It’s the wee hours of the morning and Mumbai is simply starting to open its eyes.
In a bungalow within the coronary heart of the town’s Chembur suburb, a gaggle of individuals are gathered across the breakfast desk, their eyes puffy and swollen. Sleep has been elusive.
When little Vanshika felt sick following her chemotherapy session, it wasn’t solely her mom who stayed up by the night time. The others all chipped in. Thus the drained eyes.
This morning, everybody’s glad that Vanshika is feeling higher. As breakfast is doled onto their plates, the stress of the previous few days lies forgotten.
At first look, anybody would assume the group is a ‘close-knit’ household. “You’ll be able to name them that,” says Ankeet Dave, one-half of the duo that began Entry Life in 2014.
Since its inception, the not-for-profit organisation has been offering multidisciplinary supportive care to households who go away their properties to move to numerous hospitals throughout the nation for his or her youngster’s most cancers therapy which frequently spans months or years.
Throughout this time, Entry Life’s eight centres — three in Mumbai and one every in Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Bengaluru and Manipal — witness love at its finest, notes Girish Nair, the opposite half of the duo behind this noble initiative.
“It’s stunning to observe the strains between faith, language and caste blur, because the households unite to combat one battle towards a faceless opponent. The topmost precedence is the restoration of the youngsters. Every little thing else comes secondary,” he notes.
Girish and Ankeet see reduction etched on the mum or dad’s faces when they’re advised that they are going to be sharing the area with others going by the identical ordeal. It’s an undoubted anaesthetic to what would in any other case be a lonely and harrowing expertise.
Take for instance Vanshika’s mom.
As soon as wrought with concern when her daughter would develop chills and fever throughout her chemotherapy periods, she now consoles the opposite moms. “It’s simply the medicines taking a toll. It should cross off,” she could be heard saying.
In the meantime, Vanshika is somewhat ray of hope to the opposite youngsters within the early levels of most cancers therapy. They return her smile. If she may get higher, they know they may too.
For a lot of households like Vanshika’s, the centre has been a staunch assist by their hardest instances. After they arrived in Mumbai for the primary time in December 2023, their minds have been clouded with uncertainty.
It was surreal to assume that only a year-and-a-half in the past, their lives had been an image of happiness when Vanshika was born. However this pleasure had been substituted with fear ever since her mom noticed a slight swelling on the one-year-old’s abdomen. A bunch of physician’s appointments awaited them. Every claimed the identical factor — Vanshika had a tumour. She wanted surgical procedure.
The “life-altering” prognosis noticed the household head to the famed Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. The hospital offers glorious therapy to most cancers sufferers at a subsidised fee, making it the primary alternative of many.
This excessive turnover means mother and father typically have to attend for hours to get their youngster a session. Keep in mind that these are individuals who have left their lives in rural India behind and don’t have a spot to reside. Like them, Vanshika’s household knew that perhaps the sidewalk outdoors the hospital can be their dwelling for the following few months.
However then a social employee advised them about a bungalow in Chembur which might host them free of charge. So far, the household stands indebted to Ankeet and Girish for giving them a roof and a lot love as they handled life’s curveballs.
All of it started with a thought
The story of Entry Life is a corollary of the ‘butterfly impact’, you’d agree. In 2012, a finance administration skilled (Girish) and a media skilled (Ankeet) met throughout a undertaking. The Mumbai-based duo quickly grew to become quick pals.
Their conversations revolved round doing one thing within the volunteering area and it was throughout one in every of their visits to a paediatric most cancers hospital that Girish and Ankeet noticed month-old infants being administered heavy chemotherapy medicine.
This “eye-opening” expertise fuelled in them a want to succeed in out. “We simply needed to do one thing good for youngsters who had most cancers,” Girish shares. Whereas donating beds and serving to with funds was initially what they thought-about, an interplay with a social employee launched them to a a lot bigger difficulty that wanted consideration — housing.
She pointed to the scores of people that go for a nomadic life-style outdoors the hospital whereas their youngsters endure therapy. “They don’t have another choice,” she stated. The duo was appalled. As Girish factors out, “This shouldn’t be the case. Chemotherapy considerably compromises the immunity of the youngsters. Think about dwelling on the road throughout a time when they need to be given utmost care. It will increase the possibilities of secondary an infection.”
Additional conversations with these households revealed that these uncomfortable dwelling situations compound their different stresses, ultimately resulting in them abandoning the therapy altogether.
“If solely there have been a spot for these mother and father to reside whereas their youngsters recovered.”
And with this thought, Entry Life was born.
The concept of doing one thing so noble was exhilarating. However Ankeet and Girish hadn’t accounted for his or her lack of information within the growth sector. “As we started to grasp, it wasn’t going to be as straightforward as renting out a spot for these folks to reside after which going again to our jobs,” Ankeet says.
This primary dawned on the duo when their request for an area was met with a sequence of rejections. However they stored knocking on doorways till 9 months later, one lastly opened. Right now, the Gurunanak Centre in Chembur remains to be operational and the one they’re most pleased with.
One would surprise how two guys of their thirties — a part of life when one is getting settled — raised funds for a non-profit. “Girish bought one of many flats he owned,” Ankeet says, noting that his good friend shies away from mentioning this.
Eight households discover their dwelling
By the years the Entry Life centres have been aware of miracles. They watch carefully as bonds are shaped, and friendships are solid as youngsters get higher and go dwelling. As new households arrive, they proceed to hope that life can be as type to their youngster.
At the moment, 140 households reside throughout the centres whereas a complete of two,000 youngsters have benefitted by Entry Life’s initiatives. Irrespective of how robust the day has been with chemotherapy periods and drug trials filling their schedules, the mother and father and youngsters stay up for the evenings.
Laughter and pleasure cease by on the centre, generally within the type of occasions which can be held, different instances within the type of toys and video games which can be distributed.
Illness doesn’t dictate the phrases at these centres, hope does.
It’s heartwarming, Ankeet and Girish categorical, that the mother and father who have been as soon as misplaced within the chaos, are actually assured that they will overcome something. The duo urge them to make themselves at dwelling and recall the preliminary days of organising — determining which utensils they will need to have; which facilities are wanted and discovering a caretaker as effectively. It was a studying curve, not only for the duo but in addition for the households.
“They arrive from completely different elements of rural India the place they cook dinner utilizing firewood. A few of them have by no means operated a gasoline. So, we needed to educate them find out how to do it,” says Ankeet. The duo nonetheless recall when on the primary day, one mum or dad enquired if there was farmland close by. “Clearly, there wasn’t. We then understood that he needed to alleviate himself however didn’t know find out how to use the toilet in the home, which we rapidly taught him.”
A secure area for the little bravehearts
The households settled in and the good friend duo was glad that lodging was a giant load taken off their minds. However, the months forward revealed the need of a holistic answer. In time, they started supplying groceries to the centre, encouraging the households to cook dinner in response to their dietary and regional preferences and likewise launched the transport arm of Entry Life.
Elaborating on this, Ankeet says, “We realised that these households didn’t manage to pay for to go back and forth from the hospital to the centre. Whereas they might resort to public transport, this wasn’t supreme for the youngsters who have been present process chemotherapy.”
Right now, their personal autos guarantee the youngsters and their mother and father can journey in consolation.
Whereas the households are cared for effectively right here, you will need to observe that they’ve a life ready for them again of their respective villages. What occurs to that?
That is the place Entry Life’s Emotional and Psychological Help (EPS) programme is available in. It equips households with sensible methods to take care of the misery created by the illness. It’s about conserving the youngsters engaged with academic periods in order that they don’t miss out on faculty, and instructing the mother and father new abilities that may very well be a supply of livelihood once they return to their respective hometowns after their youngster’s lengthy therapy, the duo explains.
Pointing to 1 instance, Ankeet recollects the instance of a mum or dad who used to run a puri bhajiya (a quick meals stall) stall in Siliguri, West Bengal.
“When he got here to reside at our centre for his youngster’s therapy (which lasted six months), he needed to promote his cart again dwelling. He was anxious about what would occur to his livelihood. However throughout his time right here, he learnt find out how to make vada pav and began promoting! The enterprise was an enormous success,” he provides.
Girish pitches in with one other heartwarming story. “One of many mother and father was a soldier who stop and got here to our Mumbai centre when his youngster was admitted. However within the weeks that adopted, he noticed how effectively his son was being cared for on the centre. That enabled him to return to his obligation peacefully.”
Whereas the duo encourages each mother and father to stick with the kid on the centre, they’re conscious that this isn’t all the time potential and are all the time keen to make exceptions. “If there’s a household that has two youngsters and one is admitted right here and the opposite is an toddler, we ask the household to carry each youngsters to allow them to all reside right here,” Girish shares. They go to nice lengths to make sure that the consolation of the households trumps every thing else.
As they navigate this problem, it’s reassuring to know that somebody is searching for them.
Most cancers warrants a sure trepidation, a sure tiptoeing, a sure foreboding. However the laughter and glad chatter on the Entry Life centres, disagree. For anybody trying in, there’s solely hope to be discovered right here.
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Edited by Padmashree Pande.
