Health Adda

In times such as these, when every TV channel, newspaper or conversation is spewing fearful and despairing news, how does one cope and survive with the hope to see better times? Amidst galloping COVID 19 numbers, gruesome clashes on our borders, crumbling economy and a very uncertain future, I discovered a living story of exemplary coping and resilience that can make a difference to our lives. Her name is Ruth Ba der Ginsberg, 87 year old lady, the oldest judge of the Supreme Court of USA who is attending to her duties while undergoing chemotherapy for her third cancer. The present cancer that she is fighting is an advanced one that has spread to her liver, for which she is receiving twice weekly chemotherapy and is optimistic as the tumour is showing signs of regression. Her long life is as much a lesson in hard work and perseverance in reaching where she has in her career, as it is about coping and resilience with health problems and cancer. Her first date with cancer was in 1999 whe...

Surviving COVID is not easy; it is not just the threat of death and physical suffering, but many other issues that complicates life. As the COVID outbreak is marching on, many are coming out of the illness and narrating tales of the challenges they had to overcome. I spoke with RK today, a 30 year bachelor engineer who had consulted me on-line a month ago for symptoms of “acidity”…burning in the abdomen and poor appetite that had been going on for a few months. As he did not improve with the medications and worried about an ulcer, he insisted on getting an endoscopy done even in these COVID times. Ours, like most hospitals these days, recommend a precautionary pre-endoscopy COVID test to be done a day prior. The next day, to his surprise and ours, the test came POSITIVE! He was shocked, devastated, and agitated. As he was living alone in a rented apartment in the city, away from parents who stayed 400 km away in another town, he felt very alone and shaken. His cell phone app st...

There is hardly any person in Uttar Pradesh who has not heard of Dr D K Chhabra, a senior neurosurgeon, who died recently. Over the decades his expertise, pragmatic advice and popularity had broken the shackles of his narrow surgical field coming to be known as a “brain-specialist”and a genuine adviser for all health problems. I got to know him in 1987 when I joined the upcoming Sanjay Gandhi PG Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) in Lucknow as a young member of the faculty in Gastroenterology. He had moved from his alma mater the KG Medical College where he is still regarded as a legend. An omnipresent bachelor doctor living in the duty room readily available to help anybody anytime.He was tasked to heading and developing Neurosciences at SGPGI. He had an eye for detail and was tasked additionally by the director to set up not just his department, but the whole hospital, the building, equipment and the campus. DKC was a tall and handsome man who spoke little. But when he did inl...

If your mind space is crowded with too many stressful “negative” occupants such as COVID crisis, border conflicts, shattering economy, uncertainties of future or locusts, just to name a few, and if you are in a mood to explore something new and relaxing, give Birdwatching a try. At the outset, let me confess that being a workaholic all my life and born under the Zodiac sign of Capricorn, I had never found time for such “idle” hobbies”. In fact as stud ents with lives packed with studies, sports, thrills, work and challenges, we had scoffed at Dr Salim Ali, one of the greatest ornithologists, who had made headlines decades ago. It all started 2 years ago when my wife hung a “bird feeder” outside our window and our gardener planted a new creeper in the garden. Two years down, when I found myself locked in at home recently in my own empty nest, I found time to notice and appreciate groups of domestic birds visiting us. And when I Googled “Bird watching health benefits” I was stunned with ...

It is indeed difficult in the midst of a raging pandemic to see any silver lining to the dark COVID clouds, but two sets of observations are emerging on an optimistic note. Let me start with a true story of a 34-year old otherwise healthy young man who came down with fever for 8 days, initially suspected to be typhoid, that refused to subside with several courses of strong antibiotics. By the time he reached a nearby hospital, he was found to be breathless requiring oxygen therapy (requirement 4 liters/minute). A COVID test was sent, but as no beds were available, he was asked to go to another hospital. After much pleading, he was kept in the emergency hold area on supportive care waiting for a bed to fall vacant. Over the next 2 days his fever and breathlessness deteriorated (requiring 15 liters/minute), while his COVID test came positive. He could luckily be shifted to a single ICU bed of a nearby hospital that fell vacant, just in time to be put on a ventilator. In the subsequent da...

Unexpected disasters, natural or man made, are getting commoner by the day and failure to address the emotional trauma and psychological impact of survivors such as the relatives of road traffic accident victims, often leaves a glaring hole in people’s lives and personalities. For most of us, it would be impossible to imagine the emotional trauma and agony of those who have seen loved ones been dragged away by flood waters or buried alive by landslides, o r perhaps even worse, just missing! How and what can be done for them? I was watching the TV interview of one of the relatives of a recent RTA victim and was saddened to hear how the lives of the family members had had been catapulted since the young man’s death. At the outset it is important to know the sequence of reaction that a traumatised person goes through. The first stage is one of denial or disbelief at the suddenness of the upheaval. It is followed usually by anger, often directed at people around, government, at oneself or ...