The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Failed kidneys do not deter her

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 26, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Failed kidneys do not deter her

Govind D. Belgaumkar

BRAVING ODDS: Poornima Vyasulu

BANGALORE: Two years ago, Poornima Vyasulu, 51, wrote her will as she thought she had only a few days left to live. As she distributed her jewellery among her two daughters, the hitherto happy family was faced with a grim situation.

Today, she takes a brisk walk in the park near Jayanagar telephone exchange, attends music classes, frequently visits Chamarajanagar and Chitradurga districts to conduct research and drives herself to a hospital thrice a week, undergoes dialysis and drives back home.

Ms. Vyasulu, who has a doctorate from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and has her own management consultancy firm, learned that her kidneys had failed in mid-2003. But she refused to undergo dialysis saying: "I don't want to be hooked to a machine."

Yet Ms. Vyasulu, sister of the Kannada film actor Vishnuvardhan, took up a new assignment to study the Panchayat Raj system in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal in July. During one of her visits to West Bengal, she fell ill. She came back to Bangalore. Dialysis was still a no-no for her.

When she was undergoing treatment at a high-end holistic medical centre in Whitefield, she almost collapsed and was rushed to Manipal Hospital. The doctors there made her undergo dialysis.

Her first dialysis changed her life. "You should experience it to believe it. I felt so good... I got converted to dialysis," she says.

Her family members started taking her for dialysis thrice a week as she could hardly hope to get a kidney transplant. But soon, she got fed up and started thinking of death. "I even started planning my death." That was in January last year. But one day in March, she suddenly realised that her husband and daughters were feeling terrible. She said to herself, "One need not die every day before death comes calling."

She started to take charge of her life. After a little practice behind the wheel, she started driving to the hospital herself. She switched over to dialysis at night to save time. Now, she leaves home after dinner, undergoes dialysis till midnight, sleeps at the hospital and drives back home in the morning.

After having her cup of tea, Ms. Vyasulu goes to the nearby park and takes a walk. She also does pranayama and relaxes as she sings a couple of songs to herself. No longer does she think of tomorrow. Of late, she has also revived her interest in theatre and music.

Each dialysis costs Rs. 1,000 and she needs to take medicine for diabetes and blood pressure.

She also needs to replace vitamins and calcium that dialysis takes away from her body — all at a cost of Rs. 22,000 a month. But her insurance company takes care of that as she has insured her health since 1988. She strongly recommends that everyone do this.

Ms. Vyasulu is a phone-call away for renal failure victims needing counselling (ph: 56907402 or 9845231979).

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