Innocent childhood : 2

My 4 year old cousin was playing outside with her friends when our grandfather called her in as it was late already. She argued she didnt want to come in yet ,"Dada ji ..pls some time more ".
"See beta even the sun has gone home...u must come back now too ".
She looked up, the sun was no where in sight.
"But where did it go?"
"His mother must have called him back to do his homwork . You must come back and complete your's too before your mother is back from work ."
She reluctantly gave in , came back and sat down with her books.
After about an hour later by the time the sky was lit by the moonlight ,she was back again with another query , "Dada ji , then how come moon's mother doesn't say anything to him ? "
My grandfather was left puzzeled and speechless !!

                                                        ×____×_____×

Last year my nephews went to see the Ramlila fest in our city with their parents. The kids  with all their tantrums forced them to buy  a 'dhanush baan' and a 'gada' and came back home proudly showing off thier new possessions.
Next day , I saw them playing with their new toys. I was afraid they would hurt themselves and asked them what is it they were upto?
"Masi see...I am playing Ram and he is Hanuman and we are doing a 'yudh' ".
"But beta...Ram ji and Hanuman ji were friends...they would never fight with each other ".
The younger one slapped his forehead with his palm and said "Ufffff masi..but they would practice together na !! "
I didn't know how to counter that ...

Innocent childhood...

Childhood is the best period of human life. Its uncorrupted and pristine...and is beyond the bounds of social and economic statuses we adults are trapped in.  Saw these kids on my way to work today... they were probably sent there on "work "   but they chose to plant hope on a small mound of mud they themselves created on the concrete of a divider....hope the "hope" survives into their adulthood !

Past 30 and still single!!

Recently when I teasingly asked a friend's 5 year old daughter if she would come and stay with me as I live alone and do not have a baby of my own, she very innocently asked me "Aunty, why don't you get married? "

I was left spellbound.  What does this kid know of marriage?  But then, she must definitely have heard her parents talk that about me. "It is time now that she should get married !!"

Is that all that is there to discuss about me, beind my back ??

This coming from family and neighbours is understandable , but the realisation that my friends are also talking about me in the same language has left me thinking.

What is it about marriage that will ' complete ' me in the sense I am already not ? I am a proud, self made, independent, intelligent alpha woman. I have worked hard to  make a  career for myself. I earn well enough to sustain a comfortable life for myself and if need be can fend for a 'husband ' too.

Then what is it that a man will  add to my life ?  I can under stand when they say u need someone for emotional support. But does that support really comes as unconditionally as stated by the institution of marriage. I also understand that to sustain any relationship certain compromises are required on the part of both the parties involved.  One will however require a reason good enough to make those compromises to stay  in a particular relationship. The reason could be anything from love, children,  parent's wishes or societal pressures. To each his or her own. But can being or having crossed a certain age be a reason valid enough .

I admit I have my own bouts of lonliness and brooding when I feel the need to have someone around to be able to talk freely without the concern of being judged. Lonliness can be dreadful but certainly not incurable. There are a hundred ways to keep oneself busy and occupied to keep lonliness at bay. But how does one tackle "Emptiness"?

I have seen couples celebrating silver anniversaries and still being total strangers to each other. A relationship that does not add meaning to your existence is a useless one. Two people may not complement each other but to be in a successful marriage it must be something more than just living together.

So for all my well wishers out there...contrary to the popular belief I am not averse to the institution of marriage. I am just looking for a right reason to take the plunge. A right man to come across and strike a cord with my heart. I am just waiting for that day, even if it comes at the age of fifty.  Till then please , if you can , be happy for my " happily single " status.

Doraemon

Thank God for Wikipedia ! It has all the answers.

So Doraemon is the 'Asian hero' by the Times Asia !
Wow..that must be something!

Wikipedia describes 'him' as a friendly, intelligent,  "musophobic" cat-like robot who is sent back in time by a Japanese child to help his great-great grandfather Nobita who though, kind hearted enough to fight for the entire civilisation,  is a cry -baby. He is like that one child in every neighbourhood who is dumb, scared, miserable ,dim-witted, unlucky and bad at sports. He gets regular scoldings from his mother and teachers for being late to school, not completing his home work or poor grades. He is the one who gets teased by and often falls prey to the tricks of the local bully "Gian"who frequently steals his toys and books. That's where Doraemon comes to his resuce, with his magic pocket from which he can fish out various futuristic gadgets and tools.

So ,in short,  Doraemon is a "hero".
Oh ! So now I get it.

Rakshit has been my most difficult patient ...and the sweetest one too. Mischief peeped through his eyes whenever one glanced at those little buttons up there. He was naughty enough to have feigned blindness when we first tried to put him on the treatment couch. Boom !! We all went frantic.  We weren't suspecting a thing like that but then with his kind of rare brain tumor no one can ever say. But poor little Rakshit , he got trapped in his own doings. He had to undergo another unnecessary MRI to prove that nothing was wrong with his eyesight. But it definitely showed us that the road ahead is not going to be easy with this five year old naughty one.

Treatment of cancer over the last few decades has seen some major advances in technology. Today, the tumor which is not amneable to surgical removal, can be precisely targeted and "killed "using radiation therapy where we use huge machines to target radiation beams to the tumor from different directions, akin to the various sci-fi gadgets Doraemon would produce. And for the same reason ,the process requires perfect immobilisation of the patient during such treatment because even a millimeter's shift would mean missing out on the target. We do that by trapping the body in a cast during treatment , which is otherwise totally painless.

But Rakshit would  not have it any which way. No amount of cajoling did any good with him. Just then his mother came up with this brilliant idea. Only a mother could have done that.

"Baby , see they are going to make a mask for you..like the one you got on Rohit's birthday..remember?"

"That Krish one?"

"Ya like that one "

"But I dont want to be Krish this time?"

"So what do you want to be?" I asked.

"Doraemon!"

"What is that?"

"Ha ha ha...you have grown so big and you don't even know that?"

But how would I know!  They never taught that to us in medical school.

"Oh ho doctor aunty! It's a robot."

"Okay..so lets try to make you one."

"But then who is going to be Gian? Who will I fight with? "

"Baby I'll be Gian..dont worry " said his mom.

"Ok then..but I should look exactly like Doraemon."

"Ok boss ! ".

So finally we were able to get him on the table. A body cast was made for him and obviously it was a made of a plain thermoplastic material, nothing close to what Rakshit was visualizing. Now the challenge was to convince him to wear it daily for his treatment. The most difficult part...but we found a way out.

"Show me.. show me??
What is this? What have u done?  Do u think Doraemon looks like this? You don't know anything doctor aunty. "

"Hey darling ...it is just the base ...we cannot make it in one day. It is going to take time. For that you will have to come every day and get it done. It will be done step by step. And at the end you will look exactly like Doraemon. "

"Promise ?"

"Yes promise. But there is one condition."

"What?"

"You can only see it on the last day when it is completely done. Otherwise it will not come out well."

"Okay ..but you will make a Gian also for my mom right?"

"Only if she agrees to see it at the end too."

"Okay..no problem. But I have a condition too.. you will  have to give me a chocolate every day I come."

"One daily?"

"Yes daily. Promise ?"

"Promise."

"Ok done then."

From that day onwards , he would patiently get his treatment done, waiting to some day transform into "The Doraemon". He never demanded to see the mask but also never forgot to take his chocolate. 
But he would always ask how he was looking.

"Wow...you got the nose today."

"What lovely eyes..better than mommy Gian's."

"You got a tail today Rakshit."
"Is it red?"
"Yes...exactly like Doramon's."
"Wow...when it is done..I'll beat up Gian if he troubles Nobita any further".
"But I am your mother baby..I am not Gian in real life."
"Oh oh Mom...but I won't beat you in real too na..it will all be a game"
"Oh ..then its ok."

This continued for a whole three weeks. Then came the last week of his treatment. He was finishing in next three days and I was worried, not about his treatment but the day when he would ask to see his cast. What are we going to  do then?  We showed him a dream and he had lived it each day since.

I searched every children's toy shop in the city and finally got what I wanted at a stationery shop.

And then arrived  the D-day. He was excited. And I was worried, afraid of his reaction when he would find out the truth.

"Doctor aunty..is it done ? "

"Just need to give him a few last minute finishing touches."

"Wow...does it look pretty?"

"Not as much as you are...but you will get to see him today."

"Great...lets finish it off soon then."

"Okay..come on."

Treatment went off smoothly.

"Can I open my eyes now?"
"Yes you can now.."

"Wow...it looks beautiful."

We had stuck a huge "Rakshit" size Doraemon sticker on the cast. Kid's innocence makes them vulnerable to be easily fooled by us, the adults. But the truth is.. it is us who are actually being fooled !

"Can I take it home? I'll show it to all my friends. They will all be jealous".
"Sure ...it's yours. "

We made an exception that day and let him keep the cast.

Rakshit is  the real hero...just like his Doraemon. He is still fighting his tumor two years after, when we had not given him more than six months at the inital diagnosis.

Guess the real Doraemon where ever he is...and if he is..is looking for him.

The Braveheart

Balwinder was in agony.He had not slept in last two days. He had been sitting all day through. Whenever he even tried to lie down , a severe fit of cough would drain all his energies. The cancer had spread to his lungs.

Just 9 months back, he was like any other child his age. He was pitted to be the next "mohalla" champion of cricket in the small village of Punjab he lived in. A small sleepy village where people believed in toiling hard in the day  and sleeping peacefully at night. It is the kind of place where faith often overshadowes the reality. Their belief in their God and his men has been the food for their soul, something they had not dared to  challenge in ages and for generations.

So when he got himself hurt while taking the near impossible catch that day, playing for his school , he became the hero and the bump below the knee on his left leg got completely ignored by everyone, including himself. It would have gone unnoticed still, if it had not started growing in size and made itself too obvious to be missed. So like everyone else in the village , he too was taken ,to be surrendered, in the care of the holy "Baba ji" who had special powers to cure anything and everything under the sun.

Baba ji blessed the champion and deemed him to be the next big thing in the cricketing world. The "aashirwad" for the man himself was so overwhelming that the  now cricket ball sized swelling retreated to the background again . However ,Babaji had made a special "pudia" with his own hands, mixing the rare jadi buttis for the village hero. According to him , it was the " bad blood " getting accumulated there. His medicines would cause all of it to get down to the knee , get collected there in the swelling and ultimately burst out relieving the boy of all the "bad blood " after which the healing process would take over.

Babji was right, after all, he was the God's man .The swelling  kept increasing in size. The fact that it also started causing some pain and difficulty in walking, was just a minor hitch. Balwinder was no longer able to play cricket now, but that did not deter his spirits, by lords and babaji's grace, he was one day going to make it big on the field.

However, the wait was getting longer and longer. It had been 5 months now and the swelling kept increasing in size.Everyone was amazed by the amount of  "bad blood"  his small 9 year old body was carrying, such that the swelling was still growing everyday. He started loosing weight and the growth was now protruding  out with a foul  smell.  Walking , leave aside playing cricket, became a huge task . It was then ,that he was again taken to the babaji, who said it was all because of not taking proper care of the child that the superadded infection had overtaken. Nevertheless,  he still had a cure for it , which will however  take its own time , as always. But how could even babaji see such a sweet little child in so much of pain ? So he advised him, though reluctantly,  to be taken to a doctor whose antibiotics may work faster.

It was then that Balwinder was brought to the hospital for the first time. The lesion already looked like an infected football oozing blood with a smell so strong that even the flies could not resist. On careful examination,  the doctors could even  find a few maggots in it . They were astonished to see how the child was bearing such pain without even flinching an eyelid. That, probably, is the power of faith and believe.

He was started on supportive care with antibiotics and wound dressing. Everyone's worst fear came true when the biopsy revealed an Ewing's sarcoma. Surprisingly his lesion was still confined to the leg alone and had not spread outside, as all were suspecting. The best chances of cure, according to the doctors , in this scenario, was to curb the evil in the bud. He was advised amputation. That implied the end of his dream of playing cricket, or for that matter ,anything on the field. But the surgeon was not even thinking in those terms, he said his priority was to save the life.

But Balwinder's belief in self and his God was much more stronger than they suspected. He boldly refused to go under the knife. They tried to explain all the pros and cons of  still having the disease intact in his body and urged the parents to think rationally before deciding anything but he had made up his mind. He was sure of a miracle to happen ,by the sheer  power of his conviction. And there was no way anyone could take that belief out of him.

He was so started on palliative radiation therapy. His faith remained unshaken. He seemed not an ordinary child. Besides being a cricketing prodigy, he was a bundle of courage.  No one ever saw him crying with pain or sulking over  his condition. When ever he wanted a shot of pain killers , he would first ask his parents out of the room. He didn't want anybody to witness him in his weaker moments. The sweet smile on his face never vanished, not even during the most difficult times. He was always busy making plans for his return .He once told a doctor his only wish was to see the God of cricket playing live sometime, if possible.

When he completed his radiation treatment, the only achievement  was reduction in  the burden of his disease, but it was still there and beyond cure.The swelling had considerable reduced in size and the infection was better. He was then started on  chemotherapy  but even that could not break him down. He was still his cheerful self. He would vomit and paint; vomit and read; vomit and sing ; and vomit and dream. And he never forgot his daily prayers. His faith was his strength.

But then two days back ,he had landed again in the emergency. He had completed the third cycle of his chemotherapy just a week back. His CTscan showed multiple lesions in both his lungs as the culprit. The dreaded was here. His chances of cure were , now, nil.

Still there wasn't a pinch of fear on his face, even if it was there, he had disguised it well. After all courage is not the absence of fear, it is rather an act of mastering it. And Balwinder had a lion's heart. He wasn't going to give up easily. He had a dream and he wanted to live it. He was the source of strength for his family. He wiped the tears of his parents and younger brother but not a single one fell from his own eyes. The pain he was bearing ,was visible in every inch of his body but his face was radiating hope and belief, always. The inevitable had not even for once crossed his mind yet.

And then , a similar patient landed in the ICU ,just cross his bed. A boy of  the same age , probably a year or two younger, with his right hand amputated, gasping for his breath, just like him. All of a sudden there was a chaos in the ICU. The parents stood a few steps away from his bed while the doctors and nurses were inserting tubes into him and injecting various injections. Everyone was running around, to and fro from his bed to the nursing station. Senior doctor was called. The whole team was around his bed side. They had pulled up the curtains. Only the parents remained outside. The father stood there, trying to hold the mother who kept stooping down while chanting some prayers  .Both of them with their hands folded, eyes closed and tears running down.A nurse soon came and took them out too. That was the last Balwinder saw of them.

About 45 mins later things had settled down. Nurses and duty doctor  were back at their station. The senior doctor had left. The new patient had been put on ventilator.

He then called for a nurse. She smiled at him but it was not returned. 

" Sister what happened to that boy? What does he have? Is it Ewing's sarcoma , just like me ?"  he asked. She nodded without saying a word.

This time he smiled. "I am hungry...haven't eaten anything since yesterday..can u get me a glass of milk ?"

By the next day morning , both the boys had left.

Balwinder was a brave boy, probably just not enough to bear the sight of seeing himself in that other boy.

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.

  

  

A stillborn mother...

Just when life starts taking its toll on me, something like this happens.

It was as if I was trapped inside a mammoth maze, with no doors or outlets, running through for a gasp of fresh air, trying to be out as soon as possible, before the darkness can cave in on me. Life had never reached this low.  Sometimes, I felt worse than the patients I was suppose to be treating.

 That day was nowhere close to a perfect one. The whole day was spent in introspection of the fruitless attempts of keeping on living a purposeless life, when I first saw you. While returning after another gloomy, dull and a hectic day dealing with the dying patients, I was afraid of going back to the lonely four walls of “my” room. I knew there won’t be anyone or anything awaiting me there. Doing what I do often on such days I decided to stay back in the hospital itself for a bit longer. So I just peeped inside our hospital emergency, to see if I could be of any help there. And that’s when your parents brought you in. A tiny little “blue” bundle wrapped inside a small blanket , wearing almost nothing and gasping for a few more breaths of life...Though according to the “mother” accompanying you claimed that you were a term baby, at 1.5 kg,you didn't look like anything more than a seven month old premature one. My old but still not lost love for pediatrics started beaming inside me again. Innocence on your face was something I had always read in books, stories and songs, used as a metaphor, but never seen or experienced firsthand.  From their carefree attitude, it seemed that your parents had brought you there only for a valid hospital death certificate, so that they could escape the charges of killing a “daughter”. But something inside the three of us- the peds resident on call, the EMO and me, told us that you wanted to live and wanted us to save you. It was the time to put in use all that we had ever learnt in medical school. Resuscitating and giving chest compressions to any patient was never the same as doing it on your tiny little body. Feeding you dextrose using a syringe and trying to put in IV cannulas in your pliable but collapsible veins was a challenge in itself. The time when we had almost lost you, as your heart stopped beating and then reviving you again with inotrpoes, my own heart had skipped a few beats. Nothing can explain why but it made me feel as if it was my own heart and life sinking. You seemed to be my only chance of survival.  That was the moment when I first sensed a kind of bonding or a relationship with you. It became not only yours but my own fight for survival. And after much struggle, we both made it. You soon cried...and we all smiled.

 Above all u had made me feel useful. That was a long lost emotion I had not felt in the recent past. I was overwhelmed and on the verge of being termed a maniac.

It’s been more than three years since that fateful evening when u defeated the insurmountable with your strong will to survive and lead a full lifespan, despite of the visible disappointment on the face of your biological parents. A survivor in the true sense of the word, I hope you continue to defeat the odds, though I am sure it must not be coming easy to you still.

 But there is something that kills me to the day. I wish I could have kept you with me forever and brought you home that day. My biological clock has been ticking for long enough now telling me that it’s about time but it was you, my baby, who made me experience motherhood for the first time.

 My darling, you will always be close to my heart. I just wish I, then, had the courage to defy the rules of this brutal society and could adopt you then and there... I wish it was just about you and me.

Often I find myself arguing with God -why me??  

But if he ever thinks, I deserve something better or he might want to pay me back for some good I may have ever done, I pray he gives it all to you. That’s the only thing I have of mine to give you, my daughter.

However today, I wish to make you another promise ...I may not have been able to do it for you but someday..sometime... when I am relieved of the ties of this society, I ‘ll definitely pay back your debt. Your debt  of bringing me back to life.... by giving life to someone else like you . And adopting her.

 I promise.

I promise.

 I love you and will always love you...

You will be in my prayers always..

God bless you my baby !!