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Giving Life and more...
Source:
Radio Sai
E-Magazine, November 1, 2003
http://www.radiosai.org/Journals/05NOV01/TemplesHealing/GivingLife.htm
Talk a while to her,
and you will realize that, 18-year-old Noor is a bright girl. She
never had much of schooling, though. After her fifth class, she
labored as a farmhand, to support the family, to get her older
sisters married. Work in the village fields was never easy for her.
The slightest bit of exertion would lead to bouts of gasping and
palpitations. Fatigue would wear her down, and even eating became
arduous. The doctor in the nearby town sounded the death knell for
Noor, when he said that, she had a serious heart problem- an
obstruction to blood outflow from the heart. How could a family
that earned barely Rs.50 a day, afford a heart surgery that cost
over a lakh? But the very same doctor asked the family to rush to
Baba's Hospital in Puttaparthi (The doctor was a Sai Devotee,
himself!). Today, after her surgery in the SSSIHMS, Noor smiles
and says that she is all set to support her family again. " We owe
it all to Bhagawan. If not for His Hospital, our daughter would
have had no future. I can think of her Nikah now, and get her to
start a family of her own!" says Noor's mother, with a newfound
hope in her eyes. This devout Muslim lady loves Prasanthi Nilayam,
and even attended the Vijay Dashami celebrations, to have the
Darshan of the Lord, who gave her love and hope, though His
Hospital.
Tulasi's pain was
almost unbearable. But even more, was the fact that she could not
cook for her husband and three sons. Tulasi's oldest boy did the
cooking, while she watched and writhed. Her blood pressure
rocketed and she often became breathless. Her husband, a farmer,
spent a fortune to get her angiogram done in the district
hospital, only to find out that her heart was normal. The CT scan
that followed shocked the couple. Tulasi was found to have a
potentially malignant tumor in her kidney- a Pheochromocytoma. The
cost of the operation, in the cancer center at Hyderabad, was far
from affordable. They returned home in despair, to wait for the
possibly life-threatening tumor to take its toll. Tulasi's younger
brother had heard from the "Sai Bhajan Group" in his village,
about a Sai Hospital, where all were treated for free. He came to
Puttaparthi with his sister. Two days of consultation and tests in
the Department of Urology were followed by immediate surgery. The
tumor was excised. Her brother can't hide his joy. "I now know why
they call Him, God! It is like a temple here. The doctors, sisters
and volunteers are so wonderful." The housewife is now happy on
the road to recovery. She just can't wait to get back to her
village in West Godavari and do some cooking!
A kerosene lamp
tipped over on the bed of an 18 day old baby…. "That was the
fateful moment that charred me for a lifetime. I don't even
remember what my face was like, before that!", says Binoy. Binoy's
village in Orrisa did not have even a dispensary, where his
parents could take him, to treat the second-degree burns, on his
face. "Growing up was never easy. I had a very few friends; a
burnt face, without a nose, is unsightly to look at!" Binoy
decided to wait till he was old enough, to undergo a
reconstruction surgery for his nose. He taught students, to earn
money for his college education and also save up for the expensive
plastic surgery that he planned to have. " I went to various
hospital's in my state and saw that the results of reconstruction
surgeries there, were far from good. I had lost all hope of
finding a good surgeon. It was then that I met Sri.Naik, the
Convener of the Sathya Sai Organization in my town. He told me to
go to the plastic surgeon in Baba's Hospital. The word is around
that he is excellent!", Binoy recounts. Today the young software
engineer is grateful to Dr. Reddy, for his skilled hands, and
Swami, for His miraculous Hospital! He smiles with a confidence he
has never known before, and says, "Baba has given me this nose…and
a lot more!"
Chiran is a cherubic
boy from Madhya Pradesh. This smart and active 11-year-old had
trouble catching up with his friends at play. He would sit down
breathless and exhausted when he tired to do so. Father was
devastated to learn that little Chiran had a hole in his heart,
made worse by leak of the adjoining valve. Yadav could not even
dream of earning the exorbitant sum he would have to pay for his
son's operation. At work in the field, the next day, he told his
fellow labourer and friend, Hari Lal, about his son's condition.
Hari Lal revealed that there was a Hospital in South India that
treated totally free, and confessed that he had himself been
operated for kidney stones, in that Hospital! He asked Yadav to
take his son there immediately. Yadav had to save for three months
before finally making it to the 'Free Hospital', with his son.
Today, after his operation, Chiran is all excited and ready to
beat his friends at play. He softly whispers into his father's
ears, " Papa, I want to become a doctor!"…
With tears in his eyes, the father can only exclaim, " This place
is Heaven!"
(Names have been
changed to protect the patients' confidentiality)
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