GIVE ME ANOTHER STROKE

I always follow a principle: ‘NEVER SUPRESS YOUR EMOTIONS’… This really has been advantageous for me since last 3-4 years. In my opinion, writing is a great way to express emotions & as usual I am going to take its help. I had decided to say NO to blogging in the final year because of the tightly packed schedules, but one incident has made me so emotional that, I can no longer suppress my desire to blog. So I am feeling good to be back into this universe of bloggers & really enjoying typing something which is beyond my comfort zone (affairs/relationships)!!

1^st November 2010.It was a fine, cool morning in Bhubaneswar & I was in the Apollo hospital for my project works. Let me say that, for a medico, no place is better than a tertiary care word class hospital like Apollo. I usually become consciously unconscious in the 1^st 15-20 min after entering Apollo because the gorgeous receptionists in the centrally air-conditioned building make me feel like a business class passenger of a trans-continental flight. So after 20-30 min, I regain my composure & start my work. So the 1^st November was not an exception. As a routine practice I had to be with my mentor, Dr Mishra during the rounds in the neurology indoor. During the rounds we entered room no- 448 in which an 80 year old widow was in bed & was staring at the ceiling. According to my mentor she was received in a state of coma 1 month ago, was diagnosed as a case of stroke & was treated accordingly. At that point of time the lady was fine & she was requesting to discharge her from the hospital. We were astonished when we didn’t find any of her relatives to talk about the discharge but Dr Mishra promised her that she’ll be discharged soon. After coming out of the room, he told me with a sad note that ‘I want to discharge her but her none of her bloody relatives are coming to the hospital’. Then we visited other indoor patients to complete the morning rounds & came back to his OPD chamber. (If you’ll compare the OPD chamber of Apollo to that of a govt. college you’ll feel as if the Apollo chamber is for Ema Watson & the Govt. chamber is for Rakhi Sawant).

After the indoor rounds my mentor attends the OPD patients & I do the neuro-assessments of all the stroke victims, which is very much similar to watching golf tournaments in TV i.e difficult & boring. After examining 2 patients I came to room no 448. Surprisingly I found that lady with tears in her eyes. But she behaved normally as if nothing has happened. Without asking anything I started the examinations & found her to be normal (believe me or not, everything appears normal to a normal medical student). But being driven by curiosity I asked her the reason of crying. First she denied, but then started crying again & told me with a trembling voice that, ‘I am fine since last 1 week, I want to go home but my sons are not taking me’. This was really one of the tear-dragging moments of my life. When I enquired more about her family, she told about her two sons, two daughters, daughter-in laws & the two son-in-laws who are doctors! Tears streaming down her eyes, she mentioned, ‘they are coming to the hospital only for 20-30min, just to complete the formalities. They are just checking whether I am alive or dead, none of them have appeared since last week’.  I was feeling very uneasy at that moment as I saw those things only in movies like Baghban & other TV serials but never in real life. Other than consoling her I could do nothing. LL

Then I returned to Dr Mishra to tell the whole story & to find out a solution.  After listening to these things, he was annoyed & looked more tensed than Viswanathan Anand in front of a chess board. He told me that during his 5 years in Boston he found the American sons to be more loyal to their parents as compared to the Indians. Then he asked me to search her son’s phone no from the patient file (that made me feel like the member of CID team in sony). After getting the number, he dialed with the speaker on. Here goes the conversation:

Dr-hey Mr X, your mother seems to be fine now, I want to discharge her.

Mr X- Thanks doc. But I am wondering if you can keep her for another 10-15 days in hospital.

Dr- but why? She wants to go home.

Mr X- Actually I have a 3 year old son & my wife at home. If she is discharged now, it’ll be difficult for my wife to manage the condition. My wife has asthma problem.

Dr- as you wish Mr X. but remember that she is emotionally fragile & it may lead to another stroke. Hope you understand.

Mr X-yes. I do understand but what can I do?? I am helpless. I’ll talk to you later.

Hearing these things, both of us were speechless. He told me, ‘we can do nothing in this case, just keep the old lady in your mind & promise yourself that you’ll never do that to your parents’ & started attending the patients. I too started my work but in the absence of brain & heart.  So many things jammed my grey matter.

                       Today is the auspicious Diwali & I am writing this story because I can’t forget the tears of the helpless mother. When I told the story to my parents, they told that they would have preferred to remain in coma in such condition because it is unbearable for any of the parents in the universe to receive such ridiculous behavior. She must have celebrated a number of diwalis with her family members but now no body cares what their mother feeling now in this diwali. She must have been worried about her children’s health in the past but now, nobody has time for her. A son has time to get worried about the asthma of his wife but not about the brain stroke of his mother!!  We haven’t grown up by our parents just to throw money for their treatment in modern hospitals; only thing they want from us in their old age is proper caring & affectionate behavior. So please keep your parents happy throughout their life because it’ll give you more happiness than getting a job in Microsoft or getting a seat in the Harvad/MIT, because our happiness is directly propotional to that of our parents'.