When Rupesh Sharma heard that at 17 he was a cancer patient, his worst fear was that he would not be able to dance again.
The son of a rickshaw driver, Rupesh was flying high as he had walked down the stage with a competition trophy in his hand. As he got down the steps he felt dizzy and fell down. At first they blamed it on the exhaustive dance practices, but when Rupesh ran a constant fever the family got a blood test done. His father hid the test results that confirmed that Rupesh had acquired acute Leukemia. They took him to various hospitals, but unfortunately all of them gave up on him.
However, Rupesh's family and his dance academy friends did not lose hope, They sought financial aide from friends and well wisherand continued the hunt for treatment. Finally his father took him to Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital where there was a ray of hope. Dr Shantanu Sen, the Consultant in the Paediatrics & Paediatric Oncology department along with Dr. Sameer Tulpule, handled Rupesh's case.
The only option that would work was a bone marrow transplant. The blood tests were done and Rupesh's sister was the perfect match. Unfortunately there was a happy complication, happy in that his sister was pregnant and Rupesh was soon to be an uncle and unfortunate that the doctors feared that a transplant right then might affect her unborn child.
“This was a big risk for us as we did not want to lose the unborn but his sister was the only perfect match. We had to stretch the treatment to make him survive for another one month till the baby was born” says Dr. Sen. He says that Rupesh's condition deteriorated so much that he was on ventilator as his body reacted to the medicines strongly. “His was a unique case as there are no known cases of reaction to GCSF, but we changed the protocol entirely to make things work well for him. We have even sent a case study report to international medical organizations about how such a case can be handled.”
Rupesh says that he cried his heart out when he saw the movie ABCD 2 which had just released. “This movie gave me hope and I also missed dancing more than ever. I had once even asked my family to give up on me but my sister was a staunch lady, she made me believe all over again”, says Rupesh.
Just after his sister, Preeti Sharma, age 25, delivered her baby, we had to wait for another one week till she could breast feed her child. Once she was ready for the bone marrow transplant, the surgery was conducted successfully. Today Rupesh is hale and hearty and is back to practicing dance. Of course he has a few precautions to take care of like not performing stunts and following a diet regime.
“There is no specific cause for Acute Myeloid Leukemia, but some of them can be exposure to heavy metal or radiation for a prolonged period. It is easier to cure it in children but in adults it is even more difficult. Most of the cases that are diagnosed do not get proper treatment and suffer due to it.” says Dr Sen. There are 2 lakh cases reported annually among adults and constant fever is a common symptom for this condition adds Dr. Sen.