Longings of a heart

“I cried that I had no shoes, until I saw a man with no feet”- Anon. ‘What we do in life, echoes in eternity.’- Gladiator (2000).  Beds in surgical ICU churn out strong lessons to a registrar. The lessons are not always academic but  also transformational. I just finished my rotation of critical care mandatory to my course and a family still lingers in my mind as I walk over the glint of a floor that bears stories of tragedy and hope in equal measure. A month ago, on one of the dangerous roads of our country, a family was riding in a car. The father, a sexagenarian along with his wife and daughter were riding along blissfully oblivious of the tragedy they were about to encounter.  The vehicle skid over the rough contour of mortar toppling the 1000 cc car thrice before reaching a halt. The three casualties were brought to emergency. The father was bleeding into the abdomen. A CT scan showed a big clot around the kidney and his blood pressure as a result was dropping

 ‘And always night and day, he was in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones’. Mark 5:5 I was done for the day. I picked my bags and was trudging along the changing room when I received a call from emergency regarding a sick patient. I left my paraphernalia and ran to casualty. The resuscitation room was a buzz of activity and emotion. I was envious of these physicians who dealt with high voltage scenarios round the clock. I had to jostle for space among the crowd to reach the man I was called to see. He was 30 year old Ravi lying in a ill fitting trolley with blue bed sheet over him. The head end of the bed was elevated to give his lungs some breathing space. The IV drip was flowing like a rivulet into his neck. The monitor attached was screaming for attention hoisting the deranged parameters in yellow and red. Ravi was breathing at frantic pace. He was also rolling in pain. I introduced myself and he was coherent enough to decipher my poor Tamil and reply. I

“Woman, you are set free from your infirmity .” Luke 13:12 Rotation to surgical ICU came as a whiff of fresh air to my course. From the daily rigmarole of breathing in medical gases and day long surgery lists, ICU opens the eyes of the anaesthesiologist to see how crucial his role is to the outcome of a patient and his family. ICU keeps us in touch with people who have relatives waiting to hear news that engenders life and death. It is those interactions with people that I often miss in theatre. Premedicated with anxiolytics a person coming for surgery does not even remember an anaesthetist post procedure. In popular medical worldview, the anaesthetist plays a second fiddle to the surgeon and the only reason his more enviable colleagues get along well is for an extra case to be done beyond the stipulated time. But I am inclined to think that it is a mistake. The night before I went to ICU, I accompanied Anand for preoperative examination of patients. I met a lady named P