After three long months of hospital visits, the doctors finally decided to do a scan. We never saw the report; it was kept for the doctor’s reference, maybe for the ENT surgeon as well. We weren’t told what they saw or suspected, only that surgery had to be scheduled. Within a week, a date was set, and my grandma was admitted around March 10, 2023.

They tried to take her to the OT several times, but her blood pressure wouldn’t cooperate. It kept spiking, sometimes reaching 160/110 or even higher. Fear, anxiety, and her long history of hypertension all played a part. The doctors blamed salt, saying her years of diet might have caused the spikes. Maybe there was some truth in that, but deep down, we knew this wasn’t about salt. This was fear, pain, and uncertainty all building up in one body, being poked and prodded without real answers.

They still didn’t know what the lump was. The FNAC might have shown some abnormal cells, maybe even hints of cancer, but no one confirmed it. They just said it couldn’t be properly identified until it was removed and sent for biopsy. So we waited again, this time inside the hospital, spending a whole week moving my grandma between a private semi-suite and the OT room, back and forth every day.

By then, we had already spent over a lakh rupees, and nothing had really happened. It was all pre-procedure costs, scans, and hospital charges, but still no surgery, no clarity, and no progress. My grandma was exhausted, both physically and mentally. The lump had grown so large that it was impossible to hide; it stretched her skin, obvious and large, almost demanding attention from the people who kept overlooking it.

After about a week, the surgeon finally said what should have been said months ago: she should be transferred to an Employee State Insurance (ESI) hospital in Bangalore. It’s a government-funded facility where, with the right documents, patients can receive proper treatment and medicines for free. So after all that time, money, and trauma, they referred her elsewhere. It felt like being handed off, as if all those months of effort had led not only to the start of something new but also to starting over.

After the referral, the real marathon began. Around April 2023, after nearly twenty days of running around the ESI Corporation, we finally got her entitlement approved. That meant she could now access medical benefits, sickness and extended sickness benefits, and even super-speciality care as an inpatient. On paper, it looked like progress. But the process was anything but easy.

Getting anything done at ESI required patience that most people don’t have. My aunt, who handled most of it, had to take repeated leaves from her job. Every day off meant a salary cut, and she lost a lot of money trying to make sure her mother got the care she deserved. It was endless paperwork: go to this ward, then that ward, come tomorrow, bring more documents, stand in line again. By the end, we had submitted Xerox copies of almost every document that ever existed in my grandma’s life.

At that time, I was in my fourth year of dental school. I couldn’t be there for her when she needed me most, and that guilt weighed heavily on me. My mom was there, though. Always. Along with my aunt and my other grandma. They were the ones who carried the whole process on their backs. The rest of the family, especially the men, didn’t care much about the paperwork or the waiting. They only showed up during the surgery or afterwards, when things were already done. But the hardest part—the exhausting queues, the hours spent standing beside other sick families, the constant running from one counter to another—was handled by the women in my family.

After nearly three weeks of this—early mornings and late evenings spent under flickering tube lights in government hallways, signatures and stamps and photocopies that blurred together—we finally got approved. My grandma was now officially “entitled to benefits.” It sounded so bureaucratic, so cold. But for us, it meant hope. A door finally creaked open after months of being shut.

Once my grandma was admitted under the ESI benefits, the tone changed. For the first time, the doctors started telling us what they were actually doing. They referred her for a PET scan and a CT scan, which finally felt like real steps. When the results came, even though nobody could yet say exactly what the lump was, we did know one thing: it wasn’t spreading. There was no metastasis. That single fact, that it hadn’t gone anywhere else, was our first breath of relief in months.

Still, every oncologist and ENT surgeon who saw her said the same thing in different words: the mass had to be removed. Only then, with a full biopsy, could they tell us exactly what it was and how to treat it. That was the final decision from all the scans: take it out first, ask questions after.

By now, life at home had become unbearable for her. The lump had grown so large that everyone stared. She could feel it pressing against her jawline. Speaking became difficult. Even going to public functions was a torment because people always asked what was wrong, and she didn’t even know what to say. She would sit and whisper to us, “Why this, at my age? Why do I have to suffer like this? Why is it growing?” again and again. It had started as something she thought was a small cold sore or cyst, and now no scarf or collar could hide the swollen glands bulging from her neck.

Along with the swelling, there were symptoms like hypertension, discomfort, and difficulty speaking. Yet, after the ESI referrals, at least we had some answers. The doctors were cooperative and clear. I remember sitting in one of those sessions with the oncologist. He said the lesion on the left side of her thyroid cartilage measured about 4 to 6 cm. It had been swelling for at least six months. The only option was a total thyroidectomy. He couldn’t tell if it was benign or malignant yet, but he did say the word “cancerous.”

She had been on hypertension medication for 15 years, and even now her blood pressure swung wildly. But at least, for once, we weren’t lost in a maze of guesses. The oncologist noted there was no pallor, no icterus, no cyanosis, no clubbing, no lymphadenopathy, and no edema. We held on to every one of those “no’s” like they were lifelines.