S Sriraman, 30 – Wedding Photographer, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Mr.Sriraman is a wedding photographer and a self-made man. After finishing with his degree and M.B.A, he felt listless and passionless about the prospect of being a desk-bound employee. So, he picked up his first camera (A Nikon D90) and enrolled in a short course, after which he decided to be a wedding photographer. Ten years on, he runs a thriving business and his studio, employing a small team.
Sriraman’s favorite way of taking time out to relax is long-distance cycling. He’s completed a continuous 600-kilometer journey from Chennai to Trichy and back as part of the famous Brevet des Randonneurs Mondiaux, a long-distance cycling event for which he holds a title. In Chennai’s cycling community, he met Mr.Balaji, a DATRI Blood Stem Cell Donor Registry’s co-ordinator (and a favourite for most donors). When he found out that he was a match, Balaji was the first he went to for advice.
“I had heard so many scary stories about people’s organs and tissue being misused in hospitals and it was a great comfort to find that DATRI would be the sole party handling my Blood Stem Cells. Balaji told me many stories about other donors and how they’d breezed through everything. I’m married with a five-year old daughter and my beneficiary was just nine years old. I couldn’t help but connect to the child’s parents and that really motivated me to go ahead.”
Sriraman notes that more than him, his family members had to take the bigger leap of faith. They were almost unshakeable in their fears about this never-before-heard-of (for them) procedure. “I’d gone to meet around 2-3 doctors, all general physicians that I trusted, to ask them about Blood Stem Cell Donation. I showed them some videos of PBSC I’d found on the net, but they had no idea about it.” Naturally, Sriraman’s family was feeling a little unsettled, but at the same time, their empathy for the beneficiary was too overpowering to ignore. “At the end, they all agreed only because they felt very strongly about the child’s well-being.” His wife, mother and child came to the hospital to accompany him for the hours-long intravenous procedure. “Up to the last day, they were feeling very protective about me. As the time went by in the hospital, we felt more and more at ease, because DATRI was so transparent and so communicative. They had prepared us for everything, and the doctor patiently answered all my questions and quelled our anxieties.”
Sriraman took a total of a month off from cycling just “to be on the safe side”, so as not to tire himself out before and after his donation. He wanted to make a transition back to physically-strenuous work life as smooth as possible. He was also glad that he could schedule his work commitments around his intravenous procedure and GCSF injections, making everything very convenient. When the Blood Stem Cell Donation was over, he couldn’t believe that all he felt was just a very mild headache that didn’t get in the way of his job. So scared had he been of potential side-effects and the unfamiliarity of it all, that from time to time, he checks himself just to make sure.
“I am really proud of myself, rather, I feel very privileged that I had the chance to be able to save a young child from the clutches of a disease that I don’t know much about,” says Sriraman, “I am eager to see how the child is doing and can’t wait for the donor-meet.”
You can also become someone’s lifesaver like Mr.Sriram, all you have do is register with DATRI and become Blood Stem Cell Donor.
DATRI is a Not-for-Profit organization that was founded in 2009 with a mission to save lives of those suffering from life-threatening fatal blood disorders like Blood Cancer, Thalassemia, Leukaemia, Aplastic Anaemia, Sickle Cell Anaemia, etc
DATRI is registered with the Government of India as a Section 8 organization and all monetary contributions towards DATRI are subject to 80G exemptions
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