Wednesday 27 April 2016

Meeting Dr. Rupin Shah in Lilavati Hospital - Mumbai

Our Delhi and Kolkata trips were informative but not pleasing. Our next destination was Mumbai and target specialist to meet was Dr. Rupin Shah. He was a visiting faculty/consultant in some clinic/hospital in Bangalore in 2014 but he wasn't visiting Bangalore in May or June that year; that forced us to make some travel plans. My DH likes to call such trips as "Medical Tourism", although it is within our country itself.

Anyway, we called and took next feasible appointment with Dr. Rupin Shah (Consultant Andrologist and Microsurgeon, Centre for Male Reproductive and Sexual Medicine, Lilavati Hospital and Research Centre, Bandra West, Mumbai). We flew to Mumbai 16 hours prior to our appointment and also emailed him our reports (we had briefly discussed our case with him over the phone, as they think out-station patients deserve to clarify few things before travelling to Mumbai).

Reaching the hospital an hour in advance is always a good idea. There's a One-time Registration done for Rs.100 and I fail to recall Dr. Shah's consultation fee. Everything is quite organized there; however the only tricky part was dropping one's prescription paper (which later gets attached to your file) in a letter-box type enclosure attached to the doctor's cabin door. That way, your turn may not come as per your sequence in queue, but randomly, by chance/luck/probability. Since there weren't many patients waiting at around 9:30AM on a weekday, we met up with him well within the "waiting time at a clinic" norm.

His advices were :-
1. Attempting a microsurgery (Varicocelectomy and Biopsy) to fix Bilateral Varicocele Grade - III
2. Using Artificial Donor Insemination (ADI)

We were so convinced with his confidence on fixing the Bilateral Varicocele that I almost got my DH admitted in the hospital on the spot, with no family or friends around to bank on for any help. Then we both took individual 10-minute time-off to virtually walk-through the whole thing. Fortunately, we agreed to "not taking hasty decisions" again and immediately went back to meet Dr. Shah to ask the Percentage of Success in such cases.

By his vast experience, he concluded that the TESE could have destroyed any plausible chances of natural sperm generation; his final advice was to take a chance with Varicocelectomy. We had already collected all possible details required for the microsurgery in those 10 minutes. After hearing the dreaded phrase “take a chance", we told Dr. Shah that we need to re-think and take advice of our parents too, and pushed off from there. Dr. Shah had patience; he quietly listened to all our concerns and fears and gave unbiased advice. He was quite affable too.

We faced disappointment in Mumbai as well. Since we had planned a 3-day trip, we continued with our plan after spending nearly 3 hours in Lilavati Hospital. In those two and half days, we explored Mumbai as much as possible and had good fun. It isn't just the disappointments which get hard-wired on your memory, good things too are a part of it; the key is to strike the balance to stay happy and positive. That's why we never miss an opportunity to enjoy life in spite of the tough situation we were facing.

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