We can handle it!
Greater Kashmir, on January 5th, 2025, published an editorial highlighting an abnormal spike in cancer cases in Kashmir. Several people have become victims of the disease, draining their emotional and psychological facets, besides causing irreparable damage to their physical health. Thousands are battling it, and many more may be on the verge of getting caught in its ferocious tentacles.
Darkness has a chink of light invisibly embedded in it; the same goes for the case here. Doctors and nurses taking care of the carcinoma patients at SKIMS are gritty and well qualified. They figuratively cut the disease into a thousand pieces and stop them from rejoining. A patient is diagnosed with the disease; the doctor looks the malevolent devil square in the eye to keep its aura of fatality at bay. Relieving, it is! Hope we should cling to, what else!
However, we need more than that. Patients’ traveling tens and hundreds of kilometers for doses are to be dispensed with by a comprehensive blueprint: establishing government-funded, sophisticated nursing hospitals in every district partly catering to the cancer-ridden patients. That much may take time, but it’s worth doing: there’s nothing more important than public health. And now it has reached a crisis stage. Bone-chilling, wintry air sends the physically fit to fire-lit, cozy rooms, let alone the patients.
Besides, the relatives of a patient play a crucial role in keeping their patient’s spirits high: it’s purely intangible and needs emotional connection. The patients feel energetic one moment and struggle to even talk the next. There will be times when those caring for their patients think about what tests the almighty is having them go through, and it’s understandable. However, you should always stand up whenever times require you to: you are a serotonin donor for your patients. Don’t grow weary of their little cranky doings. Grow familiarity with them. And cherish them. They are overwhelmed and overburdened by the insidious disease.
Encourage them with inspiring stories. Whisper in their ears a laugh-inducing humour. Ask them for advice. Take them for a stroll. Get them involved in at least something. Don’t let physical disease creep up on their mental health. Bad mental health is worse than a disease. Live with them. And for them. It’s a responsibility: one that defines the best of men. The battle won or lost, that’s a different story.
The increase in the carcinoma cases, apart from causing a deep concern and warranting sound research to curb it in the region, could be a test from the almighty regarding how resilient you are or can become. Let’s stick to what doctors ask us to adopt, and let’s demonstrate our pluck as well!