Kerala, India in the 1920s. My grandmother was giving birth in what I can only imagine was a hot and unventilated birthing room with low-skilled attendants performing her blood transfusion. That day doomed our family.
Fast forward 65 years to the mid-1980s. My father, a pediatrician working in Saudi Arabia, was the youngest of seven siblings. He was feeling hopeless since he could not understand why two of his brothers had succumbed to liver disease and cirrhosis within years of each other – both untimely deaths. Nevertheless, it prompted my dad to collect blood samples from his siblings to find out what exactly was happening. Subsequent blood testing found that five of the seven children had Hepatitis B, including my dad. I was a baby when this revelation became known and of course did not grasp how much this worry paralyzed the family, even years later.
It was not until my third and fourth uncles died when I was a teenager that I became to take notice in the worry that exuded out of my mother. Death had suddenly become so prevalent in my family. My father completely stopped drinking alcohol, became a yogi, and exercised 5 times a week. Every night after dinner like clockwork, he would take his anti-viral medication and drink a glass of water.
On September 19, 2011, I received the fateful news from India. My dad had been diagnosed with stage IV liver cancer (the tumor was 10 cm in diameter) and given 3-4 months to live. Grief and panic is all that I remember of that day. It was decided that he would get treatment in the U.S. Several harrowing months later, my dad was sent home from Baylor Medical Center with 90% of his tumor annihilated and stacks of medical bills in his luggage. It was an (expensive) miracle! In time, my father resumed work again as Medical Director at KIMS Hospital in Kochi. He also began his intense fitness regimen, citing how much he had missed the track. We were all convinced that he would live a long life.
In September of 2013, my father began to experience the similar symptoms of bloating and uneasiness that he felt prior to his initial diagnosis. The cancer had metastasized. The return to Dallas was not as hopeful and neither were his doctors. I will never forget the day he died in the very hospital he gave much of his cancer-ridden life to at KIMS; I was standing with my mother next to him holding his hands and whispering how much I love him.
Despite the anguish I felt the day my father was diagnosed and every day thereafter, I realize why I am in this fight to prevent disease and promote quality of life. While there is no tangible evidence of it, we are convinced the virus infiltrated my grandmother during the blood transfusion which was likely due to the use of unsterilized medical equipment. Granted, this was rural India in the 1920s but even today, millions of people, especially in low- and middle-income countries, are dying due to preventable death – and not just from medical error. I am in public health for this reason. We owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to make health care safe, accessible and affordable to everyone.