Love...the best MEDICINE

Aditha DISSANAYAKE

Doctors say cancer is not just one disease, it's hundreds. And not all cancers are caused by just one agent, a virus or bacterium that could be crushed or flushed. In the absence of a cure the best we can do is provide financial and emotional support to cancer patients and help them live, if not longer, at least happier lives.

The temple provides shelter to out-door patients from far off places

She takes my breath away. Wearing a red, cotton dress, her eyes downcast, her hair tied in a ponytail, she walks behind an elderly lady dressed in a skirt and blouse, to a group of women seated on chairs, who are gazing at the duo walking towards them. I think of the song “If you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world” as I watch her...Surely, this is she.

“Today is our last day here,” explains the elderly woman, touching the shoulder of the girl besides her. “Doctor said her course of injections are over.” “You are lucky,” says one of the women, adjusting the towel wrapped round her head.

“May all the Gods in the world protect you.” The girl falls on her knees and worships the elderly women. She then mutters the conventional farewell, “Gihin Ennam” (I will return). “Don't say that. Don't ever say that” admonishes a lady seated in the far corner. “You must stay well. You must never come back. We pray you will not come back..” A bout of coughing prevents her from saying more.

I watch the girl and the mother, carrying two bags in their hands walk out of the temple gates.

As I wait to meet the Chief Incumbent of the temple for this interview, I too pray to all the gods in the whole universe that this teenage girl who had completed two weeks of treatment at the Maharagama Cancer Hospital, while living with others like her, at the temple adjoining the hospital, need never return.

May the injections she received destroy the cancer cells so that she need never seek treatment at the Cancer Hospital throughout her life - may she look back on this day at the age of eighty and sigh with happy relief the nightmare was as brief as a streak of lightening in the April sky.

Nandawathi's story

I pray for Nandawathi too, who tells me about her illness. She had woken up one morning, some weeks ago, feeling that something was wrong.

She had been having headaches for quite some time, but not of the normal, take-a-Paracetamol-and-you-are-fine type.

These headaches had come with a sort of numbness, and soon she had noticed some other things that were not as they should be.

She was feeling very tired; she simply could not do her daily chores at home.

The building where out-door patients and their relatives reside

When she went to the doctor, he could not tell her what was wrong. He suggested she takes some blood tests and soon she was admitted to the Karapitiya hospital where she was told she had cancer.

Nandawathi knows little about cancer, and nothing about the course of injections she is given at the Maharagama Cancer Hospital.

What she does know, however, is that she will be forever grateful she has a roof over her head and three meals a day during her stay in Maharagama.

“My husband earns a living as a daily paid worker in a rubber estate in Akuressa. My daughter is still at school.

We can't afford to travel to Maharagama everyday from home. And we can't afford to rent a room in Colombo.” She raises her hands to the sky. “God has been kind to give me this place to stay.”

Compassion

Instigated by Ven. Veganthale Rahula Thera in 1982, today the Chief Incumbent of the temple which provides free meals and accommodation for out-door patients who seek treatment at the Maharagama Cancer hospital as well as those who accompany them, is Ven. Henegama Dammadara thera.

“We give accommodation and meals free of charge to villagers from all over the country who have no place to stay when they have to have daily treatment for two or three weeks at the hospital” explains Dharmadara Thera.

They come from as far as Jaffna, Mahiyanganaya, Polonnaruwa, Matara etc.

There are not only Buddhists, but Muslims and Christians too among those who seek shelter in the two storied building looked after by Ven. Dharmadara Thera, together with Ven. Veganthale Seewali Thera, Vice Incumbent and Administrative Director of the Cancer Care Welfare Committee. In spite of the diversity of its residents, inside the four walls of the temple peace and a spirit of camaraderie prevail.

Even when the war was tearing the country apart the temple had done everything possible to look after the Tamil patients from the North and the East. “I was taken to the fourth floor by the CID” recalls Seewali Thera. “They thought when I gave shelter to the Tamil patients and their relatives I was supporting the LTTE.”

Today the temple houses around 90 residents a night. The cost of meals is borne by well wishers. Yet, there are days when the dry rations run out.

“We borrow from the grocery stores and pay them back when we receive a donation,” says Dharmadara Thera.

Ven. Henegama Dammadara Thera, Chief Incumbent of the temple

Ven. Seewali Thera, Vice Incumbent

“We never let any one starve no matter how hard it is to provide them with a meal.”

Seewali Thera talks of the future with a wistful look in his eyes.

He says there is a piece of land right in front of the temple which could be used to construct another building, perhaps with individual rooms, so that the patient and the relative who accompanies him could share a room in place of the large hall and bunk beds in the current building.

Services

As the financial costs associated with cancer are often overwhelming the temple welfare society also buys the medicine needed by some patients and pay for their bus or train fares to travel back and forth from their villages to the hospital.

In addition, the temple also provides services to the in-house patients of the Maharagama Cancer hospital.

These include finding donors of rare blood groups, chanting all night Pirith to fatally ill patients, conducting Bodhi Pooja inside the hospital precincts, donating wheelchairs, fans, beds, mattresses to the wards of the hospital.

Having donned the yellow robes when they were eleven years old both Dharmadara Thera and Seewali Thera believe in doing their best to help the sick and the poor, not through mere sermons but through practical ways. Both believe in helping cancer patients with financial as well as emotional support, because this would help the patients live, if not longer, at least happier lives.

You too can join in, by helping those for whom, Time's Chariot wheels are drawing close, sooner than they need be.

Contact Seewali Thera on 0771459829 to find out how you can help or simply step into the temple right next door to the Maharagama Cancer Hospital at 165, Thallawatta Road, Maharagama.

Donate a bag of dry rations, a carton of yoghurt, a packet of marshmallows...hold their hands, listen, help them adjust to the changes in their lives, torn from their homes and loved ones, living in an alien city, as they battle with this fatal disease.

Remind them, even though cancer can cripple many things, it cannot cripple love.

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