As I see photos of Richa, it is very clear that I'm fully responsible for her having to go at the age of 34.
Autoimmune disorder does not kill people before the age of 45 or 55. Normally it happens to ladies only, and normally they say it is after age of 45 most probably around 55 years age people die because then all the organs start failing. In the case of Richa she left us at the age of 34.
No doubt I'm 100% to be blamed but I also feel strongly that Dr. Shaikh was our family physician never went into detail because Dr. Tiwari was looking at Richa once in few months only when she would go to hospital. It was Dr. Shaikh who should have gone into detail of the disease. I don't think he ever even read what is meant by autoimmune disorder. He should have realised that the real problem is of protein, real problem is of, real problem is of diet and all this is happening due to diabetes. Diabetes could have been controlled. Her diet could have been managed. There could have been other things done. What in the end we were trying to do by putting tube in her stomach. This could have been done six months back or one year back. People who have very serious neuropathy do this at the right time, not so late.
I always feel that in spite of the fact that Dr. Gurmit is a super intelligent idiot just like me and Mama ji. People who are super intelligent ultimately are idiots, but the fact is, he had a complete knowledge of her disease. Either he had or to some extent it was Dr. Mrs Goel. Apart from these two people, I don't think anybody really understood what her problem was. In fact even Bret Carlson had better understanding of her disease as compared to Shaikh.
I don't blame Dr. Tiwari, because he simply gave Richa symptomatic treatment. He never looked at the big picture and one major problem has been the distance. Had Tiwari ji seen her every month like a family physician, even he would have come to know that problems need to be attended of nourishment.
It is very very sad.
At your age of 70, how much you can do it was my fault and to some extent I feel family members apart from me also should take responsibility. After all Dharmishta was not so young. I remember when I was hardly 14 years old and mummy was getting tachy cardia attack at that age of 14 I had started maintaining file for her and I had started doing research on Isoptin, I was only 14 years old.
So even Dharmishta to some extent could have taken a little more interest.
Once mummy told me few weeks before that Richa used to say "Aao log ne mere liye kiya hi kya hai, jab bhi hota hai Bombay hospital me patak dete hai".
I think it is absolutely correct. All that we were doing was calling Dr. Shaikh, a total idiot and Dr. Tiwari, who was a very busy man.
Even if Dr. Gurmit would have consulted or rather we would have consulted and he would have visited herevery month and at least theoretically speaking, he would have given right direction. Even Dr. Mrs. Goel, her involvement would have helped.
I don't know how much Dr. Faroukh Udwadia would have helped, but I'm sure simple involvement of Mrs. Goel and Gurmit would have helped.
At least now I have learnt a lesson that I am not going to take now any risk when it comes to the other family members and we should only go to doctors who are giving full information.
Another thing is in the year 2008 when I was in Calcutta. I was suddenly feeling very very much upset about Richa. I don't know why I am not able to remember. I was all the time feeling worried and I had decided to send Bret Carlson to America and he had agreed also after lot of persuasion. He just wanted us to make proper CD and DVD for which Dr. Gurmit had started work with Neeta Desai. Unfortunately I lost interest and things passed away. Time just flew otherwise in that year I had made up my mind whatever it will happen. I will send Bret Carlson to Mayo Clinic and John Hopkins. Even that is some big mistake I made because all said and done, Dr. Robert Svoboda also told me that for autoimmune disorder, the specialist doctor is called immunologist and immunologist is a common doctor in USA hospital. It is so sad that in India we don't have one single immunologist.
Apart from immunology how to manage infection, repeated infection is a separate part which normally doctors who handle Aids know. In the same manner complication of steroids is all documented fact and diabetes is a known complication. Here also we made mistakes. What Dr. Tiwari should have done, he should have involved one autoimmune doctor, one diabetes doctor, one dietician apart from a specialist who handles infection and antibiotics because even having full knowledge of antibiotic is a separate field and this normally is handled by those doctors who are handling infection in the patient having Aids.
Anyway I can only now regret, but I want all of us to be very careful about the rest of the family and when it comes to medical intervention, we should sell whatever has to be sold, but take the person to John Hopkins at the right time.
I personally regret that in the year 2008 I stop taking initiative, otherwise I had made up my mind that anyhow, we will take her to John Hopkins and Mayo Clinic,
Actually speaking these doctors are very - very third class, very few doctors have the brains. So it is the family members who has to really go in detail. I think after Faroukh Udwadia, there may not be a single extraordinary general physician. Anyway one advantage of going to specialist would have been that they would have automatically given reference to experts. This was mistake made by Dr. Tiwari. Suppose we would have gone to Hinduja, they would have given reference to diabetes expert, to the autoimmune expert, to the general physician, to the antibiotic specialist
