It was 9.20 AM when my NIKE kissed the professor’s chamber in the pediatric OPD. The peon told me that Sir arrived sharply at 9.00AM which is the regular OPD opening time & this bitter truth tripled my heart rate. It is needless to describe how difficult it is to work with a punctual personality in India. ‘hey abhishek….you are 20 minutes late, what the hell you’re doing?’…Dr Modi’s tongue passed these words to my ears. He gave such an expression as if I had deliberately killed 20 patients in those inglorious 20 minutes. Dr Modi is my mentor for my research project & he is considered as one of the most student friendly pediatricians in my campus. But an angry expression from a cool person always appears lethal to a lethargic person like me. I just apologized politely & remained silent. Not surprisingly I was DOWN again.
The atmosphere in a pediatric OPD is always irritating especially when you are an insomniac. Lack of sleep, noise made by the crying babies & Dr Modi’s unusual angry looks were making me feel like an asthma patient & guess what. I was working on project related to asthma!! My eyes were desperately searching 2 things- a smile from my mentor & asthma patients. Finally I managed to get the usual smile on my favorite teacher’s face & which filtered out some of my stresses. I was waiting for asthmatics but god gave me something else!! It was 10.30 AM when a lady came to us with her 3 year old child & her mother-in-law. They were from a nearby village & probably from a family of low socio economic status.. The baby had a mongoloid appearance & it was diagnosed as a case of Down’s syndrome. God gave me another DOWN!! The baby’s grand mother told that they know it is down’s syndrome which pleasantly surprised me. It was refreshing to see rural Indian women talking about this disease but the half life of my happiness was too short. It was shorter than sahid afridi’s average innings duration because the old woman suddenly told that, ‘all these are happening just because of her mother. She must have some serious deficiency & she always brings bad luck to my family.’ These types of biased allegations from a family member brought tears in the innocent mother’s eyes. The cardio-toxic comments from the mother-in-law was unbearable for the lady She was helpless as were we. Suddenly sir broke his silence & scolded the old woman which finally terminated as typical medical counseling. ‘The mother is not the culprit & if there any one has to be blamed it should be god because it is a genetic disorder caused by a mutation. The baby is mentally retarded & needs proper care & guidance’. These words from Dr Modi soothed the mother & calmed down the furious grandmother. They went away after being counseled by him. Then sir told me that ‘we are apparently going to become one of the superpowers in the world but superstitions will never let us move forward, so spread as much awareness as you can regarding these diseases.’ So…what are you waiting for??? Let me do my duty.
Well, the proper counseling of the parents is always the best way. Babies with down’s syndrome are always mentally retarded which requires the parents to give all their attention opsonized with a lot of love & care. Cardiac disorders, gastrointestinal disorders, musculo-skeletal disorders, endocrinelogical abnormalities…..you just name it, they’ll get it in future. So they should undergo periodic medical check up regularly. There are a lot of associations working for these DOWN victims, so if possible, the parents should be encouraged to admit their babies in these centers. That’s all we can do for these innocent babies.… DIAGNOSE, COUNSEL & ENCOURAGE……I hope I have not let you DOWN by writing about Down’s syndrome….
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