Pathway to My Thyroidectomy

 

Pathway to My Thyroidectomy

 

It was about 15 years back, I was doing my internship in GE Research and Ishaan was growing 3 months in my womb. One day when I stood in front of the big mirror in the washroom, I noticed something is running over my neck. On inspection, found that one of the nodules has swelled up. I was perplexed but kept calm. My gynacologist also worried on seeing this and prescribed the blood test, and some ultrasound scan associated with it. Even the FNAC was done, everything was normal. Years passed and lived with my swelled neck. Later I got to know that once this nodule swelled up, it never go back to its original size, only an operation will remove the big node. Irrespective of that, I tried Homeopathy treatment for a few months, with no results.

By the time, the situation was like, I was bombarded with questions from friends, family, shop keepers, random people from the crowd on my swelling on the neck. I terribly wanted to get it operated and avoid any questions over it. But that point of time also, I didn’t had any trouble with that, other than the questions from others. I met Dr. Sharada from Vikram Hospital Bangalore (Now its Manipal). After doing many tests, scans, and consultation with ENT, they advised me “to live with it”. Its just a cosmetic issue. You wear your “duppatta” in such a way that it is not visible to others. I had made my mind for the operation, and this advise disappointed me. Irrespective of that, I follow the moto “Health first”, over any cosmetic issue. So decided to follow the doctors advise. This happened 10 years back.

Further down the line, I was quite busy in life. In 2017, 2019,2021 Haripriya, Harinandana and Aavani are born. And there was a time during Corona when nobody goes to hospital, if it is not an emergency. We lived in our hometown, Kerala about 3 years during Corona. Once we come back from Kerala, I found I am too much prone to cold, which I called “dust allergy”, and put the blame on “Bangalore weather and pollution”. Eventually, I started getting cough, in the middle of the night, and keep coughing for 1-2 hours, until it settles down. All these I called allergy.

 

Art of Living

We are members of out of “Art of Living”, for quite long time. But practicing the “Sudarshan kriya” was not a daily activity those days. I miss it most of the day. But try to attend the “follow up”, every Sunday. I thought my allergy will go off, if I practice it daily, and started putting conscious effort to do yoga and Sudarshana Kriya a part of my daily routine. The number of days in a week, I do these become improved to 4 or 5. But, I found no change in my so called “allergy”. That is the time, I started doubting on my thyroid swelling. By this time, it has grown too much. I started observing myself, and realized that not the 100% air that I breath in are reaching my lungs. I am aware now that, it is the time to stop for a while, and get it removed.

 

Coincidently, I joined in an AOL group, who does Sadhana intensively. The timing are so peculiar that no one will disturb us. It starts at early 3AM, and continue till 5.30AM, with 1 ½ hours of Yoga, including 108 sun salutation, and 1 hour of meditation. I was not sure, whether to join this group or not. I was completely not hopeful that I will keep doing it. Somehow I joined, and never able to do 108 Sun Salutations with the group. But I did  some 30-40 rounds everyday. I know that I am preparing my body for a big operation. Meanwhile when I met an ENT doctor, whom we know for years (Dr. Anitha Krishnan), I checked on this, and she told, this has grown too much she will not do it, and referred a doctor from Manipal Oncology department. Also added that, “Don’t get scared of seeing the oncology department. Just considering the size of this gland, only the doctors from oncology department do this operation. It need not be cancer”.

 

Waiting Period:

I waited for the vacation to come, and our vacation trip to get over, to meet the doctor. I was pretty much sure that, the moment I see them, thing will get fast forwarded. When I met the endocrinologist at Aster Whitefield, he had no doubt in prescribing for the surgery, and asked me to get the CT first, as the ultrasound may not provide the right information on the size etc. And I was excited. Being a member of CT Engineering team for almost 10 years in GE Healthcare, I was excited, and curious on which CT scanner Aster has. However, it didn’t disappoint me. I was happy to surrender myself on the one of the CT scanner, which I was also a part of Engineering. Revolution was an important journey in my career. That was GE’s add… “Touching Life” moment for me.

Finally when the scan report comes, it turns out that the thyroid gland has grown in to a dimension of 5x6x7 cm, pressing my vocal code, respiratory system and food pipe. I too wanted to get it removed as soon as possible. Met the surgeon Dr. Somashekhar, from Aster itself, and it a weeks time, my operation is done. The specimen biopsy report turned out negative. And I am doing good now… 😊

 

 

 

Team outing to Confident Amoon

We had a team outing two weeks back (on 14th October) to the resort "Confident Amoon" near Kolar. Confident Amoon is located on the Main Old Madras Road, near Kolar. It takes around 1 hour drive to the place.

check out more details on this resort here. http://www.confident-group.com/amoon/index.html

We were a group of 40 people and enjoyed alot over the day. We reached there around 11AM. We divided into 4 groups and had team activites in the indoor games block, and in the football/cricket ground. Thanks to Neha and group for arranging such a nice team activities.

After that, the tired/sweat group moved for lunch. Delicious vegitarian and non-vegitarian dishes were waiting for us. We checked in to take rest for some time to their respective rooms. Neatly maintained rich rooms, With a double bed covered in white bed sheet and wool, bathroom with plenty of additional towels provided and a sitting area with a TV, sofa setty and table, Good one !


Yes, its really a rich resort!.. I remember this whenever I hear in TV, "The first price of Idea Star singer Season-6, is a villa worth 1 crore, sponsered by Confident Amoon !!"..

Again we had team activities, Some people went for swimming. SPA is also available there. In the night we had camp-fire and a dance party.

Trip to Sivana Samudra and Barachukki Waterfalls !

We had a trip to Sivana-samudra and Barachukki waterfalls last Saturday. Shivanasamudra is 12okm from Bangalore. We were a group of 7 and two kids, all our B.Tech classmates and family.
The trip was really colorful, if we forget about the traffic at Kanakpura road, which we took on the way to Sivana samudra, and even worse the traffic JAM @ NICE road, which we took on return !.. I never thought NICE road will ever have a traffic jam !

We started from central silk board by 8.30AM. We had our breakfast from a small, but neat hotel named "Uphaar". Sivana Samudram is really a nice place to visit. We all, especially my kid overjoyed by his first visit to any Waterfalls !.. We had a short lunch from that place itself and started to barachukki falls, which is 17kms away from the Sivana-samudra.

Here there are boats, so many monkeys. Really nice waterfalls. Many people were entering into the falls. Our group restricted ourselves in the land, because of the kids.

Muthyala Madavu (Pearl Valley)

It is near a town called Anekal on the outskirts of Bangalore. It is around 35km from sarjapur road.We visited the place in September 2011.Somehow water was very less in the fall. And none other than us was there around, other than a few village boys, who were climbing the steep mountain. Lots of monkeys were there. We had carried food, and we struggled to eat it. We shared a few with the "Leader monkey" and another dog there. Near to the walls there wwas a small temple also. We were a group of five, me, my husband, kid, and in-laws. And we are all from kerala, which is full of greenery, so, to be frank, it was a waste of time for us. I dont suggest anyone for this place.

Dr. Kasturi Rangan's Talk

We had a distinguished Lecture 2 weeks back in JFWTC, GE.(Now I am in GE, as an intern). It was quite encouraging to attend a person who is the owner of "PadmaSree", "padmaBhooshan" and "padmaVibhooshan". His talk was on "My Forays into Space - A few exciting experiences". And it was quite exciting.

He was talkign about his days as a student, a research scholar and as the director od ISRO. He shared his first experiences in doing thing, may be the first attemt in India in space research, at the time of establishment of ISRO, as Vikram Sarabai as chairman.

He took us to the exciting moments of launching Aryabatta, india's first satlite,through Baskara, GSLV series, and finally the mega Chandrayaan-1. :)... Attending his talk was going thro. a history chapter shich talkes about India's space research.

At this age he is quite energetic. He had come to our lab too for a short presentation, given by the lab manager. So get to see him very near. After the talk, in the Q&A session he was asked, "Have you gone to space ?" And the answer was "I wish I could be.. " ...

krishna...

ഗോകുലതില് താമസിക്കും
ഗോപ പാലന് ദേവന്
ആമയങ്ങള് പൂണ്ടിരിക്കും എന് മനസ്സിന് നാഥന്
നാഥനെന്റെ കന്നുനീരുതോരുന്നതിനായി
സ്നേഹമോടെ തൂവല് കൈയ്യാല് താലോലിപ്പൂ തോഴീ

ആലിലയില് പള്ളി കൊള്ളും നീല ബാലകനേ ...
നീല ബാലകനേ പശുലോക പാലകനേ
വേദമെല്ലാം വീണ്ടെടുക്കാന് മീനായി തീര്ന്നവനേ
വെണ്ണകട്ടും മണ്ണുതിന്നും മായങ്ങള് ചെയ്തവനേ

ഗോപികള്തന്നാട കട്ടു മാലണച്ചു നിന്നവനേ
ആലിലയില് പള്ളി കൊള്ളും നീല ബാലകനേ ...
(ഗോകുലതില് താമസിക്കും)

Trip to Kolkata

I went to kolkata to attend ICAPR-09 on 2nd February. I had a paper accepted in that conference. the conference was from 4th Feb to 6th Feb. It takes around 27 hours from Hyderabad to Kolkata by to train. We traveled by Falaknuma Express from Secunderabad to Howrah. We reached at Howrah station around 7.00 PM on 3rd. Howrah Station is one of the largest railway terminals in the country. It has 22 platforms.

From Howrah station we took a pre-paid taxi to reach ISI Kolkata. It was costed 165Rs. for us. On the way we crossed Howrah bridge, which is one of the heritage of Kolkata. On 14 June 1965 it was renamed Rabindra Setu, after Rabindranatha Tagore a great poet and the first Indian Nobel laureate. However it is still popularly known as the Howrah Bridge.
We reached ISI around 8.30 PM, since it was sooo rush in all the roads at that time. The rooms were already booked for us in the ISI guest house. The stay at ISI was cool.

The next day, on 4th, the program had scheduled to start at 10 AM. But there was an unexpected load shedding at that time. The venue for the program was the Geology auditorium, in the Geology block of ISI. and this building was given the priority connection, because of that, the power cut never happened there, so, they had no generators also !! Anyways, by 10.30, the inauguration was done in the light of emergency lamp. I wonder what would have the foreigners, who were present there, think about this instance. anyways after sometime the power came,, and everything went well thereafter. We attended all the sessions on that day.

My presentation was on 5th, afternoon. so, I kept myself in the room, for the morning session and went for the evening session. I presented our work "Empirical Evaluation of Character Classification Schemes". The presentation went well, and I got a couple of appreciation about the work too.. and I am happy about it :)... We had the conference BANQUET at The Oberoi Grand. There was a cultural Gala by -- COLORS a fusion band -- organized there. I enjoyed the music very much.

Now on 6th, day to wander around Kolkata.. :) .. We first visited Dakshineswar Maha Kali Mandir. From there we took a boat to Belur Math, the head courters of RamaKrishna Mission. The boat through Hoogly was journey was very interesting. We visited the Temple and the museum there. From Belur math we took a bus to Dharathale, to reach a metro station. The Metro Railway, Kolkata is the first underground Metro Railway in India. It was really amazing. We reached Kaligath. We visited at the Kali Temple. The name of Kolkata was derived from this famous Kaligath. From there, we went to visit Birla planetarium. Since the show was already started we went in a horse drawn tram, for a round trip. The horse wala dropped us near Victoria Memorial, which was built in Memory of Queen Victoria, and it was built like Taj Mahal. (But it was not like Taj Mahal :D ). After that we walked towards Birla Planetarium., which is one of the largest planetariums in Asia. We attened the show at 4.30, which was in Hindi. There are shows in English and Bengali too, in other timings. It was around 5.30 then. We went to the Esplanade Metro station to catch a Metro till, ShyamBazar, and from there took a taxi to reach ISI campus. Now the end of the day.

Started from ISI on 7th 6 AM, to catch the train scheduled at 7.25 AM. Now reached back to Hyderabad on 8th around 10.30AM. :).. Thats all a short description about our Kolkata trip .. :)...