CANCER'S OVID-19 VERLAP

OVERLAP Covid-19 scare jammed life and people started avoiding hospitals. What happened to cancer patients? Saima Bhat visited Kashmir’s major cancer treatment facilities to get an answer

- Saima Bhat

December 2019, Tasaduq Hussain was making vacation plans for the next year. With family consultations, he finalised fort night-long vacation. Subsequently, he booked flight tickets for the first week of January to multiple cities.

Before the family could take-off, Tasaduq complained of Hematuria, presence of blood in the urine. After several consultations and investigations, he was diagnosed to have malignant cells in a part of his urinary bladder.

Shattered, the plan changed and the new priority was to save a life. As advised by the doctors, he was immediately operated. Post-surgery, he was put on regular follow-ups for Intravesical chemotherapy (IC), for the next couple of months. As soon as his IC ended, he had to undergo mandatory testing again in March.

However, in between another crisis erupted. His repeated testing date collapsed with the onslaught of Covid-19. Caught between Covid and compulsory testing, Hussain was feeling restless. A banker by profession and resident of Srinagar’s uptown locality, he was having sleepless nights when district administration in Srinagar decided to impose a complete lockdown to control the contagion spread.

As life came to standstill, Hussain became sceptical of his survival. However, his green card (hospital prescription) helped him to move around freely amid restrictions.

Shuttling between the hospital, diagnostic laboratories and private clinics to analyse post-surgery status, he had to hear a piece of distressing news. “All my tests were clear but the CT showed one more spot where they (doctors) analysed that it could be a renewed growth. So every day my destination was SKIMS hospital to private clinics to know what it is, which was followed by tests,” said Hussain.