GATE INTO THE FOREST OF NEW BEGINNINGS (water colour  in paper)
                              

“Is it a major operation or a minor operation…?”

I threw the question at the doc with bated breath for an answer which would put me at ease...

“Well it is a minor operation in terms of the functionality and major in terms of the complexity and rarity?”

You remember the Wodehouse joke…

The confusion of major brown was that he was a miner and his brother minor brown was that he was a major in the army.. Here is where the major becomes a miner and miner, the major.

Having put my mind at rest, I asked him when I would fully be functional…

Of course the wise doc had the uncanny ability to answer only those questions which are appropriate for the time … He said may be the whole process should take three weeks but I can be up and about very fast…

His smile and the way he said it gave me the full confidence that I would be out in three weeks.   

While having dinner I hear a knock and there is this young lady. Says she is an anesthetist and would like to examine me... I just ask her whether she could wait till I finish my dinner. She pouts (she must be around 28 yrs age… very young and pretty). She says that she is on duty for 24 hrs and is very busy .Beena gives me a nudge and through body language indicates that ‘anesthetist first and the dinner next’. So I submit myself to the young doc…she asks me about whether in the last operation I was given GA (general anesthesia) or local... I give a blank look. She asks me whether I have any throat problems and I answer in the negative. ….I slowly realized that this is the lady who is going to put me to sleep the next day while the operation was going on...for a fleeting moment I was scared whether I have upset her…if she puts me to partial sleep and ask for my repentance tomorrow then I would be a goner….or if she leaves me at a stage where there is partial recovery…. I realized now the meaning in Beena’s nudge…I profusely apologized to the doc for asking her to wait... she says that she came an hour earlier and found that I was out at the urology clinic and she had to make the trip again … she had been working for 18 hours and is expected to work for six more hours without sleep…my heart went out for her.. and for the PG*s who slog it out…My son must have gone through this and also my daughter in law would be going through this…from that moment on I started looking at her with love and admiration…But Shubha does not even know how much I adore her…

Operation fixed for 9 o clock Monday…after twelve in the night no more food to be taken and after six o’clock in the morning not even water. The previous night the ward boy came and said   he would give me a shave before the operation. I was quite amazed at the hospitality and sheepishly   declined the unusual offer. The next day he troupes in at eight and insists that I come to the preparation room. I did not understand this purpose of grooming before the operation…nurse also tells me that it is a must…once inside the prep room, he was waiting for me to start… I showed my chin to him… he asks in his broken English to drop my pants… oops now I realized that they are not going to give me a face shave but a base shave….

Prajwal the doc walks and tells me that I will have to go through a do or die situation or rather dye or do test…

There was no choice he says… this do or die situations are always scary for me…he injects a dye into my bladder and asks me to lie still while they where x-raying the whole innards. I felt like doing but they took some more shots and were looking at the shots. Here I was dying to do... After what appeared to me as ages they allowed me the doing. Oof what a relief…I almost died…

I was taken to the operating table. A screen was put in front of me and Shubha’s reassuring voice was telling me that I would lose sensation below the mid spine.

I never realized that I was a celebrity as I found that the theatre was full of video graphers and photographers. only later would I realize that it was in honor of the ‘diverticulum’ which was as big as the bladder itself…if my diverticulum where to become a celebrity so will I; after all it is sampath’s diverticulum … meanwhile the voices was trailing away and some talk of GA was being spoken… and I drifted into an aimless space…later when I asked Shubha why they converted me form spinal anesthesia to general she said with a mischievous smile that they found the spine missing…

The next two days I was under the influence of sedatives and tranquilizers...I was told during this time I was talking to Beena and telling her all my woes... I wanted her to be considerate with me and elicited promises from her... both Rahul and Sapto (a dear friend of Rahul, my son) never revealed the nature of promises given. I will have to corner my son some time on this.  

I was looking like a Spiderman (Nav my grandson would have been thrilled to see me) with tubes all around... they were coming out of all orifices...

Painkiller, Catheter one, Catheter two, Dth and of course the Saline tubes…from that time on I would measure my progress by the number of tubes that were taken out of my system...the sisters were like angels, very considerate.. Always smiling and gentle to the touch…they gave antibiotics through the veins and through the saline tubes...my wrist was swollen and they had to find an alternate site to download the saline

Sister told me it was in vein… I was wondering what was the issue that is getting them frustrated; they seem to be searching for some thing in the other wrist… I asked them what it was… again came an answer that their search was in vein…I was getting frustrated that they are not telling me the truth...they were searching in vein for what...    The senior nurse came in and after an expert observation located a vein… they were searching around for an alternate vein to poke the saline tubes into me.

When “doing” was handled by the catheter, the “going” was a problem…Though doc said that I could eat whatever I wanted I was scared of constipation and my ever buoyant piles. This was one of the most painful and problematic areas... the docs, Beena and my son would take it lightly …the nadir reached when I would break down and shout at Beena and tell bubli over the phone how Amma is not understanding me. This was the time I realized that my son the doc is not going to be near me (when I was in the hospital my daughter in law got admitted for a PG course in family medicine in Texas and she would leave for her further studies; Rahul would also go with her for his further studies) He would leave India for ever…I realized I can not probably undergo another medical emergency like this without him around…   There was a great feeling of loss…I think of Garimella and shetty and other active septuagenarians seniors of mine who are living their lives alone… it perks me up… may be a new chapter is beginning in my life…

And all of a sudden came Kamal jhi’s call (he talked to Beena once and twice to me) followed by Santhosh’s call twice and then Shuvashree’s call... later Subbu’s call and Neha’s call also came in…In the end when garimela's call came it was overwhelming….I was wondering whether I deserve all this and whether this relatedness that I am building up in Sulekha will also hurt…it was fine when you do not get touched. I now feel so close to many of the sulekhaites and I am suddenly scared. Why create this closeness and then get hurt? I am wondering as to what I should be doing in Sulekha…so sweet of all those who wanted me to get better...    Sulekha has become very real as a community of friends rather than a community for my acknowledgements and achievements…I need to do a lot more soul searching about my involvement in this community. So many of my friends have wished me well in response to my last blog…will this also disappear one day…

Kesav the senior ward boy (no more a boy but a man) was always smiling. He would insist on giving me a bath every day… took me back to the days when all of us brothers would be lined up with langotees. And my mom would heat til oil with pepper and rub the oil all over the body. Then we would have a wrestling match… imagine wrestling with oil all over... Santa was just 3 years elder than me and kallu was just two years younger to me… Kesav was so very gentle and caring. He transported me back to my child hood…  I was asking myself the question what makes people so loving and committed to their job. Am I as gentle and caring with those whom I deal with?

The time for discharge… but I have to come back in a week’s time for the removal of the last piece of Spiderman’s tube and also the stitches. Half the stitches were removed on the day of discharge. I say bye to the nurses and ward boy’s and give them gifts and tell them how my recovery was due to their care…Rahul took me back to udupi to his house.

Beena now tells me to learn to manage on my own. Not just telling but facilitates the process. In my mind I am still a patient but in her mind I need to now get up and shed the patient role.  Beena is very sweet. She makes me my favorite dishes, gets me ice cream and comics from the shop. And helps me to handle my extra baggage… I have now this constant appendage of a urine bag trailing behind and the constant irritation of the catheter... I get spasmodic stomach pains and the energy is spent on monitoring and controlling these pains. I get in touch with my universe of expectations from Beena and realized that sooner or later I will have to give them up.

Thanks... Rahul my son. There is a saying in Tamil

‘Mahan thandaikuu attrum udavi avan ennotran kol enum soll”

“The repayment a son can give to a father is …when others tell the father …what a great man you son is”

  From Srikhanth, Vivek, PU Srivatsav and Silpa and all his friends, his doctors, nurses and ward boys I heard so many good things about him... My balanced score card of son-father relatedness is complete.  

Not to mention scores of other bloggers...who visited my site and  had given their well     wishes for my getting better ,gave me some meaning for getting better fast… my other friends and relatives like Babli, Rupesh, Navvu ,Silpa,Sapto and  Sadanands, who prayed for me .. I truly believe that but for you all the operation would not have gone on smoothly. Thanks Ravi, Captain, Venkat, Soni Bhai, Chandru and CSRK….  

 Still have to go and get one more tube out of my body in a week’s time.

I am like a cactus. A cactus which flowers once in a while. It is the flowering time. Everything is tender and beautiful now. Soon the flowering season will be over and the thorns would be back as I cannot live in this sensitivity forever... I have to get back to the safe world of not so easily touchable cactus…my sensitivities will be soon masked with humor and pain will be concealed in the wit…my deep sense of relatedness will be masked and show through a veil of idle banter or mild appreciation…expression of love to a few carefully chosen words of care and concern lest it should be misunderstood. You my friends in sulekha are so much alive in my awareness...

Let us hope that it is a new beginning for me… and for all of us related to each other…

*PG….. Post graduate students..