Living in the shadow of the big C

Nazeem Beegum hopes her book, My Mother Did Not Go Bald, will make hospital administrators and medical practitioners rethink their attitude towards terminally ill patients and their relatives and also give palliative care its rightful place in hospitals

Updated - September 19, 2014 11:19 am IST - Thiruvananthapuram

Author Nazeem Beegum.

Author Nazeem Beegum.

Author Maythil Radhakrishnan calls Nazeem Beegum a “wounded story teller” in his preface to her book – My Mother Did Not Go Bald . Nazeem, a media person working abroad, agrees it was a catharsis to put down on paper all that she was experiencing after she lost her mother, Sainaba, to cancer. However, what began as a personal memoir became an evocative book when she began touching upon the treatment that many cancer patients and their relatives endure even in some of the best hospitals in Kerala.

“As soon as I showed the rough draft to some of my friends and relatives, all of them felt it should be published to raise the issue of treatment and palliative care in our health care centres. Many of them had experienced it or knew people who had gone through similar situations. That is when I realised that there were many like me who had journeyed through that maze of darkness and anxiety. Then I went back to what I had written and elaborated on certain aspects. It was M.R. Rajagopal, a medical practitioner himself and an ardent advocate of palliative care, who encouraged me the most,” says Nazeem.

But the slim book published by DC Books goes beyond a pathography or a cathartic piece. She subtly touches upon the alienation of senior citizens, the breaking up of family ties in modern Kerala, the emotional turmoil of caring for terminally ill patients and the commercialisation of the health care sector that tends to see each patient as just another ‘case’. Nazeem’s candid speak does not spare her family or herself.

“I did not show my book to any of my siblings but I did warn them that it would be an honest account of our mother’s battle with cancer. I was sensitive when I was talking about my family but I did not have to tread carefully when it came to writing about my own attitude towards my mother and her illness,” she says.

That honesty on each page is what makes this work different. Nazeem is impatient, nay even insensitive, at times to her mother’s silent tears and fears. But when her mother expresses her desire to stay away from invasive treatment, her children understand her and let her choose the way she wants to be treated.

Nazeem’s words paint the harsh picture of patients living in the company of death and pain while their relatives try to make sense of the new realities thrown up by the emperor of maladies.

“In addition to the emotional and physical pain that the patients go through, they have to deal with insensitive medical practitioners and staff members. One visit to any cancer care centre is an emotionally traumatic experience and a physically exhausting procedure. Most hospitals fail to take cognisance of the patient as an individual struggling to stay alive and cope with the illness,” says Nazeem.

Glimpses of the once healthy and lively matriarch are interspersed with disappointments and tragic circumstances that alter her lifestyle.

As her mother’s life ebbs away, Nazeem is left with memories of a vibrant woman who makes her peace with death in her own way.

Several editing errors and typos do not erode the emotional content in the book or the questions the author raises. Nazeem says her first book took shape only because of the many friends who kept her morale high.

One of the well-wishers was Maythil himself. Maythil, the author’s Facebook friend, happened to read the initial notes that she had put up on her page. He empathised with her notes and offered to write the preface of her book.

“Needless to say, I was thrilled when an author of his repute offered to write the foreword,” says Nazeem.

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