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Read here the touching tribute from Jackie to a truly inspirational friend who passed recently
And there's more.... Where does she find the energy????
The hands that held the hockey stick
Y Maheswara Reddy First Published : 20 Apr 2011 03:01:16 AM IST Last Updated : 20 Apr 2011 08:50:49 AM IST
BANGALORE: Meet Jacqueline Colaco alias Jackie who keeps smiling despite her physical condition. Jacqueline was a member of the women’s hockey team that represented the erstwhile Mysore State in 1964. None of her friends or relatives imagined that the hands that used to hold the hockey stick would have to hold a walking stick at the age of 40. In 1986, when Jacqueline was 36 she was diagnosed of rheumatoid arthritis. “I developed pain and inflammation in my feet and toes. Dr Theodore R Fields diagnosed my condition as rheumatoid arthritis,” recalls Jacqueline. She underwent a procedure called synovectomy to remove the lumps from her knee joints. Later, she happened to meet Dr Thomas Chandy, her childhood friend. He was in Bangalore to supervise the setting up of HOSMAT Hospital. He offered her a total hip replacement in the US at a nominal rate and she took it. In 1995, she had to quit her job. Meanwhile, she came across several young women suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. She thought of helping such women and thus started Arthritis Foundation in July 1995 at HOSMAT. “I used to do counselling for women suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. We helped many who needed our assistance,” said Jacqueline. She is now busy with programmes that are aimed at creating awareness about arthritis, treatment options and coping mechanisms and even extending financial support to the needy patients. “Many people are aware of arthritis. The need of the hour is to take life as it comes. One should not give in to arthritis and try to lead life as others do,” she says. She participated in the Bangalore wheelchair marathon for three years. As of now, she is the honorary secretary, Association of People with Disability. “I continue to do counselling for those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. I expect the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike authorities to ensure the roads in Bangalore are disabled-friendly,” she says.
Read all about Jackie Colaco's achievements BELOW
She overcame arthritis to help others
- March 21, 2011
Jacqueline Colaco
Troubles can become tragedies only if we let them. Jacqueline Colaco never let her troubles overwhelm her. She saw it as a way of giving in to life's challenges.
She shares this same view of life with the people she works with through her foundation for the arthritis-afflicted.
Jacqueline, or Jackie as she is known, has been living with rheumatoid arthritis for over 20 years. Five years after she was diagnosed with this painful ailment, at the age of 45, she found her calling in reaching out to people with the same affliction.
That’s when she started the Arthritis Foundation (India) whose goal is educating people about this ailment, and raising funds to support those who cannot afford the treatment.
Ms Colaco, at the age of 61, still interacts with around 500 to 1,000 arthritis-afflicted people every year. She shares, “It’s not an easy disease to live with. Excruciating pain which affects mobility and hampers simple, daily tasks can be very difficult to deal with. Deformities may occur, as the nerve endings get exposed. People with arthritis need to be spoken to about their situation and told their options since for many, it might seem like the end of the world.”
Her foundation, which has now completed 15 years, is primarily a one-woman show, with the help of a few doctors who have become friends and the support of her family. Ms Colaco makes it to every meeting, where she shares her experiences and answers questions.
Ms Colaco was a go-getter and an achiever as a young woman. A B.Com gold medalist from Bangalore University, she played hockey for the Mysore State team who were national champions for eight years and was a soloist for the Bangalore Academy Choir. Her job at the bank where she worked for 25 years, saw her posted at their New York branch for four years in the mid 80s.
The signs of arthritis, an ailment her mother too had lived with, began showing up while she was working in New York, but during her visit to India, she was sent back with some medication and no knowledge of the condition.
“It wasn’t until one morning in New York that it hit me. I was 37 years old. I felt stiffness in my feet and couldn't move comfortably. I wasn't sure what was happening to me; soon after, it started to affect my mobility and came in the way of simple everyday tasks, many of which I now cannot do on my own. But I had a choice to either let it push me down or do whatever it takes to fight it. I had four joint replacement surgeries at a young age — two at the knee and two at the waist. The heartening reality is that there is a whole range of medication and treatment options available today,” she added.
Today Ms Colaco still does what she enjoys.
She raises funds through the concert, ‘Sing away the pain’, has written an autobiography that reflects lessons she's learned from life, dabbles in gardening, photography and music. She also takes part in the Bangalore marathon every year, from her wheelchair. Never give up and go ahead with the things you want to do or find new things to add meaning to life, she says.
REPORT AND PICTURES FROM MUMBAI MARATHON 16TH JANUARY 2011
LOY
Marathon Reflections by Nishadh :
We arrived at 7 AM on the dot to take our place amongst the three hundred odd other participants in the 2011 Mumbai Wheelchair Marathon. A gully between the Times of India and BMC buildings served as our holding area; a small space for a side event on a day dominated by the usual suspects, the Standard Chartereds, the Shilpa Shettys, and CEOs.
I noticed a woman in a wheelchair beside me. She looked middle age, but her face bore a tired, spent look. Nevertheless, she was there pushed by her husband and accompanied by banner bearers. The banner said she was a long term spinal cancer patient (and hence paraplegic) who had started a school for young paraplegic girls. What the banner did not say was that she was also a doctor. It struck me as I stood in the holding area; this was no race, no Sunday stroll in the park, no hobby, no publicity stunt or tokenistic commitment to a big name corporations. These were arthritics, cancer patients, paraplegics, and polio victims who had come from far and wide and were on a genuine mission to spread their message. And this was exemplified no better than by Jacqueline, my admirable arthritic grand aunt, taking part in her fourth marathon, whose wheelchair I was pushing, had come all the way from Bangalore to raise awareness for people with disabilities. At sixty-one and in what seems like incredible pain, she had braved the difficulties of air travel, and the pace and chaos of Mumbai to participate.
The buzz amongst the participants, a genuine sense of excitement. Cameras clicked, wheelchairs clanked, and people of every conceivable age, and accent chatted, eagerly anticipating the start of this important occasion. Most ‘runners’ came in groups, decked out in colorful, conspicuous uniforms, many with slogans and banners. What is more, there was a beautiful sense of solidarity amongst them as they exchanged greetings, pamphlets and emails. I felt somewhat disconnected and empathetic at the same time. I couldn’t really share this solidarity because I hadn’t experienced the pain and suffering they had, but I felt like I was beginning to understand the commitment, and dedication of my fellow participants in the face of all adversity. Yes they were in wheelchairs or used walking sticks but were people just like me and they deserved attention, respect, and support, much more than they got.
The race itself was a surreal experience. I never imagined my first marathon being in the wheelchair category, and it was inspiring to see the entire field take to the track with such zest and enthusiasm. I felt happy that Jackie seemed to enjoy herself taking photos at landmark locations from her old life in Mumbai, while handing out flyers and pamphlets promoting APD and telling her story. Participating alongside the senior citizens, many of whom were veteran seniors was also a welcome experience. It made me think of my parents who are not senior citizens, but are notoriously inactive when it comes to exercise and physical wellbeing.
That said the whole experience was much too short and we were much too sidelined to make/have any real impact on the day’s proceedings, the media, or the crowd. I felt as though we were the time-fillers, the thirty minute opening local act, forgotten by most the moment the main performer comes on stage. The Standard Chartered cheering squad was vocal and (employees/volunteers assigned by SC to cheer at strategic points in the race) gave us momentary, superficial satisfaction, but the fact that SC needed to have an assigned cheer squad for the wheelchair spoke volumes about the level of interest in the event. Our race happened to coincide with the end of all of the other races, and in sharing routes; we were shoved to one side of the road by our suddenly dutiful traffic police contingent and some self-important, aggressive runners. The end of the race saw us ‘marched off’ back to our little gully, and like the flick of a thumb, it was over.
I have to thank my grand aunt for asking me to push her along because I would never have had this experience. I might have been running in the main event worrying about my water intake or my left ankle, my timing and medal, immune to everything around me. I might have been a husband or brother coming to support my spouse or sibling, or a celebrity making a fleeting appearance for publicity. Thankfully, on this day, I was a participant in the most special race of them all, a temporary insider looking out at the sympathetic, but distant world.
This is what it took for me to start thinking, “I, Nishadh Rego, could be in my own wheelchair some day, any day. How about that?”
APD Management Committee
The Joy of giving!!!!!
Latest article from Jackie who thanks her sister-in-law for the music. Read her PowerPoint presentation here!!
And Jackie Colaco does it again too!!
Here is the link to the story
http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?BV_ID=@@@&contentType=EDITORIAL§ionName=TheWeek%20Health&programId=7088435&contentId=7697440
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| Exercise is effective: Colaco at a physiotherapy session |
Rheumatoid arthritis only spurred Jacqueline Colaco into enjoying life to the fullest and helping other sufferers
By Dr Veena Bharathi
Jacqueline Colaco’s family used to call her “legs eleven”, as she was in the women’s hockey team of the erstwhile Mysore State in 1964. “I never imagined that the hand that used to hold a hockey stick would have to hold a walking stick by age 40,” she says. Colaco has been fighting rheumatoid arthritis (RA) for the last two decades.
She was 36 when the condition was diagnosed in 1986 during her posting in New York. “After about 5-6 months of my stay in New York, I developed pain and inflammation under my feet and toes,” says Colaco, who was working for Bank of Baroda. “I presumed it was my body reacting to the cold weather. But when I consulted Dr Theodore R. Fields, consultant rheumatologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery, he diagnosed my condition as RA.”
Colaco underwent a procedure called synovectomy to remove lumps from her knee joints. Apart from this, she ignored the arthritis and concentrated on her career. “My mother was afflicted with RA,” she says. “I had seen her cope with it really well, since she was a capable homemaker with seven children.” Always full of life, Colaco's optimism faced an acid test as the RA progressed rapidly, reducing her stamina every month at an alarming rate.
In 1988, she developed intolerable pain in her right hip joint and found climbing up and down the stairs a Herculean task. She was posted back to Bangalore as manager of the bank’s regional office.
At a wedding reception in Bangalore in 1990, she met her childhood friend, orthopaedist Dr Thomas Chandy, after two decades. “He asked me to dance, and I replied, ‘No, I can’t’,” she says. Chandy was taken aback by her seemingly arrogant reply. But his orthopaedic eyes observed her limping gait and he knew she could not dance because of arthritis.
Chandy was then visiting India to supervise the setting up of HOSMAT hospital. He asked Colaco to bring her X-rays and reports to him. He then offered to do a total hip replacement in the US at a concessional rate.
The bank sponsored the surgical costs. Colaco and her sister Isabel stayed at Chandy’s home in Oklahoma, and the surgery was successful. She returned to her job in Bangalore. With regular sessions of physiotherapy, she was soon back on her feet. “Taking care of replaced prosthetic joints is very important for an arthritis patient,” she says.
In 1992, Colaco began driving a Maruti car designed for physically challenged persons. She underwent replacement of her left hip in 1995 and bid adieu to her 25-year-long banking career.
After her retirement, Colaco came across several young women suffering from RA. Out of her desire to help such persons was born Arthritis Foundation (India) in July 1995; AF(I) is based at HOSMAT. “This is a non-profit organisation,” says Colaco. “For the last 15 years, we have been creating awareness about arthritis, treatment options and coping mechanisms and even extending financial support to needy patients.”
Colaco participated in the Bangalore wheelchair marathon for the third consecutive year this May. She is the honorary secretary of the Association of People with Disability in Bangalore, and has made her will, donating her body posthumously to St John’s Medical College, Bangalore, for research.
Her autobiography, yet to be published, is titled My Way, after Frank Sinatra’s song. “Instead of aiming to add years to my life,” she says, “I am focusing on adding life to my years.”
Congratulations, APD, you;ve done it again!!!
And Jackie's latest article here
Look at these great pictures from the APD team during their latest adventures at the Bangalore Sunfest 10K Marathon on 23rd May! Naturally, Jackie Colaco is right in the forefront of every one of them!!!
All set for the run with dheeraj jayant my escort
Wish it was Kingfisher beer - not just water!
...and with the rest of the APD team (and brother, Peter number 10782)
Read Jackie's prayer request here
music4life in Bangalore 25th March - 8th April, 2010
Unhindered by British Airways strikes and problems with volcanic ash, the music4life team,
The Revd Carole Elphick, Matthew Prevett, Fergus Urquhart and James O'Hara, 
undertook their mission to take to the next level through music the already strong ties with the Karnataka Central Diocese of the Church ("KCD") of South India 
click here for more information and
the Association for People with Disability ("APD") 
click here to visit their web pages.
Musically, the team was requested to undertake three workshops at St Mark's Cathedral ; Carole Elphick and Matthew Prevett lead one workshop on best practice in Associated Board of Music examinations and in Choral Singing and Conducting. Fergus Urquhart conducted an organ workshop. In the meantime, James O'Hara, a broadcaster and audio describer, filmed some 20 hours' footage of the two-week experience. Look out for clips being posted to this website in the future.
In addition to the workshops, the team attended rehearsals for and the performance of Lloyds Larson and Joseph M Martin's "Who is the King?" on Palm Sunday evening. Together with some 500 communicants, they participated in an ancient Tamil liturgy accompanied by indigenous Tamil music at The Church of the Good Shepherd, Kolar Goldfields on Easter Sunday morning (from 05:30!) 
With Jackie Colaco, Treasurer of APD, her brother, Peter, an eminent local writer 
and Aruna Sunderlal, Soprano they also discussed the musical needs of the area and, where there might emerge possible future musical joint ventures in Bangalore.
Music, however, was only one strand of the visit and a means of developing and expanding even closer ongoing ties with entities nurtured over many years by Geoffrey Duncan, World Church and Church and Society Consultant for URC Thames North Synod.
Within KCD, the URC have had a long history of supporting many projects: the weaving projects at Doddaballapur, where the team visited three of the weavers' houses and witnessed the sponsored looms at work 
Matthew and Carole also had some time to visit the spice-making project at Chanapatna. 
In addition to the URC projects, there was visit to the CSI hospital at Chickballapur 
where it was refreshing to witness the worldwide support with donations of equipment coming from as far apart as the US and Scotland. 
the enthusiasm of the young student nurses was positively tangible. 
Visiting the chapel was a haven of peace and Fergus was given the opportunity to play the ancient little pedal-bellows organ which, literally, took his breath away, so furiously had he to pedal to operate the instrument! 
. It was mind-blowing to learn that KCD, in 2009, spent around three quarters of their entire income on true mission in the following forms: 42 diocesan schools, 2 hospitals, and 10 hostels for the disadvantaged, each unit catering for some 80-100 children and young adults and located throughout the region. 
APD/K'Halli
APD was introduced to the team by unanimous enthusiasm emanating from all concerned. Devotion, love, dedication, verve and a joy of living came across as the most evident traits of everyone from the daughter of one of the founders, Miss Hema, through the directors and Treasurer to the volunteer helpers and the children and young adults who derive such benefit from the progressive and positive enviroment in which they find themselves. 
The lady in this picture is Yshoda, herself disabled, who is in overall charge of the horticultural project at K'Halli.
APD and K'Halli epitomise the very best in self-generating self help 
.
In common with many other cultures, disability in India is often shunned as an embarrasment. Miss Hema, herself wheelchair-bound but with boundless energy, was determined not to let her challenges interfere with her life. She has made it her life's work to help those less fortunate than she to find the opportunity to overcome their challenges in a similar fashion. Often ostracised within their own communities, these children and young adults from low or no education communities are able to avail themselves of schooling up to nine grades and are given, then, every opportunity to integrate within the regular community. One former resident is now in an elevated position with IBM and is giving back to APD. APD includes a careers advice service and runs a huge number of workshops to provide apprenticeships in a wide variety of skills from self-help areas such as prosthetic aids and wheelchair maintenance/adaptation in APD, to horticultural know-how in K'Halli. As they progress, they have ample opportunity to assimilate basic life-enhancing skills too. But it doesn't stop there. They are able, eventually, to be rehabilitated, often within their own communities. That takes courage, of course and APD recognise the fact. Full support is given on reintegration so communities learn how to help the other disabled in their midst and to learn, by osmosis, the life-improving qualities and skills the APD graduates come back with into their communities. Self-generating self-help!
K'Halli (pictured above), an obvious oasis in an otherwise arid city coming to the end of springtime, was the brainchild of Miss Hema. Thousands of tonnes of topsoil were brought in to former scrubland and 5,000 litres of water are brought in by tankers on a regular basis to make the project flourish, quite literally. The produce and plants are utilised within the community for their own consumption and plants selling from 5 rupees (5p) to 5,000 (£50) rupees each are sold from the garden centre itself, through APD and delivered to a large business clientele throughout the city providing livelihoods and opportunities for many might never have had the chance otherwise.
To augment their income and extend the facilities they provide more widely, APD and K'Halli are participating in the Bangalore Sunfest 10K Marathon on 23rd May. Jackie Colaco, the Treasurer, will be "running" for the second successive year. Jackie is in a wheelchair and will be pushed along the course but, as a former national hockey player, her enthusiasm is without bounds. The sparkle in her eyes as she speaks of her commitment to APD tells of her deep-rooted commmitment to the cause of raising the 1 lakh (100,000 rupees or £10k) for which they are aiming is unmistakable.
Let us keep them all in our prayers: runners, pushers, supporters and let us not forget them, if we are able, to help by donating also. To donate or sponsor follow this link