Update from another friend who visited Rajesh

Lakshminarayanan studied in BITS with us and visited Rajesh yesterday. His message:

I was on an official visit to Chennai and used the opportunity to visit our dear friend Rajesh who is undergoing treatment at CMC, Vellore. He is in Room 903 Building A9 now. I found Rajesh quite cheerful and looking forward bravely to the chemotherapy sessions ahead of him. His femur bone fracture is healing well. He is able to sit up.

We recalled old times at BITS, names and characteristics of several mutual friends etc. I was allowed to stay there only for about 30-40 minutes. He also mentioned about his work experience so far - in B'lore, middle east etc. While I took leave of him, he said "the prayers of all my friends and family will get me out of this."

On the whole, I got a feeling that he is on a full recovery track. And let us all pray for his speedy and complete return to good health.

Regards

Laksh

UPDATE

Spoke to Rajesh a little while ago. The doctors have started the 2nd phase of Chemo from this morning. He will have his chemo dose in the morning and evening for 3 alternate days. He has still got severe pain in the leg. But he mentioned that he has learnt some little tricks to mitigate the pain. Sounded little groggy - perhaps due to heavy dosage of pain killers that he is on. He was in quite good spirits though - pepped up a little having watched India beat Sri Lanka in the tri series one day match.

Plenty of good work has been done with the marrow drives and fund raising. However, all of us need to maintain the momentum, particularly for raising more funds.

Regards to all

Dinesh.

Cooks4Cure

Last week saw the first fundraising effort thru catering by the Richmond families. The "Cooks4Cure" team of Meena Sankaran, Chitra Ravindran, Vanaja Narayanan and Sreelatha Parasu made a great effort and it was a huge success. They cooked for the Richmond Tamil Sangam's Pongal program and RTS Executive Team graciously allowed them to sell the food as the proceeds were going to HelpRajesh.

The ladies sacrificed a few hours of their valueable family time on saturday, and pulled it off. The food was great and appreciated by all. Sankaran made a last minute dash to Costco and purchased soft drinks and water. That was well worth the effort.

The emphasis was to keep the cost low and the ladies achieved that objective. The total sale was over $560 and the net to HelpRajesh should be $400+. You can see some of the pictures from the food stall in the slideshow on the right.

The momemtum is picking up and word is spreading around like wild fire in the community about the quality of the food and the cause it supports. The Cooks4Cure team has already bagged another huge order for a Bharatanatyam Arangetram in Richmond on March 1st. This is a bigger undertaking as they will be cooking for 300 people. The amazing part is that a few ladies from the local community are chipping in and have signed up to volunteer and help the four principals.

Kudos to the Cooks4Cure team.

Team HelpRajesh

Update: Day of femur repair

Update from Rajesh's dad:

Today, the 15th of February 2008, a surgery was successfully performed on Rajesh to stabilize the femur bone with metal inserts. You may recall that a prior attempt to clean up some of the fungal infection on the bone, resulted in a fracture of that bone.

He is recovering well in the ICU. Apparently he had excessive blood loss and required a blood transfusion. But all is well now. He is still in a lot of pain and restless from the effects of the anesthesia and the medication. But all in all a successful surgery by all accounts. Apprently within the next week or two, he will begin the process of physical therapy, which will include walking with crutches. There is hope that at some point in time, he might be able to lose the metal insert, if his bone grafts well.

Could'nt talk to his dad for long, due to all the attention of the doctors that are in the ICU right now, along with him and Rajesh. He said he will give us a clearer/detailed update tomorrow.

So until then.

Narayanan

Update on Rajesh

The four of us from Richmond got together and had a long chat with Rajesh on Saturday night. He is currently getting treatment for the fungal infection. The surgery on the femur bone will be done after 10 days depending on the outcome of fungal treatment. Rajesh told us that the problem with his femur is away from the ball and socket joint and is now less likely to require a joint replacement. He might still however need some kind of metal insert to stabilize his bone.

And the following is not for the weak-hearted. They have drilled a hole thru the bone below the right knee when he was awake and talking to them. A metal rod thru that hole in a traction keeps him straight. Because of that, the pain is less now. But 'less' is here is relative. From spasmodic, gut-wrenching pain, it has dropped couple of notches.

The donor search is underway at NMDP and let us hope for the best.

The last week had ups and downs for all of us. The good news is that Sonia Kumar, another AML patient, found a matching donor. And we also received the crushing news that we lost Bevin Varughese to this dreaded disease. May his soul rest in peace.

So plan your next drive soon to stop further losses! ITS NO TIME TO SIGH.

Update on Rajesh's leg situation

The exact medical facts may differ in the following but this is Nagu's understanding of the situation based on a call with Rajesh and his father:

Rajesh's leg problem has worsened. They saw some fungal infection on the femur(thigh bone) and opened to take a sample for analysis. In the process, the bone was scraped causing a small crack and that disturbed the hip joint. Now, the bone is out of the joint and he is bed-ridden. And in a lot of pain. He has been on morphine continuously. So if you call him, please do not talk to him that much and have the conversation with his father.

In another 10 days, he would be heading into a surgery for replacing the hip joint. The next round of chemo will not start until this is taken care of. The silverlining - if there is one in this - is that the fungal infection has been identified now and not in the middle of a chemo round.

Why do all these happen to this guy....

Anyway - he is battling it out and is in immense pain. He wanted to talk but had to hand over the phone to his father as he could not withstand the pain.

His wife Padmaja and his kids come everyday in the morning at 11am. She brings the food. Kids play in the play area. After spending some time, Padmaja leaves with kids after 1. That has been their schedule. Padmaja has her hands full with the little ones and looking at ways of continuing Rishi's studies. A friend will be bringing Rishi's book soon.

Keep them in your prayers and do what you can to help them.

Update from Shashi - Rajesh's brother-in-law:

Visited him on 2nd and 3rd of February. Leg situation bad and will continue at this level till 20th. He is on an Antifungal for curing of the bone infections. After that they will schedule a surgery to correct the problems. Which may, in the worst case, be a hip joint replacement or otherwise a Metal jointing. This can be evaluated by the doctor only during the actual surgery. He is on traction and cannot move out of the bed. Has spasmodic pain attack on and off inspite of the morphine. Most of the time he is in a drowsy state on account of Morphine.