Spending a day at a hospital is seldom an experience to cherish
THE only funny part in this article is its beginning. And that too happened when I was lying in my bed after a diagnostic operation, feeling very sorry for myself. My maid walked in saying “Hai ji, main tay dua kardi aan, Allah tussan nu jaldi utha levay.” Her roughly translated words were: “I pray to God to raise you up quickly.” I was so shocked to hear her words. But then I realized what she meant was something different. Apparently what she meant was that she wished I was able stand on my feet and not go into the grave — as the words insinuated.
I can’t blame her, most of those who came to ‘cheer me up’ had tales to tell of people going through the same trauma, with a gruesome ending. Yes, one does laugh, but it’s not so funny when you are the person being cheered up in that way. Soon after the dialogue between my maid and myself ended, I was admitted to a hospital to undergo a major surgery. There was nothing funny about that either. Actually, humour is the last thing on your mind when you enter the ITC of a hospital as a patient.
In my case, I had just had surgery and was coming to my senses, as I was being wheeled into a cubicle. I became aware of myself and turned to look at the people wearing green clothes at the operation theatre accompanying me to the ITC, and asked: “What time is it?” I could feel everyone’s surprise, wondering, who’s this patient? (Later, the nurse would tease me by asking what time it was, every time she went past me.)
Well, I was just trying to get myself orientated and wanted to know how long the operation would last, so that I could know how serious it was. If it was one hour, it was not that serious. And if it was three hours, then they would have taken out two of my organs. Apparently, it took a little over an hour, which included my husband taking the organ (which had a growth inside it) to the laboratory, where it was analyzed and declared non-malignant. And so I was stitched up again without removing any more paraphernalia in my body.
Suddenly, I saw the face of my husband. I tried to say, “So, it’s over?” and realized it was difficult. I became aware of the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. I could see there were people trying to put me somewhere, and asked, “Should I get up?” And the woman said, “No, of course not, we’ll put you there, just relax.” I relaxed and felt myself being picked and placed in a bed. My husband held my hand as everything seemed to move back into a haze. I knew the operation was over. I was grateful to God for giving me some more years to live in this world, which we hate to leave. Though the team of doctors and anaesthetists was a competent one, I was ready for any kind of eventuality. Suddenly, I looked up to see my whole family around me, my mother, father and three daughters. All were smiling and I felt like hugging them. This was difficult, as I realized, I had small needles and pipes all over me. It was like a ‘filmy’ scene, complete with the bleeping screen of the ECG monitor on the bedside table. I was careful not to move anything too much, but a hug was badly needed. Everyone, uncomfortably, obliged.
Realizing my family had to leave, as no attendant is allowed in the ITC, I settled in my bed, ready to say goodbye to them. My eldest daughter handed over my mobile phone to me and I felt as if I’d developed a link with my familiar real world. In front of my bed the open curtain provided me with a glimpse of the main rectangular room of the ITC beyond, and right next to my bed, about four feet away, was the table where the doctor on duty sat. So, I felt safer. My family started moving out and I realized I was to be left alone here.
“How are you feeling now?” came the reassuring voice of my sister-in-law on the phone. As I spoke, the nurse came by, “Yeh aap kia kar rahi hein, phone to nahin rakhna.” Oops! So, no phones allowed? Well, happily, they found out my family was already gone. I quickly hid it under my pillow. And slunk my head and closed my eyes. I was all set for my night in the ITC.
I just don’t remember the evening there. I guess, I kept dozing off, at least once in the afternoon. I saw my cousin Shehnaz come to visit me and she put socks on my feet. I felt numb. Her daughter, who’s a doctor, came and got me an injection to alleviate the pain. There was to be no intake of food or drink and I had nothing since 12 last night. Even the thought of food made me feel awful. I was fine that way, looking up at the reassuring glucose dripping into my blood stream — at least, there was something going into my body. I floated in and out of sleep. Time passed.
It was some time late at night when I woke up with the piercing sound of screams of an old woman (of about 70 years) lying in the main room, right in front of me. She was quite skinny, wearing shalwar kameez with a dupatta over her head. She was screaming for her mother and shaking her head and body uncontrollably. I saw people rushing to her and trying to calm her down.
Meanwhile, a strange sputtering noise came from a few feet to my right. It was the cubicle next to mine. The noise would keep increasing and decreasing. Later I was told it was a contraption to clear air passages.
There was a bed to the right side of the screaming lady too. An elderly man was lying on it. His face was barely visible because of the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, not to mention the pipes. There seemed pipes all over. They were attached to large machines placed near the bed. The man seemed to be tied to something and appeared to be needing constant emergency help, when he’d be shaking his head vigorously. I thanked Allah for bringing me here in a much better shape than the rest of the patients. My oxygen mask had been removed and I was able to, at least, talk.
I was feeling thirsty. A nurse came and told me just a small sip at a glass of water should be okay. I took two small sips. A little while later, I felt terribly nauseous — and a horrible sensation rose up in my chest. The raw stitches of the wound made me scared of coughing or throwing up. I felt panicky. I called out the nurse for help. My voice came out in a low whisper. I couldn’t speak louder. She was standing a few steps away. I called out again. But she just could not hear me. She did not see me as she was looking elsewhere and her attention would keep flitting from papers on the desk to the screaming patients. I tried to speak loudly, trying to make myself sit upright. With needles in my arm, it was hard for me to move, and she just couldn’t hear me. I kept trying and I had almost given up when she saw me and came to me. I told her, “My nausea is terrible.” She said, “Don’t worry, I’ll give you an injection.” She dashed off as I let myself lie back, feeling awful and scared. She came and stuck the injection into the canola fixed on my wrist. I felt pain, as the medicine went into my blood stream, I felt relief. I could breathe better.
The nurse made me settle down and walked off. The scene was repeated several times during that night. Yes, the screams of patients, my nausea and then injection. And then I dozed off.
I woke up and saw the nurse walking from one patient to another. Now I had the time to look at her. She was petite and good looking with short hair. She had a pleasant personality. I don’t remember seeing her sitting anytime. The doctor on duty would sit and write something and seemed to keep an eye on everything from his central position. Once I asked the nurse about the other patients as she put the injection into my canola, she said, “Mostly, we have accident victims. There is a government official, who is constantly telling us which file to bring to him and do it quickly.” She smiled and said, “We humour him, and keep saying ‘yes sir, no sir’ to him. Sometimes we even tell him that the file is on the way.”
And when I came to know that the nurse was going I said, “That was a horrible night.” She said, “Oh no, it was a very good night, compared to yesterday.” I was really shocked. “How can you call such a night good? How can a night be worse than this one?” I asked.
“Yesterday, it was very bad,” she said briefly. “We had four deaths.”
She continued, “One of them was a young boy. He’d been poisoned.” That really caught my attention. She added, “He was the son of a doctor here, who had been hit by criminals in a bazaar for not handing over his mobile phone.” So, they forcibly put poison in his mouth and made him swallow it at gun point. And then left him on the footpath to die. This happened in broad daylight in the middle of a busy street. No one dared to help.
“By the time he was brought here he was in a bad shape. We lost him last night.”
I did not ask about the other three who were accident victims. I looked around again. The patients nearby seemed to have been changed. They appeared to have been replaced by equally ill patients. The old lady was replaced by a young boy with a bandaged eye and injured head. He too seemed to be in agony. He was a teenager and must be 14 years old. I could see his worried father sitting next to him.
Soon the environment changed completely. It seemed the new in-charge of the hospital was to walk in for a routine round. Suddenly, it appeared as if things had to look very prim and proper. So, for the second time, my bed sheet was changed by competent maids and new sheets were placed under the blanket. I tried to act the part of a nice patient too. Everyone was trying to make the place look nicer.
One doctor was a lovely, good-looking lady. I envied her for being so decked up and beautiful.
Soon the round was over and I was allowed to go on a roller coaster ride on a stretcher into the ambulance, and through a lift into my own room next to the ward. Landing with a thud onto my bed as the maid’s hand slipped, I was grateful to be there in one, stitched up, piece.
Now when I look back on that particular night, I feel a tad uncomfortable, for reasons that are not hard to explain.
Spending a day at a hospital is seldom an experience to cherish
