God I was fine
now and had been saved. Some time later, my
sister and boss came over to meet me. I asked
my sister what had happened and whether I
got blood transfusions since I was worried
that it would affect my crossmatch test for the
kidney transplant. She told me not to worry
and she would tell me all that later when I was
out of the hospital. My boss came in and he
was happy to see me in normal talkative mood.

I told that there were just too any pipes and
tubes attached to me. He said that he had a
bypass surgery some time back and he also
had many tubes like this. He said that at times
like this it was best to surrender to the
Doctors who knew best.
The next few days I recovered quickly. I had to
constantly exercise my lungs using a
spirometer since there was a lot of phlegm
that had accumulated after the operation and
it had reduced my lung capacity. Also, since I
was without my kidneys now, I passed no
urine and needed frequent dialysis.The
dialysis machine was brought to the ICU to
give me a dialysis every alternate day. As there
had been some platelet transfusion along with
blood during my nephrectomy surgery, I had
ended up with a high platelet count. Hence I
had to be given high doses of Heparin during
dialysis so that my blood did not clot in the
tubes. My dry weight now was 50 kg
compared to 55 kgs before my nephrectomy as
5 kgs of kidney had been removed. After the
5h day in the ICU I was moved back to my
private room in the 8th Floor. By then all the
pipes and tubes had been removed from my
body. However the pain levels had increased
considerably and it was at least 10 days after
the operation that the pain reached bearable
levels. In fact the first time I had seen the cut
in the stomach it looked like someone had

stitched a blanket. By the 12th day all stitches
had been removed. Meanwhile my elder sister
had also undergone her kidney transplant in
the same hospital and was now in the kidney
ward recovering. Since no one is allowed
inside the kidney ward for the first seven days
the information that my eldest sister had
about her was limited.All we knew that she
was doing well and her parameters were fine.
My transplant meanwhile had been planned
for 26th August. Till then I had to go for dialysis
every alternate day. I kept counting down on
the number of dialysis left and that gave me
the strength to bear the present ones. On 23rd
August 2011 I turned 39. A school classmate of
mine used the occasion to send an SMS to
inform my entire school batch that it was my
Birthday and that I was in a hospital and that
they should call and wish me. The effect of this
was that I got calls from all over the world
from folks that I had totally lost touch with. I
also got a huge number of wishes on my
Facebook account. On the whole it really
cheered me up. The downside was that by
evening I was totally exhausted with all the
talking.
The very next day I had a fever. The Doctor
prescribed antibiotics thrice a day for 3 days.
The nurses had a tough time when they tried
to put a cannula this time. Since my fistula was

in the left arm, the cannula had to be put in the
right arm. However every time they put a
cannula and tried to flush it, it would block
because of some air gap. Whence the nurse put
pressure on the syringe the internal pain in
the veins was unbearable. However again I
tried not to show that I was in a lot of pain.
This was detrimental as they did not realize
when to stop and the net result was that my
veins turned black and blue because of the
excessive pressure exerted by the syringes
that the nurses were using to flush the cannula.
After three attempts they managed to put one
cannula through which they managed to give
me the antibiotic drip. They also had to put a
lot of “Thrombophob cream” and other balms
on my arm to reduce the pain and swelling.My
arm had swollen up because of the many failed
attempts to put the cannula. When the Doctor
came to see me, he said that the transplant
would have to be deferred till my fever
subsided completely and they could most
likely do it on 1st September. I was quite
disappointed with the delay, but I hoped that I
would be fine soon. Typically on the third day
the cannula has to be replaced to avoid an
infection. Since the Doctor had mentioned that
the antibiotic was to be given for three days it
would have worked out fine. Although the
cannula was removed they realized that my
fever had not gone and the Doctor increased
my antibiotic dosage from 3 days to 7 days. He

also deferred my transplant date once again to
6th September. By now I was mortally scared
of the cannula and my arm was in so much
pain that I requested for an alternative. He
said that they could then put an intravenous
line on my neck called a “central line” and it
could be kept even after the antibiotic drip had
been stopped,as it would be required during
the Transplant Surgery.
A Doctor under local anesthesia puts in the
intravenous line on the neck. For kidney
patients, this procedure is normally carried
out in the dialysis room. On my request the
Head Nephrologist organized for the line to be
put in my room itself. The doctor who came to
do this procedure was a pleasant Bengali
gentleman whom I had met many times in the
Dialysis room. He made me lie down on my
bed without the pillow and then asked me to
turn my neck on one side. He then told me that
he would give me an injection with local
anesthesia, which would hurt a little. After the
initial pain, I could not feel when he put the
thin tube inside the jugular vein in my neck.
Mine was a triple lumen line with three tubes.
After the procedure an X-‐ray machine was
brought into the room to check the path of the
line.
The central line though heavy to carry on the

neck was a boon as antibiotics thru this line

never caused air gaps or stopped. The line was
also used to do blood tests. It saved me a lot of
further pain from cannulas and gave my arm
time to heal. By the seventh day of the
antibiotic drip my fever finally went away and
I was free again from the drip that was being
administered thrice a day. However dialysis
was something that still happened regularly
and I really disliked it. I had become a little
experienced in moving my arm in the dialysis
room with all the tubes and needles attached
and I used to take a book to read along with
me. That partly helped to pass the time.
However, I did look at the clock every half
hour to check when my 4 hours were to get
over.
On 5th September I went for my final

crossmatch test before my transplant
scheduled for the next day. I had already had
this test before and it had come negative based
on which the donor was approved. However
with time, many factors can cause antibodies
to develop in the body against the donor and
there is a risk of a positive crossmatch. Hence
a final crossmatch test is done again just
before the transplant. My donor and I went in
an ambulance early in the morning to another
hospital that had the facility for this test. After
taking our blood samples we came back. The
report was expected by 4 pm. When the head
nephrologist came for his rounds I asked him

what were the chances of my crossmatch
coming positive. He said that it would be rare,
but if it happened the transplant date would
have to be deferred again. That thought stuck
in my mind and the worst-‐case scenario kept
coming to my mind. Till 4.30 pm I heard no
news on my crossmatch report. My eldest
sister had gone to get the report from a
relative of ours. But she was taking a long time
to come back up to my room. At around
quarter to six a family friend of my sister and
brother-‐in-‐law who is a leading Doctor in the
army hospital in Delhi and who had been in
touch with me since I was admitted here and
was guiding me with my queries called. He
said that I need not worry and that I can come
back to dialysis in Delhi and come back to
Kolkata later. Since I had not heard about my
report, I asked in alarm if my crossmatch was
positive. Even he was surprised that my sister
had not told me this as yet and he confirmed
the same as he had spoken with my sister just
a while back. I had a bad sinking feeling that I
can’t even describe in words. I had tears in my
eyes as I stared into the possibility of going
back from this hospital with no kidneys and
months of dialysis ahead.
When my sister came up to the room, she
showed me the report. She had got delayed, as
my donor whose admission process had been
initiated had to be cancelled since my

transplant was not happening. She told me
that although my crossmatch was positive it
was so only by a small extent and she said that
the Doctor was confident that very soon it
would become negative. She also said that the
doctor had told her that it could have come
positive either because of the large amounts of
blood transfusions that I had received or
because of the fever that I had. She said we
could go back to Delhi, I could recuperate and
then come back healthier and stronger to face
another major surgery like a transplant. She
said that I still had the pain of the last surgery
and probably it was good that I was getting an
opportunity to recuperate fully. So we decided
to book our flight tickets back. My elder sister
had by now recovered from her transplant and
had been in the private room near mine for
some time now. In fact both my sisters and I
used to play scrabble each evening. Although
the Head Nephrologist wanted that she stay
for 3 months post transplant under his care,
but since all of us were going back and since
we had a good hospital near our house in Delhi
where she was assured of good care we were
able to convince the Doctor to let her come
back with us.
Before we left for Delhi I was given two more
units of blood, as my hemoglobin was quite
low at around 5.7. Ever since my kidneys had
been removed although I was taking

erythropoietin injections every alternate day it
had just not helped increase my hemoglobin.
On top of that twice the Heparin given during
dialysis was not sufficient to manage my high
platelet count. Hence the blood had clotted in
the dialysis tubes and the entire dialyzer and
the tubes had to be replaced mid dialysis. This
meant that I lost all that blood which reduced
my hemoglobin further. Doctors were not too
worried since they had said that immediately
after a transplant my hemoglobin would rise
quite fast. But since now the transplant had
been indefinitely delayed, they had no option
but to give me blood transfusion once more so
that I had sufficient hemoglobin to be
discharged from hospital. This time though
they gave a medicine before and after the
transfusion, which was supposed to prevent it
from affecting my crossmatch. I also had my
last dialysis in Kolkata before I left for Delhi
the next day. I met the Doctor in the dialysis
room who had put my central line in my neck.
I told him about my situation and asked him
how much time it would take before my
crossmatch could come negative and he said
around 3 months. This helped me mentally
prepare for the tough days ahead with no
kidneys and a life completely dependent on
dialysis.
Once I was back in Delhi on 9th September we

immediately went to our hospital near our

house where my sister used to get her dialysis
done. It was difficult to get a slot as the dialysis
room was overbooked. Since my sister had
been their patient for close to three years,
once they got to know that I was her brother
they tried to accommodate me in some slots.
The next three months my schedule revolved
completely around my dialysis. My brother-‐in-‐
law insisted on getting me a driver who would
accompany me for each session to the hospital.
The dialysis here was a lot better with
facilities including food offered being of much
higher quality. It was off course much more
expensive as well. Once or twice a week I went
to my office to look after my business.
Typically on days when I did not have a
dialysis scheduled.
A lot of people were surprised that I was alive
and could move around normally with no
kidneys. In fact I believe it must have been
some kind of a record in terms of the time I
spent without any kidneys in my body. When I
checked on the net and Googled the question –
“can survive with no kidneys”, the answer was
invariably a no. The fact is that failed kidneys
are almost the same as no kidneys. The only
difference being that failed kidneys may do
very little say one percent work producing
some urine and probably some hormonal
work. In my case there was no urine produced

at all. It meant a very quick fluid overload. This
brought it’s own complications. At times the
fluid would go into my lungs and I would find
it difficult to breathe while lying down. This
happened once at night and I just could not
sleep. In fact I had to rush to the hospital first
thing in the morning and the Doctor advised
an emergency dialysis after which I felt better.
Also in my case if my weight increased
because of fluid above 4 kgs in between two
dialysis sessions it spelt trouble. If they tried
to remove that excess fluid in the dialysis
session I would suffer from the worst possible
and the most painful cramps on my legs. It
used to be so painful that dialysis technicians
had to rush and hold and massage my legs,
switch of the dialyzer and inject saline.
Other complications during dialysis were low
BP or low sugar. Once during dialysis I
propped up my bed a little more than usual to
have my breakfast and the needle pumping
blood back into the body pierced and moved
out of the vein and I had a lot of blood that
went into my arm swelling it up instantly. It
was terribly painful and the technicians had to
come and turn off the machine. They had to
then compress my arm and it was days before
the swelling subsided after the surrounding
tissues absorbed the blood. On the whole it
was not easy on me and I just hoped and
prayed for a quick transplant.

Since this time I needed frequent dialysis I
could not go to Kolkata to get my crossmatch
done. So a leading lab with branches in Delhi
and Kolkata managed to transport my donor’s
blood sample from there and do the
crossmatch here in Delhi. I got a crossmatch
done on 10th October within a month of
coming to Delhi but it was still positive. A
second attempt on 9th November finally came
negative. I was really happy to get the report.
By now my patience was running out and my
dialysis sessions had become quite painful.
The blood flow being so fast in my veins that
after each session my whole arm pained a lot.
It was with a lot of willpower that I was able to
complete each session of 4 hours.
I called the Head Nephrologist in Kolkata and

told him about my report and asked for a
quick date for my transplant. He knew me so
well now that he really went out of his way to
give me the earliest possible date. We fixed the
date of admission into the hospital for 17th
Nov and the date of transplant for 21st Nov.
This was within 11 days of my report and I
was really happy that I was finally close to
achieving a normal healthy life. Seeing my
sister after her transplant, I was all the more
motivated to get this done quick. She was free
from dialysis, had no food or fluid restrictions
except for avoiding food from outside and
having boiled water to prevent against

infections and she now also had a high
hemoglobin and energy levels without any
erythropoietin injections.


Chapter 10: Start of a new life
I booked my flight tickets for the 17th of

November. My eldest sister accompanied me
once more to take care of me while I was
admitted. We went straight to the hospital
from the airport. Our relatives including my
donor were already waiting. We went up to
the 8th floor of the hospital, which housed the
private ward to get admission. Everyone in the
hospital knew me well by now since my last
stay there had been for more than a month.
The staff at the billing counter on this floor
was expecting me as the Head Nephrologist of
the hospital had told them in advance about
my arrival today. They greeted us warmly and
completed all the formalities allotting private
rooms as per my choice to both my donor and
me.
The crossmatch test by the hospital was

scheduled for 18th November since it can be
done only 48 hours after a dialysis to get
accurate results. I had taken my last dialysis in
Delhi on 15th November at night so that I got
the minimum 48-‐hour gap between a dialysis
and the crossmatch test. Although I had got a
crossmatch done in Delhi, the hospital
conducted its own independent test before
giving the go ahead for the transplant surgery.

We followed the same procedure of going to
this other hospital in an ambulance and giving
our blood samples and thankfully by 4 pm the
very same day the results had come in and the
hospital officially confirmed that it was
negative and that they would be going ahead
with my kidney transplant now.
On 20th November at night I underwent my
last dialysis. It seemed the longest and the
most painful. I kept looking at the clock in the
dialysis room almost every five minutes. I felt
the blood flow in my fistula more than ever
before and at the end of it my whole arm
paining because of the pressure of blood flow.
While leaving the dialysis room I also noticed
that all my nails had turned black. However
the Doctors were not too worried with that
and said that it would all be fine after the
transplant. From midnight I was not allowed
to take any more food or water as per the
norms before any such surgery.
Monday morning at 9 am on 21st November
2011, my Kidney Transplant was scheduled. In
between some final tests were done on my
donor and me to check our hemoglobin,
Creatinine and other levels. The Doctors told
me that after all that I had gone through in my
last surgery this one was going to be a “walk in
the park” as it was a much simpler surgery and
the surgeon had loads of experience in doing

transplants unlike nephrectomy which was
rarely done.
At 8.30 am I was picked up by the OT staff in
their bed as had happened the last time. My
sister accompanied me till the floor where the
OT rooms were located and wished me luck.
My bed was again put in a waiting area where
the nurses made the requisite entries. I saw
my donor parked in a bed near mine. I asked
him if he was worried but he said he that he
was not. I wished him all the best and he
wished me too. Soon I was back in a similar OT
room as in all my previous surgeries. I met the
same anesthetist who had administered the
epidural. I asked her not to do that this time
and she said that it wouldn’t be necessary now.
I asked her when they would give the
anesthesia and she said that she was just
starting it. Within minutes I went into a deep
sleep under anesthesia.
When I woke up I could feel intense pain

around the side of my stomach. I was being
wheeled out of the OT towards the kidney
transplant patient’s ward. I kept asking for
some painkillers but no one really listened to
me. Once we reached the kidney ward the
head nurse there tried to explain that I had
already got my dose of painkillers and I could
not be given any more as it would affect my
new kidney. I was moved to a small cubicle in

the kidney transplant ward that had space for
my bed and a nursing station with a table that
had all my reports. Each cubicle had a
dedicated nurse round the clock. The cubicle
had sliding glass doors.
I felt quite uncomfortable, as not only was I in

a lot of pain but I was also covered with wires
and tubes. I had a central line on my neck, ECG
wires attached all over my body, a BP monitor
cuff on my arm, a finger clip to check my
oxygen saturation levels, a drain tube coming
out of the stomach near the surgical area and
finally a Foley catheter to collect urine directly
from the bladder and empty it into a
measuring pouch. I was getting a lot of
intravenous drips some of which being glucose
were increasing my sugar levels and hence an
insulin pump was also attached to pump in the
right amounts of insulin to metabolize it.
The first 24 hours were the most painful and
difficult. The nurses came every hour to take
BP and sugar readings. Not only that, at least 5
times in these 24 hours blood was taken from
the central line to check for kidney function
and other vital parameters like Hemoglobin
etc. The moment I managed to fall asleep, the
nurses would wake me up to take the sugar
and BP readings. For the sugar test they
pricked my fingers one by one so that by the
next day tips of all my fingers had red marks

due to repeated needle pricks. The worst was
when they came to do the Doppler test to
check if the kidney had been connected
properly to the veins and arteries. The probe
was put right on top of the surgical dressing
where the cut was and I screamed in pain.
It was only by next morning that I felt a little
better. Once the surgeon and Nephrologist
came on their rounds they shared that my
transplant had gone of very well. My urine
output in the first 24 hours after the
transplant was around 11 liters, which was an
excellent sign. My Creatinine, which had been
at 9.81 when I had been admitted to hospital
for my transplant was now at 2.88 and was
going down steadily. My hemoglobin after the
surgery had gone down from 10.8 to 7.7 due to
blood loss during surgery and due to large
quantities that were being drawn out for the
blood tests. Doctors expected it to go up soon
with the new kidney working fine now.
However my weight had risen to 57 kg from a
pre-‐transplant weight of 50 kg due to a lot of
IV fluids that were being given. But since my
urine output was quite high, this also was
expected to come down soon. As I was in the
kidney ward, no visitors were allowed. So
when my eldest sister came to check on me
she could only wave to me from a small glass
window built into door of the ward. But there
was little time for one attendant at the

window too as during the one hour that they
were allowed to be there attendants of all
patients wanted to get a turn by the window.
By the third day post transplant I was feeling

quite good. In spite of the drain tube coming
out of my stomach and the Foley catheter I
insisted on going to the washroom to shampoo
my hair. I felt a huge relief after shampooing
and conditioning my hair. When the Doctor
came on his rounds he told me exercises that I
needed to do. One was the usual spirometer
exercise that they give after each surgery to
clear the lungs. The other was to fold the legs
at the knees and stretch again all while lying
on the bed. This was supposed to help my new
kidney. The Doctor also told me to keep the
oxygen mask on for as long as possible as that
was also supposed to be good for my new
kidney. The kidney transplant ward had 6
cubicles all inside a large hall with a common
washroom and 4 single rooms with attached
bath just outside this hall separated by a
corridor. Almost all cubicles had patients who
had just undergone a transplant. The moment
I was in a condition to move around, I
requested he head nurse to move me to the
one of the single rooms. So on the 5th day post
transplant I was shifted to a small single room
with a television and an attached bath. Though
it was not as big and luxurious as the private

room that I had been admitted in, but at least
it offered some privacy.
On the 6th day post transplant the Foley
Catheter was removed and from then on I had
to go to the loo, as there was now no bag to
collect urine. Since I was still expected to drink
around 5.5 litres of water a day for the benefit
of the transplanted kidney, my trips to the loo
were also quite frequent. By now my
Creatinine was down to 1.15, which was well
within the normal range. The huge sense of
relief and happiness that I felt on seeing a
normal report for my kidneys after such a long
time is something which can only be felt by a
kidney patient and cant be explained in words.
Now only two things remained before my

discharge from the kidney ward. One was the
removal of the drain. It had got delayed as the
discharge into the bag of blood and fluid was
above 50 ml a day and unless it went below
that for two consecutive days, the surgeon did
not want to remove it. The second was a
ureteric stent which is a small plastic tube left
inside the urinary connection to promote
healing. Both of them were removed together
in a minor procedure under local anesthesia in
the Operation Theater on 30th Nov 2011.
When I finally came out of the OT that day, I
was relieved as I felt in the pink of health and I
was hopeful that I would not require any

further trips to the OT. I recalled that my first
trip to the OT had started with the fistula
surgery in Delhi. The second and third trips
happened during the Bilateral Nephrectomy
when after the first surgery got over I was
taken back to the OT again to check on the
complications and I had to be opened up again
and blood clots were removed. The fourth trip
was for my Kidney Transplant and the fifth
and last trip was to remove the ureteric stent. I
was not going to forget this year easily.
Once the stent and drain were removed, I
insisted on being transferred to the private
room. The private room was much more
comfortable, was three times the size and had
a great view from its 8th floor window
overlooking the Kolkata skyline. So on my
request, I was discharged from the kidney
ward in a fit condition and moved to the
private room as a normal patient under
observation. I intended to stay there for as
short a time as possible and then go back to
my home in Delhi. I still needed my stitches to
be removed and had to recover enough to take
a flight back. In the initial five days post
transplant, blood tests to check on kidney
function and other blood parameters were
carried out multiple times a day and after 5
days the frequency was reduced to once a day.
Once I moved out of the Kidney Transplant

ward, the frequency of tests went down to
thrice a week.
The moment I left the kidney ward I got my
cellphone and laptop back from my sister. As
soon as I switched my phone on, I got a call
from my office team asking about my
condition. Then when my checked my mailbox
in my laptop I saw more than 500 unread
mails. The 10-‐day stay in the kidney ward had
been the longest time that I had been without
accessing my mails. I am quite a workaholic
and find it difficult to switch off my laptop or
not answer official mails even on weekends.
The next few days I had the time to rest,
recuperate and catch up with friends on the
phone while doing a little bit of official work as
well from my hospital bed. The moment I
shifted to the private ward I was asked to
wear a mask in presence of outsiders. In fact
all outsiders who came to my room also wore
masks to prevent spreading any infection to
me. This precaution is necessary since post
transplant the immunosuppressant medicines
that have to be taken to prevent rejection of
the kidney by the body’s immune system make
us prone to infection as they work by
suppressing the immune response of the body.
However one really good thing that happens
post transplant is that most of your food
restrictions go away.I could have potatoes and
tomatoes that I really liked but could not take

earlier as they increased my potassium levels.
I asked the hospital to make food for me as per
my wishes. In spite of their best efforts,
hospital food is not something that’s very
appealing in the best of situations.
The Head Nephrologist in the Kolkata hospital

wanted me to stay for at least a month under
his care, but since he was himself going on
leave from 8th December for a week, I used
that excuse to take permission to fly back to
Delhi and continue my monitoring under the
Nephrologist in the Delhi hospital near my
house. Luckily the Head Nephrologist in Delhi
had been my Kolkata Doctors senior and also
his professor many years back when they
worked together at the AIIMS hospital in Delhi.
Hence my Kolkata Doctor readily agreed to let
me go.
On 7th December, the 16th day post transplant I
was discharged from the Kolkata hospital and
flew back to Delhi. Normally Kidney patients
in this hospital are discharged on the 10th day
post transplant and they come back for
removal of stitches. I did not want to go out
and risk an infection so I stayed in the hospital
till all stitches were removed and I felt fine
enough to travel. After reaching Delhi, the very
next day, I went and met up with the Head
Nephrologist in the hospital where I had been
going for my dialysis and the hospital, which

was very near my house. He examined me and
saw all my reports. He was happy with my
progress and gave me some basic instructions.
He told me to get the basic kidney function and
the blood parameters tests done twice a week
for the first month and then once a week till
three months post transplant after which it
could be done once a fortnight. The tests are
necessary to check if everything is going well
and to adjust the medication, which is reduced
gradually. However some immunosuppressant
medicines have to continue for the whole life.
Also, in case a rejection happens, tests are the
quickest indicators to detect it and take
corrective action, as there may be no symptom
of a rejection in the initial stages. He also
asked me to wear a mask at all times outside
the house and avoid going out of the house for
the first three months post transplant. He told
me that I could join my work after this three-‐
month period. He also told me to avoid driving
for some time till my surgical wounds healed
and asked me to take a high protein diet to
quicken the healing process. I was also
supposed to take boiled water at all times and
eat only fresh home cooked food. All these
precautions were necessary only for one
reason and that was to prevent an infection
since that could spread to my new
transplanted kidney.

For three months after the transplant I had a
nice time just resting and recuperating. I had
dishes made at home that I always longed for
but could not till now. I could also for the first
time in many years have a peaceful sleep at
night. I did not have to wake up frequently to
make trips to the bathroom. Also since my
enlarged and painful polycystic kidneys had
been removed I did not have to wake up in the
morning with tremendous flank pain that used
to happen earlier. I had a lot of energy, was
eating well and sleeping well.
At the end of the third month I rejoined work
from my office in Gurgaon. Since I had no
health worries and could give complete focus
to my business, I soon managed to revive it
from what it had dwindled to in my almost
yearlong absence from work. I also started out
with light exercises and also went for a half
hour walk everyday after coming back from
office.
My Nephrologist meanwhile wanted me to
take time out to share my experiences with
other kidney failure patients, counsel them
and become an ambassador for Kidney
transplants. I started spending time talking to
patients referred by the Doctor and from
others from my friends circle who were aware
of my experiences. Some of these patients
came over home to understand how I had

coped with my condition while some spoke to
me over the phone. The Doctor also asked me
to meet some patients who were admitted in
the hospital with kidney failure and did not
know what to expect from life next. It gave me
a lot of satisfaction to hear that whatever I had
to share could be helpful even a little in
alleviating their suffering. In fact finally my
Nephrologist who was heading the
department in the hospital suggested that I
put down all my experiences in a book for
everyone’s benefit and he would help publish
it. In fact some of the patients that I shared my
experiences with also thought that this would
be a great idea and hence began my journey
with this book.
On the whole my mental wellbeing and

satisfaction along with an active life helped
improve all my health parameters. Within six
months my Creatinine was down to 1.0, my
Hemoglobin was up to 13.5 and my weight,
which after the transplant had dropped to 47
kg, increased to 60 kgs. Much of the weight
gain had happened due to my increased
appetite. Some of that appetite was because I
was healthy and my kidney worked fine now,
but part it was also due to some steroids that
was a part of my medication. Although the
quantum of steroids had been reduced
substantially in 6 months since the transplant,
still a certain bare minimum had to be taken

for the rest of my life. Hence I had to try and
control my appetite and increase my exercises
to ensure that my weight did not go beyond
the ideal weight for my height.
In fact life even just six months after the
transplant is so normal now that I have totally
forgotten how it was to be ill. I avoid telling
new people I meet about my transplant status
and they just can’t tell. I can only thank God
and all the Doctors for all this, which for me
seems miraculous. I do intend to remain
cautious and not take the good health for
granted so that I can ensure that I have a long
and healthy life ahead. I sincerely hope that
the experiences that I have shared thru the
medium of this book help fellow kidney
patients deal with and cope with kidney
failure and motivates them to go in for
Transplants wherever possible. I also hope
that normal healthy people who read this
realize how precious a gift it is to donate their
kidneys and what an impact it can make to
someone’s lives and some of them go ahead
and make that life saving donation.


About the Author
Mr. Shantanu Saha

holds a bachelor's
degree in Economics
from Delhi University
and has done his
master's in Business
Administration from FORE School of
Management, Delhi, India.

After finishing his Masters in Business
Administration, he joined as a Management
Trainee in ABB, a Swiss -‐ Swedish Electrical
Engineering MNC.
In ABB he handled challenging assignments
in Industrial Relations and HR in their
Kolkata and Faridabad factories before
becoming the youngest Head – HR for an ABB
Joint Venture Company in Madhya Pradesh
with the sole responsibility of establishing
the HR function ground up.

He was also a part of the start up team at
Daksh (now a part of IBM) where he was
instrumental in hiring 1500 employees in a
span of just over six months for which he was
awarded with the Daksh Leadership Award

in the year 2001. He later went on to Head
HR for one of the Business Units at Daksh.
With the passion to repeat what was done in
Daksh, Shantanu also joined Global
Vantedge, a US Collections company (now a
part of the Aegis group) and led its start up
HR team as AVP -‐ HR. He was instrumental in
setting up the HR systems and processes and
hiring around 1000+ employees here as well.
In his last corporate assignment, Shantanu
was the VP -‐ HR for another WestBridge
Capital Funded Startup international
collection BPO in Gurgaon.

Mr. Shantanu Saha is currently the CEO of
“The Recruiters” an Executive Search, HR
Outsourcing & Consulting Firm based in
Gurgaon, India that he founded in the year
2004 after completing a successful corporate
stint.

This book covers the period of his work
experience during which he discovered that
he suffered from a serious and near fatal
genetic disease. He tried his level best to not
let that affect his career or ambitions.
Though his initial reaction was of denial, he
later did fight for his life and survived to tell
this tale…

Contact Information by The Author

This is my first published book and I
would really look forward to your
feedback and suggestions.

Feel free to write to me
shantanu@therecruiters.net


Fight For Life - My Journey - From A Fatal Disease To Good Health

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Author: Shantanu Saha

Chapter 2: Living in Denial

Chapter 3: My first serious health problems

Chapter 4: Alternate Therapies & Setbacks

Chapter 6: The inevitable Happens

Chapter 7: My First Surgery

Chapter 8: Preparation for a Life Changing

Chapter 9: Tough Days

Chapter 10: Start of a new life

Author: Shantanu Saha

During my MBA years, as my workload of

Author: Shantanu Saha

It was a hot sunny summer afternoon, when a

So one fine morning in 1997, I drove in my

Author: Shantanu Saha

Within a couple of months of the Executive

Author: Shantanu Saha

However it was not long before I was forced to

The job in this company was very different

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

I set up my first office from a bungalow in

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

In Dec 2006 I was forced to shift my office

Author: Shantanu Saha

Work wise I faced no problems by shifting our

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

Unani Medicine means Greek Medicine and is a

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

Around this time one day I was attending an

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

In November 2008, we were watching

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

As time passed by my sister got used to the

Author: Shantanu Saha

In January 2009 I decided to take a second

Author: Shantanu Saha

When I went to collect the MRI report, the

Author: Shantanu Saha

The same day my brother-­‐in-­‐law who is in the

Author: Shantanu Saha

It was the month of August and just before my

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

It was a cold winter morning in January 2011.

Meanwhile day-­‐by-­‐day I felt that I was getting

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

Author: Shantanu Saha

In fact after coming back home that day I also

Author: Shantanu Saha

The same day my brother-‐in-‐law who is in the

Meanwhile day-‐by-‐day I felt that I was getting