Doctor's Day: ‘Our patients taught us a life-force beyond therapy'

Indian Express

2 days ago

Doctors are always hope-givers. But they also know that therapies can go so far and no further. It is the patient's faith, trust and shared decisions that decide when a case becomes something more than just a clinical cause and effect study. When a patient shares their lived experience, fears, anxieties and forms an individual bond with the doctor, that empathy is the one that decides the recovery from even the most critical cases.
On Doctor's Day, these doctors recall the patients they never forgot, simply because they learnt a bigger lesson from them.
The song of life
Dr Shrinidhi Nathany, Consultant, Molecular Haematology and Oncology, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram
Mrs R, a 61-year-old retired classical singer from Jaipur, came to us with profound fatigue and unexplained bruises. Her blood counts were collapsing. A bone marrow biopsy confirmed acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a difficult fight at her age. She needed to be treated intensively and early.
Her family hesitated. 'She's too fragile for chemotherapy,' they feared. She had mild hypertension, lived alone and had never been hospitalised. But R looked me in the eye and said, 'Doctor, if I sang on stage for 40 years without missing a note, I'll face this too.' She lost her hair, her voice went hoarse, and mucositis (inflammation in the mouth and gut as a side effect of chemotherapy) meant even drinking water was painful. But every evening, she'd hum — not full ragas, just low soft notes, as if reminding herself she was still alive and believing she was still in charge of her body.
On day 28, her marrow was clear. By month three, she had achieved molecular remission. She now visits our clinic every three months, bringing sweets for the nurses and singing to other patients undergoing chemotherapy in the waiting area. 'Tell them,' she says, 'the body breaks, but the music doesn't stop.'
Climbing mountains with one lung
Dr Viny Kantroo, pulmonologist, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Delhi
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a man in his early 40s came to us in a very serious condition. He had contracted black fungus, a rare but deadly infection known as mucormycosis. It was one of the more dangerous complications we saw in post-COVID patients at the time. In his case, the infection had spread to his left lung, and the entire upper lobe of the lung had become necrotic, which means it was dead tissue.
We had no choice but to operate and remove the affected part of his lung. But just as we thought things were getting better, the infection began spreading again, this time, to the remaining lower part of the same lung. The only option left to save his life was to remove the entire left lung, a surgery known as a pneumonectomy. It's a major operation, and living with one lung comes with challenges. But we had to try.
The surgery was successful but I wasn't sure as to how much he could push his body. Emotionally, he had just lost his mother to Covid (he was her caregiver and had contracted the virus at home) and was battling personal issues. 'If I am breathing again, then life definitely wants something from me,' he told me. A heavy smoker, he quit gradually, setting daily targets and then eliminating cigarettes completely. He never missed his physiotherapy sessions and exercises, battling bouts of breathlessness, pushing his sessions by a few minutes every day to get his lung working. He began making efforts to reconnect with loved ones, something he had stopped doing.
A few months after his recovery, he messaged me a photo, no caption, no words, just a picture of him standing atop a mountain, smiling. He now travels at high altitudes, something we never would have imagined possible for someone with one lung, especially a former smoker. Since then, every time he travels to a new peak, he sends me a photo. Just a single image. That's all. But for me, it speaks volumes. The human spirit is stronger than we think. Sometimes when you have nothing left, you find the strength to climb your highest mountain.
The mother who fought for her child
Dr Ranjan Shetty, lead cardiologist and medical director, Sparsh Hospitals, Bengaluru
I remember this national volleyball champion from Kolar, Karnataka, who developed peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare form of heart failure that affects women during the last month of pregnancy or within five months after delivery. It's characterised by a weakening of the heart muscle, leading to reduced pumping ability. It's considered idiopathic, meaning it arises spontaneously without a clear pre-existing condition.
Her heart collapsed multiple times after birth, requiring her to be put on a ventilator. She needed a heart transplant but while we tried to fast track her case, we had to put her 80 days on the ECMO machine, which acts as a temporary heart-lung bypass. Completely bed-bound, weaning her off the machine for transplant surgery was a challenge as her legs and arteries had wasted. She felt too tired to speak but her eyes had a light and her lips would always be curled up in a smile. She always gestured to ask about her new-born, whom she could neither hold nor feed. And despite her immobile condition, she kept moving her limbs and fingers as much as she could, almost as if she was exercising before a match. She never had a nervous breakdown although we had almost given up but she told us to do our bit and she would do hers.
She surprised us even more after a transplant, walking around in a week. She now comes for follow-ups with her child. It has been three years now.