Small line of silver in the cloud of life

I had been closeted for more than 50 minutes and when I finally wanted to hit the Exit button on the screen and informed the Coordinator, who was sitting in her small cabin next to mine, I was forced to see a wry expression in her face and was told to revise all my answers in the test since I had around 40 more minutes to complete the test. I did not relent and badly wanted to exit the test. I insisted and persisted. She gave another dry look at me and grudgingly allowed me to exit the test screen. Boom! My eyes widened and my face lightened up by the horizontal rectangular bar in the test results page: it showed that I had passed the test with 89% way above the required 59% for a pass in the test! Wow! I am a proud owner of my first IBM certification. I am an IBM Certified Database Associate now! The words of congratulations naturally flowed from the Coordinator's voice, as though she could not believe the test results!

Often, among the distressing events in life, there might be some interesting asides in the form of broken lines of silver in the cloud of otherwise traumatic life. And, last Thursday, I had my first such line of silver as I had passed my first IBM Certification test for IBM's database DB2. I had planned to take the test almost three weeks back and the journey since had been an interesting one with my planning, collecting the resources for the test, studying, practicing, thinking, revising for the test giving my best and living in the present most of the times!

It had been sometimes tough for me given that my body does not often cooperate with me! I had to often study the material lying down on my bed since my back would not permit me to sit straight! And, often, my eyes would slow down and stand still with moisture in them filled to the brim! I had decided to test my own limits both physically and psychologically by planning for this test. And, finally, all my efforts paid off! When I saw a kind of strange and proud glow in the eyes of my parents and an ecstatic stream of words from my sisters and friends, I felt I did something at least for myself. After all, an achievement in these times of distress and trauma in life, at least makes me feel that I have a life! And, after all, this one silver line lightened up my little own world! :)

Reconnecting the relationship dots

Often, we tend to slide besides our self-created shield beyond which we think there can be no value and within which lies our entire world! And, in this psychological process "readjusting" ourselves, we fall prey to the proclivities of escaping from the relationships that lie both within and out of our shield. We suddenly realize the significance of these relationships when often we are out of it! Reconnecting to these dots of quarantined relationships will give us a new power of engaging ourselves with the higher levels of bliss and joy, coupled with new experiences associated with the freshness of feeling!

It has been a good 15 years and 10 years now since I jumped out of the network of my graduation and post-graduation friends respectively! Phew, that has been a real long time indeed! And the interesting part of my disease-ridden phase of my life is to regain those lost connections of those fun-loving hearts!

First, I shook up the network of the hearts that connected a few with whom my own self was hovering around for quite some time. Then I would email those friends, or leave a message to them on either Facebook, Orkut or LinkedIn, or dig into my address book to get the personal numbers to call them. Then, I would invite them to my home in Bangalore or propose to meet them in a location of my convenience, for which most of them kindly accepted. And, I cannot describe the happiness when I see them personally before me! It is just a bliss and any ode to my feelings would not be sufficient enough to offer tributes to them! :) I am still reeling in this bliss of having these dots in my visual space. I now find a kind of indescribable joy in reconnecting the old friendships and filling them with new aura of freshness! After all, the older the connection, the sweeter would be the reconnection!

Droplet on a lotus!

I am somehow left with a feeling of happiness when I saw several posters in the Bangalore Institute of Oncology (BIO) congratulating Dr.Kodaganur S. Gopinath on winning the prestigious Padma Shri award for the year 2010. (He is one of the 81 persons conferred with the award, which is to be presented in New Delhi by the President of India in March. See the complete list of awardees here.) The award usually is given to a person who has offered/offers distinguished service in his chosen field. Dr.Gopinath surely deserves the award not only for his service in his medical profession, but also for the fact that he is more humane in dealing with his patients.

I am fortunate that I had been operated by Dr.Gopinath for my diversionary colostomy in June 2009. Not only he was reassuring me on my health, but also was extremely sensitive to my painful position at the time. He was more caring that I had seen any one else and was constantly driving me to have positive hope towards life and living. Congratulations Doctor on winning the award and I am happy for you! You have won the Padma Shri and I am just one of the droplets on the Lotus who touch you and get a feeling of healing touch! I wish God give you many more years of lively service and many more droplets be fortunate enough to have your warmth and touch.

Today, I met the team of my doctors at the Bangalore Institute of Oncology (BIO) with the CEA test result. The latest test showed a value of 7.23 - which is a marginal decrease from its previous value of 7.64. This is a marginally good news! :) The doctors suggested me continuing the chemotherapy tablets orally until the next PET/CT scan in Feb last week, when more information on the disease inside the body will be available from the scan results.

Rest period

After a hectic stream of weeks, I have now got a couple of days rest at home with an upcoming visit to the hospital again on Jan 19th for a CEA test. This test gives a rough idea of the presence of cancer cells in the body; the more the CEA value the more the cancer in the body. (The last CEA done on Dec 18th showed a value of 7.64. This is a kind of OK value and the test was done just before the radiation.) So, with the CEA test coming up, hopes are high that the test shows a reduced value since the radiation is supposed to kill most of the cancerous cells in the liver! :) Until then, I am now on oral chemotherapy medication which is a stop-gap arrangement to reduce the risk of the spread of the disease.