Indeed an Emperor!

How many of us have seen greatness flicker in the face of an adversity,how many of us have found ourselves succumbed to pressures of life.

I took my own time in reading emperor of all maladies….I dint assign myself any time period which I agree isn’t a very good habit but I picked it up in college days…..however emperor isn’t one such book….there were days when I'd read as little as three pages and would suddenly become aware of this numbness surrounding me ….I found myself exhausted and consumed by the words….and then there were other days when I would imagine myself sitting in the conference room listening intently to halsted while he is delivering the lecture on radical mastectomy until and unless words jolt me back into reality 'I find myself inclined to welcome largeness'.

Cancer has always been the most devastating of all illness….the most harsh of all challenges that we face is the diagnosis before the appearances of symptoms because by the time symptoms appear it's too late…..the transforming medical research has seen some landmark discoveries….we have come a long way…protooncogenes- sis ret fms her2neu are some growth factor and growth factor receptors then signal transduction proteins and NTP RAS tumor suppressors ,genes for apoptosis and dna repair genes…I am enthralled by the way these discoveries has led to the cure of cancer…recently we lost Hugo Chavez to an undisclosed form of pelvic cancer…Steve Jobs to the most aggressive pancreatic cancer….Steve jobs donated an unprecedented sum to the john Hopkins fpr more advanced research into pancreatic cancer and its cure ….he was so enthused by the way it was developing  and growing that he also made  a media statement saying that either he will be the last one to die of it or the first one to be cured of it…that brings us to cure and chemotherapy…the problem that is looming large in the face of all of this is the cure now….recently bayer's kidney cancer drug nexavar was in the news for all wrong reasons…I was flabbergasted to see the price that bayer's quote for nexavar an exorbitant Rs 2,80,428….Nexavar is sorafenib which is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor …is useful both in renal cell cancer and hepatic cell cancer….it's side effect profile describes hand foot and mouth syndrome….at this price not many can buy it…cipla currently is selling it at Rs 30,000/month…however government has given its nod to natco pharma for making and selling its generic version which though of inferior quality but will be available at cheaper price….which itself throws at us the question of drug's potency and efficacy.

 Such questions are extremely unsettling …it reminds me of that in love at the time of cholera Dr Juvenal Urbino had observed and believed that scalpel is the greatest proof of failure of medicine.

Scalpel today has redefined cure and life expectancy of cancer patients…while medicine is all about instincts , surgery is show time….surgery is about conviction…in today's time they are hand in gloves for a successful cure.

As Novalis said "every sickness is a musical problem"

"and every cure a musical solution" - W.H. Auden

 lemme write my music.....i still have a chance....to heal and be healed!!