November 11, 2011 Night
When I embarked on this daily note writing project more than 100 days ago, my favorite writing mentor gave me a single advice: don't write for the sake of anyone else, do it for yourself !
Frequently, I have conveniently forgotten this guidance and during the editing process, time and again, have made changes keeping in mind, a few friends who are regular readers. But this note and the next one, I write fundamentally so that I will never forget what was endured and what was realized on the 100th night and the 101st day of my stay in India.
My memory will certainly fade with the pain but I hope these printed words serve as ageless reminders.
By 9pm on Friday, 8 hours after the surgery, at the ICU, it was pretty clear that natural urination was a no go. Catheter it had to be.
Over a liter of urine was exerting pressure on my bladder which wasn't good for the abdominal insertions done in the morning.
"It is difficult to go once your bladder is full" said sister Pratibha as she rolled in a steel medical cart with catheterization paraphernalia next to my bed. The junior duty doctor for the night arrived dressed in faded grey jeans, white denim shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. From the English he spoke to the nurse, I guessed he was a Tamilian. Young and energetic, it was obvious that his main aim would be to follow procedure strictly without giving any leeway for me.
"Neenge tamizha, doctor?" (Are you a tamilian, doctor?) I asked in an effort to calm myself down.
"Aama" (Yes) he smiled
"Appidina tamizhile peshalam" (Then we can speak in Tamil)
"Ungalku tamizh teriyuma?" (You know Tamil?)
"Teriyum, neenge entha ooru?" (I do, where are you from?)
"Thiruvannamalai pakkam" (near Thiruvannamalai)
"Peru?"(Name?)
"Raj"
"Is the catheter going to be painful?" my shivering mind couldn't keep up the pleasantries.
"There is an anesthetic gel we put at the tip of the tube," it was Prathiba sister who answered. "you won't feel pain, just a little irritation." she lied with a beautiful smile.
Dr. Raj proceeded to find the point of insertion. "You have excess foreskin" he remarks. What he fails to notice is that I have only foreskin left. Massive post-surgical swellings and bandage cover the entire area. I am in no mood to consider a conversion to Islam or Judaism at that point. It takes him an inordinate amount of time to get my foreskin to behave. He needs the help of an attendant because the point of entry is as whimsical as a Stargate in its disappearance. That attendant fellow needs to be reminded that he must wear gloves.
A doctor, an attendant and a nurse: a foursome I had never wanted to imagine.
Sister Pratibha tears open the catheter tube sachet. Dr. Raj squirts the gel onto the rubbery burnt orange tube.
Moment of truth.
He goes in.
I flinch.
Few more seconds of probing.
"How far does the catheter need to go?" I had asked Dr. Manoj earlier in the night. "All the way to the bladder" he had said and I had shuddered at the thought.
Now I shuddered again as Dr. Raj pushed through into my bladder. He proceeded to inject some fluid in. Sister Pratibha held the bag. The attendant simply kept staring.
"Urine vanno doctor?" (Is urine coming?) I asked forgetting that I had confidently initiated a Tamil conversation a while ago. Sister Pratibha smiled and slowly lifted the filling bag to show me. It was filling to full capacity fast. I didn't feel much pain. It wasn't as bad as I had thought, I reflected.
Wrong premature conclusion.
"This is the toughest catheterization I have ever done," the doctor judges as he removes his gloves. "Thank you, doctor" I really meant the gratitude.
The clear plastic flexible urine collection bag is hung on the side railing of the bed. Five minutes after the doctor leaves, a dark, bald, 40-something attendant enters the ICU. He looks at me, raises his eyebrows and says, "Povadei?" (shall we go?) in a Thiruvananthapuram accent in the most disrespectful tone I had heard in that hospital.
I instantly dislike him.
From the behavior of the nurses and other attendants around this man, it looks like he is one of those typical labor union leaders who does precious little labor and more unionizing.
He rolls in a stretcher to transfer me to the room. I was expected to be back by 9pm but the whole catheter issue delayed the transfer till 10:30pm. 4 people try to transfer me out of the bed by pulling me along with the bed sheet under me.
Then in a moment of gross negligence and terrible luck, the full bag of urine drops to the floor. If you can imagine how that feels like without flinching, I admire your detachment. More than a liter of fluid attached to your urethra by a rubber tube falls freely under gravity.
The tug creates a stabbing pain inside me.
I cry out loud.
One of the sisters rushes to put the bag back onto the bedsheet. Sister Prathiba had the better sense to empty it first. The bald attendent smiles. I think my pain amused him.
"aa tube-inte attathu oru ball pole ondu. athanu vedana edukanathu" (There is a ball like thing at the end of the tube. that is why u r feeling pain) he explains as if such negligent accidents are routine stuff and I shouldn't be such a sissy!
I am dragged onto the roller bed and rolled back to room 207. Amma and Achan see the expression of pain on my face. It instantly reflects on theirs. I am dropped onto the bed in the sheet cradle.
The pain is relentless.
A sister tries to position the drip stand on the left side of the bed while the attendant secures the urine collection bag to the bed frame with a cloth bandage. Suddenly the drip bottle cap opens up and falls right next to my face. The fluid splashes onto the pillow and bed. The sister panics and holds an extremely apologetic expression. The attendent doesn't want her to worry.
"Oru towel kondu vareen" (bring a towel) he asks my parents. "Angu thodachu kalanja mathiyal" (just wipe it off, that's all) he instructs.
Anger is not the emotion I feel. It is one of heightened bewilderment. Utter disbelief! I cannot comprehend how a towering genius of angelic disposition like Dr. Haridas and caring souls like Dr. Suresh Babu who literally held a make shift curtain for me for 15 minutes while I tried to urinate, can exist in the same establishment as this careless scum of an attendent who is such a blemish to the medical service.
But then that is India for you.
The best and the worst, side by side.
I thought I smelled alcohol masked by scented 'paan' in his breath when he had moved me, but I might have been too biased.
After a new drip bottle is hung, the mover gang leaves. I keep groaning as every drop of urine passes through the catheter tube. "Do you want the tube removed?" asks a sister. "But then we might have to insert it back again if urine doesn't go" she adds in the same breath. I certainly don't want that!
Achan and Amma take turns to sit at the head of my bed and stroke my hair.
I know they are sharing every bit of my pain, if not more.
Recently when two of my best buddies had babies. I saw the care, the attention and the excitement they showered on their newborns. I had an inkling that it must have been the same with my parents when I arrived 33 years ago.
This night of persistent pain drives that realization to a higher plane.
I am reduced to a second childhood. First hand re-experience.
In the moment of intense physical pain, I am blessed with the care and undivided attention of the two souls for whom I mean the world.
What I had long forgotten in the 33 years of life returns to me with every stroke of Amma's hand on my forehead and every sigh that Achan lets out when he hears me groan.
Of course, I understand not everyone becomes caring parents and not everyone has had caring parents. I do read them stories of dads whipping daughters and moms microwaving babies. The stories of children who abandon their invalid parents in Varanasi or the richer ones who trick their aged parents on a flight to nowhere too, I am familiar with.
But a whopping majority of the parents I personally know are embodiment of loving care. Just like many young men and women, I have had severe ideological power struggles with my parents. I have thought of them, more than once, as outdated, stupid individuals who try to impose their dreams on me because of not having the guts to live it themselves. I am not regretting those tiffs or hasty hot-blooded judgement.
But on this sleepless night of excruciating pain, what I gain is clarity and depth... of the beauty of it all: The MAGNIFICENT good fortune of being born to parents who care.
If you are a parent, please commit to taking good care of yourself well into your old age because your children are never going to grow up. They can come back to you any time as helpless as the days you changed their nappies for them. And you will not be able to resist your intense urge to help alleviate their pain. With all my heart, I wish to the caring parents of this world, a long life of good health that is imperative for that task.
As the birds chirped outside the room window to announce the morning, I didn't know that the new day had more lessons in stock to be painfully delivered for me.
:((
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