The Fight Within

Immunotherapy might not be a magic wand, but it does offer hope to patients and an opportunity for oncologists

- Namita Kohli

The first time, it didn't seem so bad. Joaquin Fernandes's right leg had had a small blister, and like anyone else, he dismissed it as a corn, something that would disappear on its own. In the next few days, though, Fernandes noticed that the blister had begun to turn blackish and decided to see a doctor.

Doctors in his city—the Goa-born civil engineer has been working with a construction company in Dubai for three decades now— advised biopsy. “The results showed traces of cancer. Doctors told me to go to India to get treatment,” he recalls.

That was 2015, and predictably, the news of melanoma came as a big shock. “When it comes to cancer, we just don't know anything. What to do, where to go... what will happen now,” Fernandes tells me over the phone from Dubai.

But he figured he had no time to waste, and headed straight to Mumbai, a city where he has family, and a home, too. At first, Fernandes, 60, consulted a doctor at a Mumbai hospital, and was told that the cancerous cells would be removed via a surgical procedure. This would prevent the cancer from spreading.

After the procedure, Fernandes felt better and flew back to Dubai. But, true to its confounding ways, the cancer struck back.

A few months later, Fernandes had pain in his groin. He came back to Mumbai, and this time, the news hit him harder. “The scans revealed that the cancer had spread to the rest of the body,” he says. And the doctor at the Mumbai hospital had an even more shocking prescription for him. “He told me they were going to cut up my entire body and remove the cancer cells manually. I was shocked to imagine myself in that state, to allow myself to be in a slaughterhouse.”