23.When Faith Overruled Fear: The Night That Saved Shashank

 

The year was 2012. Shashank, my nephew, was about six-and-a-half years old. He had cough, cold, and fever — something so common, especially when viral infections are around. Normally, with a few days of medication, children bounce back. So initially, there was no great cause for worry.

2.      But Pooja being Pooja, she never treated anything casually. She would personally take charge — balancing allopathic medicines with home remedies, carefully managing side effects, and ensuring that symptoms did not aggravate. She had, over the years, become deeply knowledgeable about the human body and its responses. After all, this was the same woman who had tirelessly managed her husband’s chemotherapy and all its painful side effects with remarkable strength and precision.

3.      Pooja and her husband were both banking professionals posted in Gujarat. Back in 1991, when their first son was born, they had relied on Jyoti’s parents to care for the child while she resumed work after maternity leave. Everything seemed perfect — after all, what could go wrong when a child is under the loving care of his own grandparents? But life had other plans. When the time came to admit him to school in Vapi, they arranged for a babysitter to take care of him after school hours. One day, the child fell sick. What began as a simple illness soon turned mysterious. Communication gaps, unfamiliar surroundings, and a growing dependence on beliefs and practices that Pooja was not entirely aligned with — all of it created a situation where, despite trying various treatments in well-known hospitals, they could not save their son. He passed away at just five-and-a-half years old.

That loss was not something that could ever fade.

4.      So when Shashank fell ill at the age of six in 2012, those painful memories came rushing back. Fear took over logic. This time, Pooja and her husband placed complete faith in the doctors.

5.      They were living near us in Kharghar then. When Pooja called me and said that Dr. Moralwar had diagnosed Shashank with a disease called “Kawasaki” and that an injection costing ₹40,000 in cash was urgently required, I was taken aback. I could not believe it. I rushed to the hospital immediately.

6.      There I saw Shashank — my little nephew — lying on the hospital bed with an IV drip. He looked alert, his face did not reflect any severe distress, and yet he had been admitted and was being given glucose intravenously. I was shocked. I questioned — why an IV when the child could eat normally? But Pooja and her husband were in a different state of mind. They looked defeated, almost resigned, as if history was about to repeat itself.

But something within me refused to accept that.

7.      I immediately thought of Dr. Shenoy, an MBBS general practitioner based in Goregaon East, about 43 kilometers away from Kharghar. He was known to see nearly 300 children a day and was regarded by many as nothing less than a God’s messenger for the poor in the Goregaon-Malad area. I had trusted him completely with my own children throughout their growing years. Based on my own experience and understanding of his treatment approach, I felt strongly that we must seek his opinion before proceeding with such a serious diagnosis and expensive treatment for a disease we had barely even heard of.

8.      At around 5:30 pm, I called his clinic and explained that we would be travelling from Kharghar and might reach by 8 pm. Then I turned to Pooja and told her to inform the hospital that we were taking Shashank out. But she hesitated. Her fears were valid. What if the hospital refused to take him back later? What if something went wrong? What if this was destiny, and no doctor could change it? She was caught between fear and faith — and fear was winning.

9.      At such moments, my husband has always been my pillar of strength. When I told him that I wanted to take Shashank to Dr. Shenoy, he did not question me. He simply said yes and got ready to drive.

10.    Time was slipping. I urged Pooja to sign the hospital form — “Discharged Against Doctor’s Advice.” With a heavy heart, she did. We carried Shashank, still with the IV port in his tiny hand, and began our journey to Goregaon. Traffic was terrible. Reaching by 8 pm seemed impossible. I called the clinic again and informed them we would be late — around 9 pm. To our relief, they assured us they would wait.

11.    When we finally reached, Dr. Shenoy saw us immediately. He examined Shashank calmly and then said something that changed everything in that moment — “There is nothing to worry. It’s a viral flu. The child is hungry. Feed him.”

12.    He gave a simple dose of medicine, packed a few more, removed the IV port, and said, “Free the child. He will be alright.”

That was it.

No panic. No complicated diagnosis. No expensive injection.

Just clarity. Just experience.

We stepped out of the clinic around 10:30 pm. All of us were hungry. We stopped at our sister’s house in Powai and had a simple meal of curd rice. But that night, that simple meal felt like a celebration. There was relief, there was gratitude, there was quiet joy.

We returned home — and we never went back to that hospital again.

13.    That was in 2012. Today, in 2026, Shashank is a healthy 21-year-old young man. And not once did we face any such health scare again.

14.    Later, out of curiosity, we looked up what “Kawasaki disease” actually was. It turned out to be a rare but serious condition affecting children, involving inflammation of blood vessels, often requiring prompt treatment. It is part of a broader category called vasculitis — disorders involving inflammation of blood vessels, which can affect various organs. The disease was first described in detail by a Japanese pediatrician, Tomisaku Kawasaki, in 1967, after observing several such cases.

Reading about it on the internet could easily make any parent panic.

15.    But our experience taught us something invaluable.

No matter what we read or hear, nothing replaces the reassurance, judgment, and experience of a trusted doctor whom we can meet in person.

Sometimes, fear magnifies situations beyond reality.
And sometimes, faith — combined with the right guidance — brings us back to truth.

That night, it was not just a doctor who treated Shashank.
It was faith, courage, and timely action that saved us from making a decision we might have regretted forever.