Sai’s Grace Through Test of Illness
I am an American married to a Tamil man from Kodaikanal. In my first years with Swami, I spent a lot of time in Puttaparthi, but later Kodaikanal became the venue for most of the darshan [sight of a holy person] Swami granted me from 1992 until He left His form. In 1998, my daughter was 3 months old when Swami came to Kodaikanal for the month of April. She was born on January 9th and on April 18th (another “9” day) Swami blessed her in a very public way (she was 99 days old). I was in the row closest to the driveway and was bold enough to stand up and lift my daughter high toward Swami who was nearly up the steep slope toward the entrance to His house. I was asking Him repeatedly, in my mind, to bless my daughter and not to embarrass me; after all I was not usually the type of person who stood in darshan. He came over and patted her on her head. Many people on both the ladies’ and the men’s sides were able to see and there was applause and “ahhs” from the devotees.
The year before, in April of 1997, I became pregnant shortly before Swami arrived in Kodai. Years before, I had had a vision that I would have a daughter and that her name was to be Claire. One morning I went to darshan with a short note for Swami: “Am I pregnant with Claire?” and He took it that first day. Later in His visit, during another darshan, He created vibhuti [holy ash] by the motion of His hand and gave it exclusively to me. Very often, Swami gives a little bit [vibhuti] to many people and then flicks His fingertips with the left over vibhuti over someone else. I knew instinctively that this vibhuti was meant mostly for my developing fetus as well as for me, and I saved some for my husband who was not in darshan that morning. Even more grace descended on May 4th when Swami allowed our Kodaikanal singing group, of which I was a part, to sing for Him!
So, there were many signs and blessings from Swami surrounding this first child of mine. You can imagine my incredible despair and shock when she was diagnosed with a serious kidney disease a month before she was three. I was aware even at that time that Swami sends us tests, particularly sometimes when we’ve received much grace. But, I was not prepared for the fear and anger that the diagnosis brought. The first week into the “journey” I remember sitting with a large photo of Swami propped up in a chair opposite me, spending the hours of Claire’s nap-time, sitting and talking with Him, sobbing, asking why this was happening, and begging Him to heal her right away. Of course that did not happen and the road ended up being long, varied, and in the end, enriching.
The normal course of treatment for the disease is high doses of prednisone. The prednisone manages only the symptoms, not the cause of the disease, but the doctors said that sometimes children grow out of the problem after puberty. When she was first diagnosed, I agreed to the usual protocol and almost could not live with my child due to the emotional and physical side effects. When she experienced a second flare of the disease, I contacted our pediatrician, who practiced only five minutes away, and asked if there was any alternative way of using the prednisone (I should mention that I was pregnant again and only two months from delivery and could not imagine living through another round of prednisone therapy).
He was very supportive and worked with me in using what we later termed “homeopathic doses of prednisone.” We used many alternative treatments. This pediatrician was licensed in acupuncture and saw Claire once a week for nearly two years. Two dear friends from the ashram who are trained in homeopathy made her remedies targeted specifically to her kidneys. We were introduced to a number of holistic practitioners in the New York area where we live most of the year and they were all very helpful. And, with the support her immune system received, we found a way to manage her illness with much smaller doses of allopathic medicine. My strong belief in Swami led me to follow an unconventional trail rather than working only with the pediatric nephrologists. Once my initial shock wore off I asked Him to help me find the answers we needed.
Once a year we would see a pediatric nephrologist because the illness was serious. When Claire was just six, a little over three years into her illness, we saw a doctor who felt that she was experiencing too many episodes and recommended chemotherapy. Coincidentally, around the same time, my husband was in India and met a woman who had just come from intensive training at an ayurvedic [traditional medicine] hospital in Kerala and highly recommended the doctor there. We were getting ready to make our yearly trip to Kodaikanal (we live there about two months every year during April and May) and my husband made a reservation for us to stay at the hospital. I told the pediatric nephrologist that we were going to India for two months and I would let him know if I was in agreement with chemotherapy when we returned.
By the time we reached the ayurvedic hospital, I was exhausted from trying so many alternative therapies and terrified at the thought of chemotherapy for my little girl. I was quite skeptical when I sat with the doctors at the hospital for the first time since I knew nothing of ayurveda. They took no offense and actually did not promise to cure my daughter. They acknowledged that it was a complicated disease. We settled her into a strange routine of consuming freshly-made herb mixtures a number of times a day (they were quite bitter for a six year old to take) and daily ayurvedic massages with special herb-infused oils. Within three days, I felt a deep, intuitive certainty that if we could commit to the treatment, this was the answer we were looking for. We ended up staying fifteen days that first trip with another two visits in later years for follow-up.
It felt like Swami had personally sent us to the ayurvedic hospital in the nick of time. A few days into our stay, I suddenly realized that there were instrumental bhajans [devotional songs] playing in all the halls, so quietly as to be almost imperceptible. Also, the owner of the hospital was the brother of someone whose marriage Swami had conducted personally. But, most importantly, there was a small sign on the narrow hospital road indicating a nearby Sai Center that was also a Sai school. The sign was tiny, but the very first time we drove there, my eye was drawn to it. I later thought that Swami must have turned my head because that sign would have been easy to miss. It felt like Swami was leading us directly to that hospital at a time when I was most skeptical, afraid, and exhausted.
A week or so into our stay, I ventured forth to find the Center. It was literally just down the street (a few minutes walk) and I was able to attend bhajans and go to see Swami’s photo whenever I felt the need.
My daughter was not cured right away, but over a number of years of taking the ayurvedic herbs three times a day she needed less and less prednisone and had fewer and fewer episodes of the kidney disease. Needless to say, we never needed to consider chemotherapy again. By the time she was 8 ½ she had her last dose of prednisone, many years before reaching puberty!
When I look back over the entire story of her disease, I felt that Swami had not only given her extra grace to mitigate the disease (most people never knew she was sick and Claire experienced far fewer symptoms and far less medicine than other children we met with the disease), but His divine hand led us in all the right directions to the people who could help us. She is 13 ½ today and still in remission.
Sai Ram!
~Nina Sukumar, USA
