The Indian American

17 THE INDIAN AMERICAN OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2018 y mom was diagnosed with Stage 3 urothelial cancer in India in June 2013. From then to when she died in December 2015, my brother and I flew thousands of miles between the United States and India, and spent thousands of dollars to get her the care she needed. In most ways, our experience is similar to that of any family managing a loved one's illness, except that for certain periods, we had to do it from afar. In that, too, our experience is not unusual. At this very moment, many immigrants and U.S. citi- zens are trying to balance their lives here with taking care of family members strug- gling with life-threatening diseases in our home countries. A phone call sends us rush- ing to airports willing the flights to get there soon and often reaching too late. M Health When their mom fell ill far away, these immigrant siblings faced a crisis By Sofia Anjuman Ali Anjuman Ali and her mother at one of their community events in Washington in 2015. Photo courtesy of Anjuman Ali