When I was a 3rd year dental student at Nair Hospital Dental College, we had to study a lot of cysts and tumours, basically benign and malignant ones, in Oral Pathology. Our teacher was a genius by the name of Dr.Ravi Shetty.
The matter was very hard to learn and memorise and one day I asked him in a candid conversation “As a general dentist, do we really have to know all these details in so much depth?”
He said “Technically no. But there will be ONE patient you will see sometime in your life time where you will either regret not having studied them well or thank me for making you.”
That moment came for me 2 years ago when a lady called and said “Doctor I have a huge ulcer on my tongue I cannot eat anything.”
When she came in, I could not see her tongue at all. It was enlarged, inlcerated, crustated and did not look good at all.
Within 30 seconds, I knew it was advanced stage cancer. Which one? Not sure but sure seemed like Squamous Cell CA given the lateral border of the tongue was involved.
I was shocked and became numb but has to gather myself but this was the easy part.
The hard part was telling the patient what I thought she had.
I gently asked for history. It has been this way for over a year now. It smells and hurts and I cannot eat.
I took some photos and shared them with our oral surgeon who confirmed my fears. Definitely a malignancy. Advanced stage.
Typically I go around noon and walk at the far end of Laxmi Road in time for the first or second Manache Ganpati to have made their entry.
This year, I decided to be at the tail end right in the middle of the sea of devotees to see how that experience is, as they are ending the Miravnuk on Laxmi Road.
#Pune
#GanpatiVisarjan2024
#गणेश_विसर्जन
Empty roads and Rangoli welcoming Devotees who start lining up around 2.00 PM for the “Courtside seats”.
As I started walking on Lakdi Pul, the sound of the Dhol Tasha reached my ears and I got the first glimpse of the processsion at the other end in Alka Chowk.
The unique feature of the procession/ मिरवणूक is the specific sequence.
The first five slots are always reserved for the “Manache Ganpati” aka “मानाचे गणपती”.
The order is: 1) Kasba 2) Tambdi Jogeshwari 3) Guruji Talim 4) Tulshibaug 5) Kesriwada
#मानाचेगणपती
Ps. Slight repetition but important for those reading it for the first time.
Patient calls on Tuesday morning in acute pain. See him. Complains of severe pain in the gums adjacent to a lower left premolar. Also unable to eat. Pain starting to radiate to ear.
Normally these are warning signs of a cavity invading the nerve and needs a root canal or extraction.
I took 2 X-rays of the offending tooth and both showed no pathology. The tooth did not respond to any diagnostic tests either.
There was some bruising on the gums which the patient himself attributed to toothbrush trauma.
I wanted to be sure so advised him to get a CBCT aka 3D scan to rule out internal resorption or a fracture. Placed him on an anti inflammatory.
The patient called in the evening stating he was in very acute pain and just not able to eat anything. He was on his way to get a scan.
I put him on a stronger anti inflammatory. I probed a little about temperature sensitivity and he said now having ice cream was providing total relief from pain!
BINGO!
That’s the textbook test to establish diagnosis of partial necrosis aka the nerve was dying. As a result, there are gases formed and that’s the cause of intense pain.
Applying cold to the tooth acts to reduce the intensity and hence provides relief from pain.
But the question of basic cause still was a mystery.
Imagine my surprise when I got the results of the scan and there was a very small cavity in the tooth and a very tall nerve, neither of which were seen on the X-ray.
The scan shows the inside of the tooth from the top, front and side at 1 mm slices. It is also more sensitive and hence was able to detect a cavity not seen on a 2D X-ray.
I got the patient in the next day and started his root canal. Needless to say the nerve was almost dead.
The patient has not had any acute pain since then and was finally able to eat and also get some sleep.
Pune has always had a rich tradition of “Ganpati mandals.” Associated with the same is a history of “Dhol Tasha troupes”.
Schools like Ramanbaug,Numavi and Jnana Prabhodini have had one for a long time. In the early 1990’s, 2 school boys yearned to play in a Dhol Tasha troupe.
They approached their “Shakha Shikshak” with a request to have their own Ganpati mandal, mainly so they can play the Dhol Tasha.
The shikshak agreed to have a 1.5 day Ganpati and the boys were able to get started with their Dhol Tasha dream.
Back then, any such organisations were invariably named after “Shree Ram” and so the “Shree Ram Pathak Charitable trust” was born.
The children raised some funds from their own parents and purchased the first few Dhol Tasha instruments and started practicing.