EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME

Life is full of events, some good, some bad, some interesting, some boring & some awfully unexpected. But probably you won’t call it life if it doesn’t have any change. Life plays with you, it tests you at every moment how good or bad you perform. After all life is life, you can’t change it, you can’t ignore it. You don’t have choice of whether you go along with it or not. Good moments last forever, bad too. Happy times may give you joy, but those are the bad times that gives you strength, that gives you hope, that forces you to believe in God. Tragic moments of your life gives you experience that can be shared. And that’s what i am going to say now.

Throughout my whole life I have been horrified even by the thought of getting admitted into the hospital & getting injected a long syringe. But recently i had my appendicitis operation done. If you Google it, you will come to know that it's a medical emergency that can happen to anyone at anytime. Good thing about this is that it cannot happen again because being useless part, doctor removes it from your body.

Day 1: Nightmare in the night

It was Thursday. Thursday was the special meal day. I opened the Tiffin, there was puri, chola & saivaiyaan were there. I don’t hesitate a bit to tell others about my love for sweets. I love sweet more than i love myself. I cleaned all the bowls completely from my tongue & then I went for a small drink. I am considered to be one of the backward people of young India because neither I smoke nor I touch liquor. For me drink means one cup of hot milk with two teaspoons of sugar. My tummy was full & there was no space for anything other than sweets. From 11’o clock the movie show begins in my room & that night i was playing a fantasy drama stardust, which got a rating of 10 in my imdb list after the show. Show finished with a happy ending, crowning a stupid man after finding his true love in a star. Like the smoke from an agarbatti the pain started in my stomach. Getting pain in night was not new for me. I had experienced similar pain in the past couple of years after taking spicy food & I did night out every time i had pain. So I was ready for another night out. You may wonder how one can spend whole night with pain, so I will tell you how. All you have to do is to indulge your mind in some other activity like movie, songs etc. For such situation one of my friend has another way out. He transfers the pain from that location to other, obviously by creating larger pain somewhere else. In order to move attention from my stomach I played music right into in year in full volume. But that night nothing did help me. I kept on turning left right up down, legs over tummy, head over knee, knee over stomach, but all went in vain. I was not willing to consider it as a new pain, but by that time one thing was obvious that it was not exactly the same. That night was not just a mere night out, it was full of pain. Now I know it was appendix pain, that is known to be worst of it’s kind. In the morning I was barely able to move properly. I am known for my determination at least in my family & among friends, so just not to disappoint them I took a quick bath & dialled few numbers.

Day 2: Disease Revealed

Thanks to me I am good at numbers, particularly phone numbers. I have a good habit of populating my contact list by all the phone numbers that passes by my sight. If you are not aware of the city hospitals much, then generally you don’t experiment by visiting them and you trust only big names like Apollo, wockhardt etc (I don’t know no more names). Now a day’s most of the hospitals accept credit cards like all other merchants. Credit cards make your life easier until you pay their bills on time. Being familiar to Apollo I called it first to beg for an appointment with the doctor. This is good in a way that it saves your time waiting for your turn among all sorts of patients. Hospital environment itself, irrespective of how reputed they are makes you sick if not physically then at least physiologically. To my surprise doctors are busy at this time of recession and I could not get an appointment at Apollo. I dialled wockhardt for the same and easily got one at 10Am. Wockhardt is still struggling in India, I don’t know which brand is bigger but I do know that Wockhardt has world class pharmacy too. Although I tried sometimes but I could not gallop anything even water. I took an auto, the cheapest and the only ride in Bangalore. I met the lady doctor at 10Am. After coming to Bangalore I have never consulted any male doctor. Each time I went with some ailment, I came across with some lady doctor in her forties with such a motherly attitude that touched me in depth. Guessing it to be appendicitis doctor wrote three tests ultrasound, cbc and urine. I was too lucky to get an appointment in radiology department for ultrasound. Had I been next in the queue I would have suffered with that pain for next four days. Being unable to find the washroom in the very first visit of wockhardt I vomited on the floor itself. After that I noticed people keeping extra space on passing me by like I was volcano that can burst anytime. If you are the accused you have to bear the rage and anger of the public, similarly if you are the victim you have to bear the consolation, pity and sympathy by the same public bestows on you. I had severe pain in my abdomen but I couldn’t stop radiologist from pressing that hard because I knew that only will help him debug my case. After fifteen minutes of tearful pain, I was told that I had 9mm appendicitis. As I told before this is considered as an medical emergency because if it burst it poisons the whole intestine creating hell lot of complications. I was immediately forwarded to the physician. There I was told that I need an immediate surgery. I was not prepare for that neither mentally nor financially. But nobody has a choice when it comes to their own life. That day I met a surgeon, took an appointment for surgery to be done the next day. I was suggested to be on liquid diet. Be it a operation, be it liquids all needed money, but I have the advantage of a credit card which is spend today think or regret tomorrow. I needed to get someone pay for me without expecting any return, so I called my insurance company for help. I have spend hours of my life attending their calls, letting them explain their health policy, now it was my turn to annoy them and judge their service. With the help of hospital staff, I mailed them form for cashless hospitalisation. They wanted 12 hours to approve or decline it. I started taking liquid to keep me going because I was not on leave that day. I went to office as it was software release day and I had my check-ins pending for the last hour. From there I kept calling insurance customer care to accelerate my application, telling them my severe condition. I didn’t realise until that day that getting insurance is far easier than getting the cover. They set-up thousands of agents to annoy you on phone and somehow convince you to buy their policy and when it comes to cover someone they again annoy you from the engage tone of single customer care number. I also cleared all my pending credit cards bills.

Day 3: The `First time’ day

Operation was to be carried out in the evening. Insurance company approved my application and released 40k. I got myself admitted in the hospital at 3Pm. One of my friends gave me his company that day. Friends are the only hope when no kith is around. I would admire myself by saying that my friend circle is more or less unbounded, but very few are close to centre and you don’t need them all the time. I have set my expectation (inversely related to radial distance) for each of them and nobody disappoints me. I was given new clothes with no metallic object. I indulged myself in photo shooting. Human want to capture time and I am none other. You may question why did I capture the bad time of mine? Because bad time gives you Strength to fight, hope for good, belief in God, experience to face it again. But this doesn’t mean that I wish to face them. I just want to enjoy them too like good ones. It was already 3:30, at 6 I was to be operated, so they started inquiring my body. I told them proudly that I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I never had sugar, BP or any kind of disease in the past. Anaesthesia doctor told me that they will anaesthetise my whole body. Then I encountered a nurse, who came to me with a large machine, capable of measuring various signals of my body and print them. There are very few professions I give respect from my heart. Nursing and teaching are on the top. Former because it makes you wish well being of some strange patient and later because it makes you to reveal everything you know. I can’t explain why I think that both these profession are best suited for women. Then there comes the frightening scene of large syringe. I had bad dreams on this in my childhood days. Sister came with a drip and inserted 4 cm long syringe into my Y shaped vein of the left hand. Now I wonder how and when I developed resistance for that. May be growing old comes with such gifts. May be it was not that horrifying as my little mind manipulated it. It could be the nurse effect also as the nurse was passing a sweet smile while doing this, which gave me power to conquer over this fear. For the first time in my life my veins were getting the energy from outside the body. Cold glucose was flowing along with blood and so does chilling sensation. Sister told me that next part is body preparation. I thought they might put some lotion in my stomach like they do in ultrasound. Then a forty plus man entered into the ward, he asked my friend to step out and downed the curtains. Then he removed my clothes and fitted blade in his razor. For the first time I was lying naked in a room with at least five peoples and one of them staring at me. This was also the first time someone was accessing the places that were forbidden for others. That was the most humiliating part as I have never thought that I would go naked for someone other than my future spouse. I would say that was my worst time ever and I don’t want to experience it again. Had I known this in advance I would have done this for myself, but bad time doesn’t knocks at the door they just burst upon you. Half of my body from chest till knee was hair free. After this I was given a apron like cloth to wear it. Now it became obvious that worst time was not over it will persist until operation is completed. Hiding my privacy with full efforts I laid down in a stretcher and wrapped blanket around. I was moving toward OT. My heart was beating like I have seen any crime happening before my eyes. On the way I was asked to move from one stretcher to another. Which I did very carefully & unwillingly as I was completely nude in that ribbon less apron, but thankfully I had blanket to cover me. My two year old sacred thread on my right hand was shown the way to dustbin. OT was chilled because of AC or my inside was shivering because of cold drip, I couldn’t figure out. Thermal engineering helped me conquer my shiver. A big heater possibly electronic started giving hot air directly inside my blanket. What happened afterward I can only guess now. They would have mixed anaesthesia in the drip and I lost consciousness along with all shame, shiver, fear and excitement. Losing consciousness was also my first time experience. When I regained my senses I found myself being monitored by a machine that was measuring BP and some signals at every five minute interval and continuously respectively. They put some adhesive bandage in my chest to take control of the pain anywhere in my body. First thing I did was pressing my stomach slightly to get to know the pain, stitches & most importantly fullness. By fullness I mean precious organs inside the body. In a country like India anything can happen anytime, anyplace. I was perplexed when I found out there are no cuts, no stitches nothing. At first I wondered they actually removed appendicitis or not, but feeble pain in abdomen was proof for that. Monitoring was to be done for two full hours, so I started capturing myself with that machine in my 2mp camera. I was admitted in a 3 tier room but as the funds were released I was upgraded to 2 tier room. Tonight I was not allowed to take anything from mouth. ‘Not a big deal’, I assured myself and closed my eyes to dream for the better tomorrow with no pain. That day I broke all my records of having maximum first time experiences in a day.

Day 4: Fire in the hole: Get Set Go

I was ready to drink whatever I wished, so wised for various juices. They gave me soup, dal-pani etc which I managed to drink somehow. Doctor visited me and told for a bath. Science was constantly giving be shock again and again. I had operation 12 hr ago and I was been told to take a complete bath. I walked few steps , mocking the patient’s pace. I made myself prepare to inform my family about this whole thing. You have to be strong to convince your parents that you are well and there is nothing to worry about. I kicked my shit out of my ass and took a shower. Then I didn’t put the remote down that day.

So this was the whole new experience of my life, which I am sharing with all you guys. I want to sincerely thank to insurance company and my friends to help me winning this battle with life.