“We were losing hope but what a fighter he turned out to be. Suffering from so many ailments, he battled on all fronts with courage,” said Kinjal Patel, daughter-in-law of Piyush Patel who is suffering from mucormycosis.

The 62-year-old has been fighting against the deadly fungus for last four months with a partially functioning heart and his last CT scan showed that he may have finally started to conquer mucormycosis.

“The fungus has gone down by about 40% in his lungs. His condition is much better and he now moves around at home,” Kinjal, a resident of Gotri, said. But the battle wasn’t easy for Piyush who is suffering from multiple ailments including diabetes and hypertension.

It was in December last year that Piyush was detected with Coronavirus and had to be put on oxygen in the ICU where he spent 28 days. Out of his four weeks stay, 18 days were for Covid treatment and another 10 days for removing water from his lungs. “Just when we thought that he was fine, my father-in-law started feeling breathless and had a bloated stomach in February. We again took him for the check-up and it was then that he was detected with mucormycosis. It was a very new term at that time as there were hardly any mucormycosis cases,” Kinjal explained.

The doctors began treating him but Piyush’s kidney wasn’t functioning normally so he couldn’t be given injections to treat mucormycosis. “He was to be put on dialysis so that the treatment could begin. He was also suffering from liver ascites that caused abdominal swelling. We were really worried if he could endure the treatment with a weak kidney and dysfunctional liver. Between March and April, he was in hospital for 32 days,” said Kinjal.

In April, the doctors suggested surgery to remove the fungus but the Patel family decided against it. “He underwent bypass surgery in 2019 and his heart is functioning only at 40% capacity. Putting him on the surgery table would have been very risky so we decided to continue with the medicines,” she said.

Piyush’s mucormycosis finally started showing a decline towards the end of April. “He is still on home dialysis and taking several doses of medicines. But what a fight he gave to Covid as well as the black fungus,” said Amit Patel, son-in-law of Piyush, who retired from Gujarat Refinery some years ago.

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