To create awareness of hazards of smoking.

As a  special tribute to Prakash,on my new blog would like to shares his story (as per his wish) with the younger generation.

How I got lung cancer...

19^th January 1952 to 20^th November 2011

This is the story of how I recently got lung cancer. I was diagnosed a month ago (on 8th April 2011) and it is in stage 4. However, with the advances in modern medicine, I am confident that I will bounce back soon and lead a normal life again.

The purpose of writing this story is, hopefully, to inspire those who smoke to stop doing so immediately and to deter those who are being subjected to peer pressure to smoke, to avoid getting the habit.

This story is written from my heart. Please help spread the message – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Word of Mouth, email, whatever.

I started smoking quite early when I was 16 years old. Looking back as to why I started I can only conclude that it was because of my father. He used to work for Caltex, a multinational oil company in those days. His lifestyle (a flat on prestigious Warden Road, an imported Custom Ford car etc.) must have been an influencer to get him to smoke. Smoking was considered fashionable those days. No one associated it with illness or disease……….all that would come years later.

He always had a round tin of 50 cigarettes of 555 with him and smoked with great élan. Possibly I overheard him say that smoking relaxed him from the pressures of his office and that he could concentrate better (two myths that I busted after I stopped smoking) but this is a common feeling among smokers.

I remember that in 1962, our Alsatian dog Robert vanished one evening and we hunted for him high and low. My father and mother took the car and scoured the neighborhood and I was told to take my cycle and also go checking for him. I couldn’t find him and the stress of that event made me stop at a cigarette shop and smoke a cigarette. It must have been a long forgotten voice of my father in my head about the “relaxing and distressing” effects of cigarettes. Robert was subsequently found in an upstairs bathroom – he had become thirsty and started drinking from the commode. Knowing it was wrong, he had remained absolutely quiet and even managed to shut the bathroom door to prevent discovery!!!!! 

I cannot blame my friends or peer group because none of them smoked. My closest friends were non-smokers so I reckon it has to be the influence of my father. The fact that he gave up when I was ten years old didn’t really matter. The seed was in my head and I started smoking at 16.

Probably because it was fashionable to smoke in those days, when I asked my mother for 8 annas (India called the 50 paise coin as 8 annas then) to buy cigarettes, she gave them to me. Looking back, it feels very wrong but as I said, no one associated smoking in those days with anything but positive. I was still in school then.

I remember vividly an incident that happened in Calcutta when I was 16. I was sitting near the Saturday Club swimming pool and smoking a cigarette. An elderly lady came up to my table and sat down uninvited and begged me to stop smoking as it was bad for my health. But the problem with smokers is that they don’t listen to reason. They get increasingly irritated when people tell them not to smoke. And so it was with me, but I politely promised her I would stop just to get rid of her. Now that I have cancer, her face and her request vividly flash in front of my eyes. But it’s too late to say “if only I had listened to her”……the reality is that I didn’t for my own selfish reasons.

I smoked my way through college, obviously funded by my parents, and by the time I joined chloride India, my first marketing job, I was smoking 40 cigarettes a day. I was to maintain this figure for over thirty two years! I feel so shocked when I read these words but that was the reality. Just image. 40 cigarettes a day over 32 years is 4,67,200 cigarettes!!!! Later when the harms of smoking surfaced, they estimated that a smoker loses 5 minutes of his life per cigarette. If I do a simple calculation on my calculator, I should be dead already. Quite a testimony as to how tough our body is that it takes the abuse without complaining, day after day, month after month and then one day says it cannot take anymore and there you are, in a medical emergency.

I used to love smoking! In spite of everything that I read about its harmful effects, I couldn’t believe that anything could happen to me. I always felt that it would be someone else who would get lung cancer, never me. My main concern was that I would get a heart attack, maybe, but not cancer.

There was a time when I smoked John Players which comes in stylish black packs. When placed on the table, they attracted a lot of attention. Other smokers would occasionally come and ask if they could bum a fag off me and this led to many quick friendships in bars and restaurants. Later on, my brand was Benson & Hedges, which I also loved.

I always felt that when I smoked my creativity increased. After a stressful day in the office I felt that a smoke at home would relax me. I felt that I would enjoy my coffee more with a cigarette. And of course, most smokers feel that they cannot take a shit without a cigarette. (All of the above false.) 

My day started with my blearily reaching out for a packet of cigarettes kept next to my bedside. Then the coffee would come and I would light the second cigarette. Then off to the loo for the third cigarette. By 10 a.m. I would have finished ten cigarettes out of a 20s pack. 

My worst smoking moments occurred in Dubai. If I forgot to stock up on a Friday, I would wake up to find that I had no stock and everything was shut (all shops, supermarkets, etc.) during the prayer times. Those 60 – 90 minutes were sheer hell for me. 

During Ramzan (what they call Ramadan in Dubai) between sunrise and sunset, all eateries are closed and one cannot eat, drink or smoke in public. If one is caught the cops are called and its straight into the police station and into the cooler. In those countries, going to jail means never knowing when you will be released. Your sponsor must come and bail you out and leave his passport as a security and obviously, most are reluctant to do that so no “exit” date can be fixed in such cases.

I would sneak into the residential building and stand between floors and smoke a surreptitious cigarette as fast as I could. I figured no one would walk between floors; everyone there takes the lift.

By early 1999 I was getting chest pain even when I walked short distances. I knew that a heart attack was pretty close, but I chose to keep this information to myself and not reveal it to my wife Saroj and son Shakti. 

Soon the pain started getting worse. And Dubai is not the best of places to get medically checked. First of all the hospitals charge a bomb and secondly doctors there are not of the same caliber as one finds in India. There are umpteen cases of wrong diagnoses and unnecessary hospitalization etc. 

27th May 1999 was a turning point in my life. It was a Thursday. (In the Middle east, in those days Thursday was the equivalent of a Saturday and Friday was the weekly holiday.) 

Thursday night was routine. Two to three pegs of whiskey, whilst I was smoking all the while………in an air-conditioned room, exposing my son and wife to second-hand smoke! I remember sleeping at around midnight. At around three a.m. I suddenly awoke. I liken it to the scene where Nicolas Cage wakes up in the hospital in the movie Face Off. He suddenly sits up. I, similarly, suddenly sat up, picked up my cigarettes, ashtray and lighter and took them to the kitchen. I smashed all the cigarettes, threw the lighter in the dustbin and then spend the next 30 minutes cleaning the crystal ashtray. There was so much tar on it (at least a 5 mm coating at the bottom that it took that long to get rid off.) Then, the task accomplished, I went back to sleep.

Believe it or, that was the last time I had a cigarette.

Most people do not believe the above story. How can a hardened smoker give up just like that, they wonder. 

I have two eyewitnesses to the above. My son Shakti and my wife Saroj.

As regards the urge to smoke” and tso-calledled addiction, I found that it’s actually bullshit and created by us in our own brains to justify smoking. When the subconscious mind gets made up to do something, it is easily achievable. 

In my case, believe me, there was no urge for a cigarette after that day. I had no craving at all and, more important, no withdrawal symptoms.

That was 12 years almost to this day. And yet the cancer struck.

Diagnosing lung cancer is next to impossible. A lung X-Ray won’t show anything abnormal. 

In October 2010 I visited North India and met my college classmate Virat at his house in Faridabad. I was coughing non-stop and couldn’t speak at all. His wife got me a full bottle of cough syrup and it was only by consuming the entire bottle during the course of the evening that I was able to talk at all.

The cough got progressively worse and I checked into an Executive Check Up program in November 2010 at a well known hospital. They did the usual tests and opined that I had allergic asthma (probably due to the dust pollution in Bangalore – the Metro work was going on next to our house in Jayanagar and huge amounts of dust were kicked up into the atmosphere) and in addition, threw in the diagnosis that I also had lung damage in the form of Chronic obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). After three months, when there was no improvement, I changed pulmonologists. The second pulmonologist, after further tests, gave me the good news that I did not in fact have COPD, but yes, I had allergic asthma. He changed the medication completely and put me on Asthalin and Budacort inhalers. Still no improvement.

Then another strange development occurred. I started gasping for breath after walking short distances. I could not walk 15 feet without going completely out of breath. I would have to sit down for 5 minutes to regain my breath before I could retrace the 15 steps back. And then the process would repeat. 

Unfortunately, at this time we had planned a holiday to Ooty. I was able to drive down myself (with my wife, of course) but the holiday, even in one of Ooty’s finest resort, was the most miserable one of my life. After two days, we returned to Bangalore. On the return trip I found that I just couldn’t drive the car. My wife drove the 275 kilometres or so back. 

Luckily the school where she works (a residential school) has an excellent doctor. The doctor insisted that we rush to the best diagnostic clinic in Jayanagar, Bangalore, and take a chest X-Ray. It revealed that my right lung was filled with fluid and I had been managing with only one lung! The fluid was, at the doctor’s insistence, tapped and about 1.2 liters was removed. They immediately did an analysis and found malignant cells within. The same night I was admitted to an ICU of a leading hospital and the next day a CT scan confirmed that it was indeed lung cancer.

The news hit me hard for just about three hours. However, I was able to pull out of it almost immediately because of something that I had done two years ago.

I had been analyzing my life one evening, about two years ago – the pluses and minuses, my ambitions and aspirations and I suddenly realized that I had achieved almost everything that I had wanted to. I had traveled the world quite widely, gained a good name for myself in multiple fields (quizzing, marketing, search engine optimization etc.) Money held no fascination for me. I wondered if I had, say, Rs. 5 crores in the bank what I would do with it. I just couldn’t think of how I would spend the money. Money corrupts and I have seen many a rich man’s son become a drunkard or a drug addict. I suddenly realized that there was nothing much that I wanted to do additionally any more. I was perfectly happy with my life! That’s when I had a dialogue with God. “My bags are packed, God” I said. “I am ready to come to you whenever you call me.”

I think it was the strength of that talk that has given me the confidence to not worry at all about what happens next. What can happen when one is cheerfully ready for a worst case scenario? One can only get better because of the positive mental attitude.

I must mention here that my ex-colleague and close friend Muki promised to meditate for me to try and reduce my cancer cells. He also got the entire company to do a concentrated mediation simultaneously. I really believe this helped me. My first chemo went off like a dream…..read on!

I went into chemo with great trepidation, though. I had heard horror stories of chemo and how it affects one adversely – hair falling out in handfuls, nausea and vomiting, complete change of taste in the mouth with food tasting horrible. “You must force yourself to eat however bad the food tastes” the doctor had cautioned me “otherwise you will become very weak.” Nothing of all that happened at all. I just slept for three days and three nights completely dead to the world. And then I was fine.

The Power of Prayer

I attribute the relative ease of the chemo to those who prayed and meditated for me. I must appreciate my immediate family (wife, mother, daughter, son) who prayed round the clock for my recovery of health. My company colleagues who meditated and prayed. My school and college classmates, with special mention of Mohammed Sanaullah (a.k.a.. Ullah), a very devout and religious Muslim, also prayed for me. Ullah said a special prayer for me when I was at Sagar Hospital and I could feel its positive effect. When he came to see me at home, three weeks later, I insisted that he repeat it and felt just as great afterwards as I had done the first time.

My close Sikkimese friend Karma Bhutia, whom I know for 35 years now, got a Rinpoche (It literally means "precious one," and is used to address or describe Tibetan lamas and other high-ranking or respected teachers. This honor is generally bestowed on reincarnated lamas.) I reproduce an email from him that really touched my heart:

Dear Prakash,

Today your pujas were performed by an incarnate lama (Rinpoche) in palace monastery, overlooking MG Marg, Gangtok.

The pujas were performed for:

a) to extend your longevity (life line)

b) to ensure benefits from medication and treatment.

We also have to release a living creature in your name after blessing by a lama. It has to be something like live fishes or pigeons being sold in the market for consumption. The idea is to save them from certain death and give them new lease of life in your name to benefit you. The Rinpoche says your problem began three years back and it needs to be treated properly, I do not know how true is it but he seems convincing as he was able to say all this just on the basis of your name and date of birth. The releasing ceremony will be done in due course of time. Meanwhile, take care of your self.

Update: On Sunday, 15th June 2011, Karma went to the market at 6 am searching for a pair of birds that would be sold for meat. He had to hunt for quite a while but eventually managed to find a pair that were covered in a cage with a shawl. He took them home and fed them water and rice and then took them to the palace monastery. At the monastery, the incarnate Lama (Rinpoche) did a prayer and the birds were released. They flew away, free.

Many of my friends have told me that I must get my message out to others about my story so that, hopefully, it influences people to stop smoking or think twice about starting it. Special thanks to Yogesh of JIRS who insisted that I "spread my message". It is at his urging that this article took shape.

As requested earlier, please give this story wide publicity. Remember.......

Thanks in advance.

By PrakashSubbarao, 13th May 2011.

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