Hello friends,

I, Indra Bhattacharya am driving this cause on behalf of my friend Dhruba Mondal. Dhruba is 31 year old and diagnosed with oesophageal cancer on 17th November 2021. He is currently in Vellore at a private Medical College where he is awaiting radiation therapy, the first stage of his treatment. 

Dhruba is his mother's only child. His father passed away in 2018 while he was still contemplating moving to another city for better job opportunities for an engineer like him. He was also preparing for government jobs alongside working in the corporate sector. 

After his father's death, and being his mother's only child, he stayed back in Kolkata. Though he was constantly trying his luck at the corporate and government sector, his heart was in teaching. So he decided to follow his passion and principles and started home-tuitioning young students from Bengali medium backgrounds to overcome linguistic challenges. Himself from a Bengali medium background, he understood that English was the language of opportunity and he wanted to be the humble provider of that opportunity through teaching. 

But with Covid, things changed rapidly for him, and making a regular, though modest, income from home-tuitioning became challenging. He was almost coping, but now another tragedy struck his family, and this time the victim was my friend Dhruba himself. 

His diagnosis of oesophageal cancer came as a shock to everyone who knew him. But we, his friends and his family, are steering the storm with all the positivity we could muster. After consulting a few doctors in Kolkata as well as considering the cost of treatment, he and his mother decided to go to Christian Medical College in Vellore. The doctors have suggested a treatment procedure spread across three stages.The very first stage of the treatment process will be radiation therapy followed by chemotherapy and the final stage will be surgery to completely amputate the tumour in the esophagus. The only positive side is that the cancer is still within the tumor and has not spread beyond the oesophagus. The radiation, the doctors say, will further prevent spreading of the cancer. 

The overall cost of the treatment excluding surgery is approximately ₹3,50,000.  Dhruba went to Vellore with his total savings of nearly ₹1.5 lakhs and has already spent around ₹1 lakh for various tests along with the lodging and food expenses. Doctors have put forward an approximate cost of surgery which is another 3.5 lakhs.  With the limited funds he is now left with, it is not enough to cover the radiation stage of his treatment. The radiation will take another week to start, but will effectively start once the amount has been deposited. 

So, on behalf of his family and other friends, this is my earnest appeal to all of you to come forward and please help him accumulate the treatment cost to fight this life-threatening disease. 

We, his friend’s group, are trying to collect funds for his treatment but still we are falling way short. So, I would request you all to extend a hand of support to save a young life. 

Target - ₹7,00,000

            Thank you for all of our generous friends. The first phase of his treatment process which is the radiation and chemotherapy have already been started. After the initial complicacy his body has started adapting the high dose of the therapy. Keep supporting us like the same way you all have done so far because Dhruba still has a long way to go.

21st Feb, 2022 : This is to inform all our cofighter friends that Dhruba's first stage of treatment which was radio and chemo therapy has been successfully completed on the last week of January, 2022. According to the doctors his overall response was good. He was undergoing through an array of medical tests including CT-Scan, Covid-19, all different kinds of blood tests, some other pulmonary and cardiac tests where doctors have found satisfactory results. According to them apart from this malignancy and inevitable wieght lose which was the aftermath of radio and chemotherapy there are no other co-morbidity with zero amount of nicotine found in the body (as Dhruba was non-smoker and non-drinker).

   With all these positive parameters and your best wishes he will enter the operation theatre tomorrow where he will be undergoing through a long but laproscopic surgery where his affected esophagus will be amputated from his body. The experienced doctors of Vellor CMC has done this type of operations many times before and after the operation he will be under the strong supervision of them. A deep biopsy will be done and it's result will take at least 20 days to come out. We will inform you once the operation  is done and primary result surfaces.

     Let the almighty be with him and hope for the best. 🙏🙏🙏