Help Vinay & Sameer

Some posts have been written retrospectively

Reena and I are en route from a business trip in Mumbai, coming home suddenly to the US of A.

I had been nauseous, had no appetite, and noticed my heart racing for the past 3-4 weeks. Even though it was a sweltering 100 degrees as Mumbai awaited the monsoons, I was sure something was wrong. I had never had this kind of trouble in the heat in past years.

On my insistence, our family doctor in India sent me for some heart tests. While I was at it, he told me to get a blood test as well. I went to the lab, got my tests, and then sent the results to two cardiologist friends of ours in the US. The cardiologist at the lab thought he might have seen an atrial abnormality. But our friends, Drs. Mital Sheth and Maulik Shah, honed in on the blood tests and said that something bigger was amiss.

I got my blood retested at Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, and the hematologist there took one look and said, “You have leukemia.” I looked at him like he was crazy. I had researched a dozen different infectious diseases, a couple of which matched my symptoms identically. But he noted the strong presence of blast cells in my blood and said that there was a 99% chance that this was leukemia. He wanted to admit me in the hospital immediately.

I had always said that there was no way I would ever get treated for anything serious in India. And this was something serious. The doctor looked at me and said that I needed to get on a flight immediately then. It was 4pm.

I went home and found Reena in the kitchen hosting some guests. I slowly waited for the right moment, by which time she had already figured out we needed to talk. She was calm but worried, as one could expect. But she remained the rock that she is and focused on what needed to get done.

By 1.45am the same night, Reena and I were on a flight from Mumbai to Newark, New Jersey. We managed to get the last two seats. By a sheer coincidence (act of God?), my father happened to be returning home from a business trip and was changing planes in Newark at the same time we landed. He would cancel his ongoing journey, and I would have my two pillars of strength by my side for the long journey ahead.