The Week India - July 29, 2018

COVER STORY

28 THE WEEK · JULY 29, 2018

HEALTH

The fight within

Immunotherapy might not be a magic wand, but it does offer

hope to patients and an opportunity for oncologists

BY NAMITA KOHLI

T

he fi rst time, it didn't seem so bad.

Joaquin Fernandes's right leg had

had a small blister, and like anyone

else, he dismissed it as a corn, some-

thing that would disappear on its own. In the

next few days, though, Fernandes noticed that

the blister had begun to turn blackish and de-

cided to see a doctor.

Doctors in his city—the Goa-born civil en-

gineer has been working with a construction

company in Dubai for three decades now—

advised biopsy. “The results showed traces of

cancer. Doctors told me to go to India to get

treatment,” he recalls.

That was 2015, and predictably, the news

of melanoma came as a big shock. “When it

comes to cancer, we just don't know anything.

What to do, where to go... what will happen

now,” Fernandes tells me over the phone from

Dubai.

But he fi gured he had no time to waste, and

headed straight to Mumbai, a city where he

has family, and a home, too. At fi rst, Fernandes,

60, consulted a doctor at a Mumbai hospital,

and was told that the cancerous cells would be

removed via a surgical procedure. This would

prevent the cancer from spreading.

After the procedure, Fernandes felt better and

fl ew back to Dubai. But, true to its confound-

ing ways, the cancer struck back.

A few months later, Fernandes had pain in

his groin. He came back to Mumbai, and this

time, the news hit him harder. “The scans re-

vealed that the cancer had spread to the rest

of the body,” he says. And the doctor at the

Mumbai hospital had an even more shocking

prescription for him. “He told me they were

going to cut up my entire body and remove the