A Doctor who has been a Medical Messiah for us

My father is almost 86, he has been living with some chronic diseases in a small town called Mandi in Himachal Pradesh after his retirement. He got diagnosed with CKD in 2021, largely due to mismanaged or rather unmanaged ( if that's a word) BP and Diabetes during covid period. He had these issues since a long time but both BP and blood sugar had been absolutely under control for close to almost 25 years. In Mandi we neither have an endocrinologist nor a nephrologist. Medical College Ner Chowk, AIIMS Bilaspur (when I last checked) also didn’t have these specialists. Since I have lived all my life in Delhi before we moved to the mountains, the next best option for us was to get in touch with specialists in Delhi. I must start from the very beginning. Around 2020 when Papa was hitting 80, we could see that he was growing weaker by the day but he would not listen to my sister, mother or me when we would ask him to see a doctor and get the tests done. He was checking his BP at home and doing random sugar tests on his own and then justifying one way or the other every high figure of blood sugar to convince himself and us that everything was good. There was no discipline left in his life as far as timings of eating his meals was concerned. His intake had ceased to be balanced and nutritious as they had always been since he was diagnosed with diabetes and then later with BP. Covid had wreaked havoc with his life style. Since there was no routine to be followed, no social life, no meeting with people, no going out anywhere, eating habits became erratic both in terms of timings and the quality of food. My brother in law Dr Satyavrat who papa listens to most also tried his level best to get papa to do some tests but nothing was really working. He needed a thorough examination, change of medications, a discipled eating schedule, we couldn’t get any of that done. One day a very dear friend of mine Dr Suchitra Behl who is a diabetologist and is based out of the US was visiting and i requested her to sit down with my father to figure out what was going on with him. It was a tough task to get my father to talk about his medicines etc. He thought he was doing everything right and we did not have any right to question his judgement or decision. I knew that he had been taking the same medication for years. Though his medicines were prescribed by the best doctors but it was done a long while ago. It needed a review and Suchitra readily agreed to do the initial review. She had a tough task as my father did not even have a prescription that she could refer to but the great thing was that he was willingly talking to her and answered all the questions that she had to ask. He knew about her being a great doctor and that helped. She painstakingly jotted down each and every medicine that my father was taking, spoke to him very patiently and advised him to get some tests done. She told me to talk to Dr Piyush Vaidya who is a very competent MD Medicine in Mandi town. Dr Piyush happens to be my father's very close friend/colleague/cousin's son and he thinks very highly of him too, so readily agreed. Papa was diagnosed with CKD, his test results were all over the place. His blood sugar and BP were not with in the advisable range. Piyush managed papa's case for a while and then advised us to see a nephrologist and an endocrinologist. My hunt for doctors in Delhi started and I went to a couple of very renowned nephrologists for their opinion. The consultations with these doctors were so transactional and mechanical that I didn’t have the heart to go back to them. I was not getting the comfort feel that one needs to have, could not repose faith in whatever these doctors were telling us because they very evidently lacked empathy and did not engage with our unique circumstances where my dad could not travel to be present in person. My dad was just another patient to even the doctors that we thought were either children or friends of family friends. I was complaining to Suchitra about this when she said that we should go to Dr Ritesh Gupta from Fortis C-Doc Delhi. My husband Rakesh Vaidya established contact with him and fixed an online consultation. Our life changed forever after that. Before we knew, Dr Gupta took charge and ownership for my father’s health. Initially for a very long time we needed to talk to him almost every day, as papa was being introduced to insulin to manage his blood sugars and it took a long while and several titrations before it could be managed. He was always just a phone call away. He never rushed any of us whether Rakesh was doing the talking or I was doing the talking. He always listens, understands, empathises, engages and sounds invested. He makes you feel heard and important. When I talk to him, I know he is paying attention and is taking everything as seriously as I am. He sounds as concerned about papa’s problems as I am. He inspires confidence, I feel reassured and have the confidence that my father is in safe hands. It has never happened that he has not responded. I have lost count of the number of calls we have made to Dr Gupta especially those initial days and over the years till today and will make for many many years to come as am sure papa will live 100 years. A private doctor from Delhi who is super busy, working for corporate hospital and is still accessible and listens to you every single time you have a problem and solves it without ever bothering about his consultation fee is like a miracle, we are truly blessed to have him in our life and I sincerely mean this as he is our lifeline when it comes to papa, almost like a medical messiah for us. There is no way we can ever pay him back for his kindness and graciousness. We didn’t know what was the right way to navigate this, we did whatever we could but we haven’t paid him anywhere near enough at all for the amount of calls that we have made to him (still make) in these five years. He hasn’t seen my father but he has been successfully managing his health till date and papa’s creatinine hasn’t really increased since diagnosis. His BP and blood sugar also remains largely within acceptable range. Upon my request he recommended us a nephrologist in Max who we go to in time of need when Dr Gupta tells us. No one can be like Dr Ritesh Gupta. It's not been an easy ride but then it’s not been that tough primarily because we are extremely fortunate to have a doctor who has been making himself available to us almost 24x7, 365 days in a year since we went to him in end of 2021. The turn around time with him is varying from a couple of minutes to a couple of hours in case he is really caught because busy he sure is all the time. I feel we can not be a special case. I am sure, since he is a  person with deep empathy and a kind heart, everyone has a similar experience with him. We as a family, are and shall always be indebted to him for what he has been and still doing for papa. Dr Gupta we are grateful to you and shall always be.