I am beginning to worry about the Ides of February. This February, I went for my annual check-up at Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, and the ultrasound showed a tumour in my left kidney. My initial reaction was, “Oh no, not another February / March surgery!”. Until I was 60, I never spent a night in a hospital as a patient. But after I turned 60, I’ve had to go for some surgery every year. I found out in February 2022 that I needed a bypass surgery. In February 2023, I had to be operated on for a hernia. So, 2024 was my hattrick.
I immediately called up a friend, Dr Ian D’Souza, who suggested that I contact an oncologist at Lilavati Hospital. I met him the next day and got a CT scan done, which confirmed the encapsulated tumour. That evening, we had some friends over for dinner, and one of them, Dr Robin Pinto, said I should talk to Dr Anup Ramani. He immediately called him and set up an appointment for the next day. We met the doctor on Saturday morning, and after looking at the papers, he was pretty sure that this would be malignant and suggested that I should remove not only the tumour but also the kidney. We agreed on it, and the date was set for a few days later since I had to get off my blood thinners.
