02/09/2025
“AURORA” – A story beyond medicine
It was a cold evening in 2014. I had just finished dinner and stepped into my backyard, lost in thought, when my phone rang. The number started with +44....... it was a call from the UK. I immediately realised that it's a call for a young boy, one of the patients whom I had seen during the day.
Hello......I responded....... Hello sir, came a woman's voice, then, silence! After a few seconds I again said....hello! Again an uncomfortable silence. For a moment I thought that there is a connection issue, but surely I heard someone sobbing on the other side....unable to speak!
The lady on the other side was mother of 13 year old boy whom I had diagnosed recently with a high grade sarcoma.....a very aggressive form of soft tissue cancer!
I held the phone patiently till the lady could gather herself. Another minute or so passed. In this 1 minute, last 3 days replayed in front of my closed eyes....
3 days earlier this young boy was brought to my OPD by her aunt from Nadiad....a nearby town. In search and pursuit of better life, the kids' parents had migrated to the UK illegally when the boy was just 1 year old hoping to bring him later. However the destiny had some other plans and that union never happened. Over next 12 years they could never come to India and their son was raised by the uncle and aunt. And now, he was diagnosed with cancer!
Boy had a rapidly growing lump in the leg. His scans indeed were concerning of this being a cancer. A biopsy confirm that this tumour was high grade malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumour ( MPNST ). A type of cancer which arises in nerves.
Worse, his PET scan showed widespread lung metastases—over 20 nodules in both lungs. This technically makes it a stage 4 cancer.........the one which cannot be cured!
Next day I had explained this to his uncle and aunt: “Treatment may only prolong life briefly but will cause immense suffering. Palliative care may be kinder."
Hello......sir, I came back to my senses.....I heard the voice of a whimpering mother whose guilt was so profound that thousands of miles away on a phone I could sense it!
Guilt of not able to give that motherly love to her son...guilt of not being there to hug him, pamper him, feed him, consoling him when he was crying, participating in his joys and achievements, guilt of not being there when he needed her in small and big issues and now, not being there when he needed her the most! Guilt of being selfish was killing her!
Sir.....please do something. I don't want to lose my son....She barely managed to speak.
I paused, choosing my words carefully. “Mrs Patel, your son has stage 4 cancer. Even with the harshest treatment, his survival chances are barely 2%. He will suffer, and it may not change the outcome.”
Her tone shifted—not loud, but fierce: “I don’t understand your statistics. I’m a mother. I want my son treated. Whatever the outcome, whatever the pain.” Then she added, “I’ve arranged my deportation. I’m flying to Ahmedabad tomorrow.”
The day after, the lady in her late 30s, sat across from me—exhausted, eyes swollen. She had just met her son after 12 years. Life can be brutally poetic.
I tried once again, gently, to explain the futility. But she cut me off: “Sir, my son is not your statistical subject....he is not a number. He is a living individual, a human, my son. Why are you so sure he can’t be one of the two who survive?”
In that moment, something shifted in me. I agreed to try. It was now my turn to re- program my brain to venture into a no- go zone! After doing my own bit of research, a plan was charted down for his treatment.
Three major surgeries: one to remove the leg tumour, and two to clear nodules from both lungs. Then chemotherapy. Then radiation. A team of specialists—all hesitant at first—eventually came together.
Eight gruelling months. The boy fought through every surgery, every chemo cycle, every scan. Not a single major complication. It felt as though an unseen force guided us.We had done everything we could. Treatment completed.
And then… we waited.
The first scan. No disease.
Three months later. Still clear.
Six months. One year. Two. Five.......
Each time he walked into my clinic, my heart skipped a beat. But cancer never returned.
It’s now been 11 years.
He’s a grown man now, working in finance. He recently moved to Canada—legally this time.
And just last week… he walked into my clinic for a routine follow-up.
Tall. Confident. Smiling, in his hand—a cup of my favourite Canadian coffee.
I just looked at him—healthy, alive and rocking! The same boy whom science had nearly written off.
The boy who once told me, with calm conviction: “I’m grateful I got this cancer. Because it brought my mother back.”
And in that quiet moment—coffee in hand, heart full—I realized:
Maybe it wasn’t just science that saved him.
Maybe it was a mother’s guilt, turned into courage and love that refused to give up.
And maybe… in the vast, uncertain field of medicine, we don’t always need proof. Sometimes, all we need is a faith so strong that it pierces the darkest night.
Just like the Aurora—unexpected, breathtaking, and lighting up the sky when you least expect it—his survival reminded me that hope can appear in the unlikeliest of places.
Dr. Mandip Shah
Sparsh Orthopedic Oncology and sarcoma clinic - Ahmedabad
