Page 32 - Till the Last Breath . . .

Pihu knew the doctor wouldn’t find anything abnormal in the tests and

would order some more tests. Back home, she fished out every research
paper and every document ever written about the disease. Looking through
various reports she found a research team in a hospital in Delhi which

specialized in stem cell research and developing experimental new drugs
for the disease. She found the email ID of one of the doctors on the team—

Arman Kashyap, supposedly a genius, and shot across an email giving him
the details of her disease. She was desperate. She didn’t want to die and she

didn’t deserve to.
That night, when she was done reading about her disease and had cried

enough to make herself tired, Venugopal called again. He had been texting
her constantly. Pihu knew for sure he had been doing some reading on the
disease too.

‘What did he say? Did he order all the blood tests? Did he guess
anything? Any alternative causes? Differential diagnosis?’ he asked, the

panic in his voice apparent.
‘The reports come tomorrow. I know they will be clean. He hasn’t

guessed anything yet.’
‘Maybe they will find something that we didn’t. We did the tests just

once. And these government pathological labs make mistakes all the time.
Where did you go? Apex Hospital?’ Venugopal blabbered, hoping against
hope. This time he wasn’t even convincing. He had checked and rechecked

the reports; Pihu was sure of that. They weren’t incorrect.
‘Let’s wait for tomorrow.’

‘Are you okay, Pihu?’
‘Yes.’

‘Are you scared?’
‘Very,’ Pihu said and started sobbing softly. She had promised herself

that she would be strong and not cry. She couldn’t do it. She had read about
the suffering of people who had the same disease as hers, and she felt
terrible. Having read horrendous accounts of how patients lose control of

their body as it slowly rots away, she started to question the fairness of it