Sumita's Struggle I first meet Sumita through a mutual friend who went to great lengths to brief me about her before the actual meeting took place. From his concern it was obvious that she was a very special person and that I needed to know this. When Sumita entered the room you forgot all about her emaciated body and her bald head, it was her personal warmth that enveloped you and held you firm. She was a young, single, working woman with a great zest for life. However, it was obvious that she was in great emotional pain. As we talked I realised why. Her treating doctor, who she greatly respected, had just assigned one of his juniors to break the news of the spread of her cancer to her. It had been done in the most brutal fashion possible. She was still reeling from shock. Sumita had been diagnosed with cancer of the colo-rectal region almost two years before our meeting. She regretted the fact that it had initially taken doctors almost a year to correctly diagnose her. She had for several months been treated for piles. However, being the positive person she was she had taken this in her stride and moved on. Subsequently, she had been operated upon and an opening was made in her abdomen so as to bypass her rectum. A waste collection bag could now be attached there. This was followed by weeks of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. At the end of it she emerged even more determined to live life to the full. A year later, during a regular check up, the doctors discovered a recurrence. It had been caught early and Sumita was reassured that her new regimen of chemotherapy treatment would take care of it. She had had no inkling that things were not going well until that fateful day when the news had been broken to her. When I met her a week later, she was devastated. For the first time she had begun to lose hope. However, more than anything else it was the cowardice of the doctor who had not had the courage to face her and the callousness of the doctor who had been assigned to break the news to her that was causing her the greatest anguish. Sumita was a generous, honest and trusting person, she felt greatly betrayed. Sumita was to prove in the months that followed that you cannot put a good woman down or suppress the will to live. With the help of her loving family, which comprised a widowed mother and three younger sisters, and a wide circle of friends and admirers, Sumita began to fight back. The mutual friend, a colleague, who had introduced me to her also continued to provide much needed emotional and practical support. This man, with the heart of a saint, lent her his car and driver whenever she needed to visit the hospital. As Sumita was now in pain her visits were generally to the pain clinic at the Institute Rotary Cancer Hospital at AIIMS where she was prescribed oral morphine. However these visits began to take a toll on her for not only did she have to cover a long distance, but she had to sit for several hours on a hard wooden bench in the waiting area before being called in to see the doctor. For some one who was severely emaciated and suffered continually from nausea these visits became unbearable. While Sumita relied on conventional medicine to control her pain she had by no means given up on treatment options. I had the unique experience of accompanying her on a journey to a faith healer in Banswara, Rajasthan, a few months before her death. This was an extremely difficult journey for her body to undertake, but as they say, the spirit was willing. From the time Sumita and I, accompanied by a friend of Sumita's and her parents, left the New Delhi railway station I was witness to her magic. There was not a soul in the compartment or along the way who did not want to help her in one way or the other. In fact, on our return journey we were met halfway by a railway officer and his family who had prepared food for our onward journey. These were ordinary people who Sumita had befriended on our way to Banswara and who admired her courage. Despite the long journey and her immense weakness Sumita could not wait to visit the faith healer who she had heard could "suck out" tumours with his mouth. She had heard about him from another fellow survivor who had made this journey for the removal of a cancerous tumour in her food pipe. She seemed to be doing better on her return. Unfortunately, the faith healer was not willing to "operate" on Sumita just yet when we met him. He asked her to take some tablets prepared by him and to swallow them down with cow's urine. She was to return after a few weeks. Bitterly disappointed, Sumita decided to visit another faith healer in the vicinity who was also credited with wondrous cures. He used the blade of a sword, it was said, to remove the tumour and the amazing part was that there was not a scar on the body at the point of contact! That afternoon we visited this healer and were part of a stream of people many of whom were camped in a nearby cowshed. Sumita had her turn with the healer (the clicking sound his sword made reminded me of the retractable blades of the daggers we used in school plays as children). Sumita died a few weeks later after a valiant fight. She was determined to prove the doctor who had said that she would live for only two months wrong. She succeeded. Sumita lived for at least a year after that cruel verdict. Seeing Sumita's anguish and suffering I had discussed with her the need for a palliative care service for people with advanced cancer who had been abandoned by the medical system. She fully endorsed this suggestion and left us a grant of Rs. 1 lakh to make this a reality. We at CanSupport are happy to declare that Sumita's vision and her story of selfless courage continue to inspire us even today. Read Next Story? If you want to know how you can help people like Sumita, please email us at info@cansupport.org