There’s no time for salutations today. It’s an emergency.
Did you know there are two kinds of ambulances? Patient transfer/basic life support ambulance, the maruti van like mini bus that one might have seen on the road. And one with the facility of a doctor/nurse and cardiac monitor, oxygen cylinder, incubator, etc. called an advanced life support ambulance. Do you know whether your city (talking about tier 2/3 folks) has a heart bypass surgery facility available? That you might have to run to the next best city on the same day when the senior most interventional cardiac doctor of a hospital in that tier 3 city tells you that this is a high risk case and threat to life is at peak. Did you know that in case of an emergency you will have to decide which hospital out of the list handed to you, do you wish to proceed to for a bypass surgery? Did you know some hospitals don’t send ambulances to the desired spot unless especially requested for and paid upfront? Did you know that even at a private hospital if there's an ambulance standing outside an emergency you need to shake the hospital staff there to make them realize the difference between an emergency and any other case standing in front of them?
Amidst all the new things I had to find out from above, I was made to revise that there are 3 arteries, 4 valves and some more veins in the heart. That a heart does the function of both a plumber and an electrician. Think arteries, veins as the pipes and heartbeat as the electronic mechanism that provides the required rhythm and keeps it all going.
You must be wondering what’s with all these medical jargons being thrown at you out of nowhere. Wait, I’ll skip to other do-you-knows that you need to answer quickly.
Do you know, you, someone who doesn’t believe in god all that much would end up pleading to a doctor and saying things like “you’re our god”, “please save him, please take care of my father”. Yes, all those dialogues that we’ve seen in movies and tv serials came to life for me. You feel your limbs crashing, your internal organs giving up, your blood almost drying up at the thought of the worst while the doctor sitting in front of you narrates the worst and asks you to sign your consent if the WORST happens.
Did you know that everything else at the time of a life and death situation becomes a blur? Your differences with your parents. Your double guesses about whether or not to leave the job. Your inhibitions about your next step in life. What next are you going to have for dinner? All you want to do is keep doing the next best thing for your ailing parent. A responsibility is transitioned onto you without anyone asking if you want to take it up. You get messages saying you have to stay strong for your mother and your brother. And you don’t realize that you already stepped into that job profile before you got a chance to interview for it. In a matter of minutes, you find yourself stroking your mother’s forehead, rubbing her arm, telling her it’s all going to be okay. In those few moments, you become your mother’s caregiver. But amidst those moments, all you want to be is held & say “no, i refuse to take this job up”. You want the original job holder of this responsibility to be back and keep the mill running.
In my moments of wait while my father was shifted to ICU I had many thoughts. And one of the thoughts was how, I, someone who somehow had the resources and the people to help me navigate through these traumatic days felt so helpless and angry. I was angry at how so many people visited us but none knew how to offer a hug. They all came, asked about his health, narrated their own stories of similar situations, did some more small talk and left. No one knows how to show affection and this is normal? I was so hurt and so angry that anyone from my immediate family reaching out for help felt like a token extension of support just for representation. One may call it being negative. But at that point that’s what I wanted. To be held. To be told to take a day’s rest while someone else could take charge of sitting in the hospital till night. In all of this agitation and realization that you’re on your own I felt like I grew 10 years older. I kept telling the same to my friends.
Do you know in order to be able to donate blood platelets you should not be the patient’s wife, son or daughter? You have to get many people screened to find out one ray of hope in the form of a standby person. Last year in April, I was one of the volunteers to create twitter threads about oxygen cylinders, hospitals with ventilators available when the 2nd wave was swinging in its full deadly glory. This time, I was at the receiving end. I was forwarding appeals for blood platelets to strangers. And like last year, I was in awe of how absolute strangers came together at odd hours ready to get screened and be readily available to donate platelets when required.
All these do-you-knows and one additional thing you must know is that all this happened in the same week my cousin was getting married. Two days before my father got admitted to the hospital he was found giving away invitations to his friends for his niece’s wedding. On the day of the wedding, he was found asking the doctor, “since the surgery won’t happen until 2-3 days, can I attend my niece’s wedding?” It was funny, heart warming and so tragic all at once. We all waited for months to have a gala at this wedding but unfortunately four of us didn’t have the heart to be present at the wedding. Last two weeks of this month felt like 2 days. The story of these past 10 days can merely be told in this letter. But I have to tell you about the in-betweens of this turmoil. The moments when we took the liberty to breathe in the open. The moments that made us realize how necessary it is to pause, empty your mind, stand away from noise & just be. The moment which lets you think that when the stakes are high, you make your decisions with utmost clarity. You do what’s right for you and your family. You value life.
My father is okay. Thanks to the faith we all placed in our respective gods. Few things I’d like to leave you with are - even if you eat healthy, go for a walk, do your exercise regularly, don’t drink, don’t smoke, nothing makes the cut if your mental health is crying for help. My father did everything right but we all know the reason his condition became so fragile is because of his bad mental health. Get your medical checkups done. Read up about preventive angiography if you or your close ones ECG is even slightly fluctuated. These are some of my learnings from this episode. One main learning is to not leave your relations midway without confrontation. Hold your dear ones close. Work on yourself and your relationship with people you admire, people you believe in, people who place their trust in you. Show love to your people. Keep saying I love you to your family, your friends, your dog, cat, snake, frog. But yeah, well within your mental boundaries.
Here’s a picture I captured, of my mother and my brother sitting at Sukhna lake, two days after my father got his 3rd continuous heart attack. Just being here together, thinking of papa, knowing he’ll be okay, breathing in the fresh air gave us a boost to carry on with the tough days ahead. My father has become a baby but I know we’ll get through this together. Spare a thought and blow a wish if you might, for my father and for my family and our togetherness. Peace and love to you, dear reader. I see you, thanks for sticking around. :)
shed a tear. sending you a virtual hug till I see you <3
Hi! :)