Parmeswaran PS is FOM Volunteer of the Month (Nov 2018)
Param (as he is known to friends) recalls how, nearly 15 years ago in February 2004, he was going through a routine medical examination. At the peak of his professional career, happily employed and married to Rema and the father of two little girls, Sangeetha and Swetha, he could hardly have asked for more.
His lean, muscular frame recoiled in shock when the medical examination reports revealed he had leukaemia. He was nonplussed.
Fast forward to today. Busy in his role as Trustee at Friends of Max, and representative at various international forums (e.g. CML Horizons) overseas (Singapore, Germany, Slovenia, Prague), equally at home with the Bangalore City Chapter Leadership group during Chai for Cancer fund-raisers and advocacy speeches and a regular at FOM Leadership Summits in addition to his responsibilities in a private Company in Bangalore. He is on the CML Community Advisory Board as an advocate representing India and this region.
Looking back, he sums up his philosophy of acceptance, endurance and action thus: ‘Day to day, I try not to focus on what my disease is doing, I would rather focus on what my life is doing and then find out where the disease fits inside that – otherwise you become preoccupied with just living to die rather than the other way’.
“When diagnosed I realised that it was my body that got the disease, not the mind”.
As in the case of many with CML, it has given him fresh resolve and renewed strength to set an example for others coping with the disease. Param is a true asset to Friends of Max.
When diagnosed with cancer I had a life of hopes and wanted to live. Through Hope I conquered my fear and turned a life of tragedy into a life of triumph, a mess into a message, fear into faith and a test into testimony.