Dadi

“Doctor, your Dadi just left us.”

Its 2:45 am.                       

We doctors are a peculiar species. We love sleeping. That’s the only luxury we ever dream of, in fact the only one we can actually afford. No one should ever try waking us up from our slumber, even on trying it is like banging the head against a wall. But one phone call from the hospital and we are on our toes, alert, with the right diagnosis, right medication and the right dose.

It was a very busy night duty. I had just gone to catch up on some sleep in the duty room, about half an hour back, after admitting a patient with aspiration pneumonia in the ICU, before another one lands up in emergency. That’s when this phone call came.

Dadi has left. At first, it didn't register.

“ Oh , I am so sorry “ was my first reaction.

I met her about a month and a half back when she presented in our OPD with respiratory distress. She was harboring a terminal anaplastic carcinoma thyroid in the large lump she carried in her neck. She was already metastatic at presentation and after the initial evaluation alone, I could tell she was nearing her end. She was in pain. And like they say, you start aging in reverse once you cross your fifties and become a child once again. Kids, however, are much better patients. You can at least bribe them, if not reason them. But with these older children, none of it works. She was not ready for any kind of treatment but had come to the hospital with the hope of some relief. And how do we do that ? Doctors are considered ruthless because they insert the needles into you, but no one understands that we have no magic wands. We inflict pain only to reduce the suffering. 

She won’t let anybody touch her. I tried explaining the procedure and the requirements to her and the family but she was just not paying heed. I even tried arguing with her.

“Will you do that to someone of your own?  “.

“You are my own too ...right...You are like my Dadi ....isn't it? Do you think I would do this to you if it was not essential? “. I had no idea where that came from. May be because she had some uncanny physical resemblance to my own grandmother.

Her anxious look now softened a bit.  “Can you do that without hurting much?”

“With as little pain as possible, I promise”.

“But only you are going to do it, I am not allowing anyone else...”

“Deal  “.

She refused admission. But from that day onward, she would come to the hospital daily and receive her palliative radiation as we had planned for her. She would then stay the whole day in the day care for her pain killers, IV fluids, nebulisations etc and go back home in the evening ,to return back the next morning. But a ritual was followed daily. She would not allow any other doctor or nurse to even touch her. As soon as she was in the hospital, she would call for me and I would go and put her IVs. Every day,  same routine.  By now everyone in the staff knew that she was somehow related or known to me.        

Related to me !!

We as doctors have mastered the act of being heartless. We leave our emotions home before turning up for work every single day. If we start associating ourselves with the pain and sufferings of our patients, we will not be able to work at all. However, that does not amount to the lack of compassion or empathy.  We see life and death from such close quarters , every day, that dissociation form all things worldly is our only solace.  

But then we are human too. It is difficult to resist love and affection, especially if you are at the receiving end. That day I had called her Dadi just to make her comfortable but she formed a bond. She was putting in all her faith in me and was giving me all her unconditional love in return. I was the passive partner in this relationship. She was just happy me being there by her side. And all I could do was being there for her.

She completed her radiation but still continued to come to the hospital every alternate day for her IV fluids, multivitamins and pain killer shots. By this time she had befriend others too and on days I was busy elsewhere, will allow them to attend to her. But she won’t leave without meeting me ever.

With time, her condition started worsening. She was more fragile now. Her body was giving way. End was coming.  It was not possible for her to come to the hospital frequently.So on my advice, they decided to hire a nurse to tend to her at home itself. They knew they could reach me anytime for her but by now I had started calling her up daily, just to check on her.

She tried hard to sound cheerful every time I called but I could make out the effort she was putting in from her voice which was growing feeble day by day. Then came the time when she started finding it hard to even respond and was totally bed ridden. I could no more resist going and seeing her. That day she ate a cup full of maggi with me, her only meal in last two days. She could not even get up in bed but her eyes were glistening by my mere presence at her bed side. Not just me but everyone in her family too, were overwhelmed by the affection we shared. She hugged me tight with all the strength she had before I left and tears rolled down from both our eyes. The very  next night, I got the phone call that she passed away peacefully in her sleep.

My Dadi had left. I don’t know what she gained from this relationship of those last few days of her life but she helped me redeem myself of the guilt of not being by the side of my own grandmother when she was leaving. Dad would tell us to go and sit by her side but how do you make the kids sit still for long !!

Dadi left in peace. I attained peace. And went back to sleep.

Some relationships cannot be contained in the worldly names we give them...but then some need to be given a name to attain closure.