Longings of a heart

DOCTORS AND EMBARRASMENTS “ Whenever a ship goes into the sea, it has 3 questions to answer. One, why is it there in the first place? Two, how is it going to prevent itself from colliding with other ships?  And three, how is it going to prevent itself from sinking?” - C.S.Lewis. That was a rainy afternoon in the noisy suburbs of Hyderabad. I was on my way to Mumbai for a writers’ workshop. In the jostle to get down an overcrowded bus, I fell down flat on the busy road that pumps through peak hour traffic. My father had been informed and the first question he posed on the whole ordeal was- “How can you fall from a bus being a doctor?” The question, I felt, ranged from being frivolous to frustrating. A stream of thought ensued that reminded me that doctors are not supermen. They are ordinary people with fussing, fretting, failings and frailties. They are not above instincts and impulses. They are not above the laws of gravity- as noted from my pathetic fall. Not a week pas...

                                    PERSEVERENCE It was two months since I had joined Asha Kiran hospital- a small resort like place in picturesque Orissa.  After intense training, my seniors left me in the ward to take first calls. 50 year old Sukhdev had come with acute renal failure, shopping in various hospitals on the way without any respite. I had seen his serum creatinine report which was 22 mg/dl which meant that his kidneys were long lost in dysfunctional slumber. The very look at the report triggered a sense of hopelessness and the first thing that came into my mind was referral. The skinny man who was disoriented on presentation had a wife and two sons who were visibly exhausted in their shuttle to find a panacea. The elder son replied that they had gone to enough places already and they could not go anywhere else. I gave a fluid challenge, wishing that the sleeping kidneys wo...

  DIRGE AND SONNET That was a typical July afternoon. The monsoons had begun to eclipse the sun, wetting the serene landscapes around Asha Kiran hospital. I had just finished my rounds and was awaiting lunch break to tame my burning stomach. A jeep raced through the iron gates of the hospital to the emergency block, bringing along 16 year old Amitha Khora. The avalanche of attendants had to be cleared like snow on the Himalayan Highway, before I was informed that the patient was a known sickle cell disease. Few pints of fluid, antibiotics and oxygen- the therapeutic recipe for the crisis of this ailment, was a regular ritual at this place. I did not see that it would be a problem to see Amitha up and about. But I was wrong. Amitha was studying tenth standard, a remarkable achievement in the otherwise illiterate family. Suddenly she developed severe chest pain- a quintessential symptom of the aggravation of disease. The old medical records revealed that she was admitted severa...