‘Hey Deepu,’ I said, placing my hand on his shoulder.
He woke up with a start and looked up. He was tired and I could see the sleep in his eyes.
‘Hi,’ he said, getting up from his seat.
‘Did the doctors see her this morning?’ Dad asked him.
‘Yes, they saw her. In fact, a little while ago, they talked to me and said that they will be going for a CT scan by noon. They want to check the present status of the blood clots in didi’s brain.’
Meanwhile, Jiju joined our conversation. He had gone to get a water bottle from the shop in the hospital campus. He too got an update from Deepu. A little later, Dad asked both of them to go back home so that they could have breakfast and take some rest. But Jiju insisted on staying there for a while, with us. He suspected that the doctors might be taking Khushi for the CT scan soon and then he too could see her. So he stayed back, while Deepu left for home in his car. Deepu was definitely not going to rest, as there was important work at home to be completed.
The three of us occupied vacant chairs in different rows on that floor. I started looking at the people around me—some sleeping, some talking to their dear ones on their mobiles, some chanting prayers and a few wiping their tears. Deep in their eyes was a fear which they were fighting against. There was this smell in the air, peculiar to every hospital in this country. In front of us was the ICU door which was scaring me an awful lot.
In the right corner of this floor there was a TV set, at a height. Some India versus Sri Lanka series was on, with the volume almost zero. A few youngsters were following the match before a lady demanded to see the repeat telecast of a Saas-Bahu serial which she had missed last night. According to the person sitting next to me, this lady was quite happy today as her father-in-law was being discharged from the ICU in a few hours. The moment she heard this news from her doctor, she discovered a way to celebrate by watching reruns of her favorite soap.
So much was happening around me. Every five minutes, the elevator door opened in order to flush out and take in different people. Nurses and ward boys wheeled patients on trolleys to different rooms on the other side of the ICU door. Frequent announcements called for attendants to meet their respective doctors and, with every call, the concerned persons rushed to the ICU in hope and fear.
This was an altogether new atmosphere for me or, probably, for everyone on this floor. The doctors on the other side of the ICU door seemed like Gods to us and the gatekeeper at the entrance, their messenger. And just like a temple, we were supposed to remove our shoes at the door before moving in. At times, the same door opened from the other side and we saw people coming out, some smiling, some about to burst into tears.
Finally, there was an announcement for us too. ‘Bed no. 3. Attendants of Khushi, please come in.’
This was enough to send my heart racing. Despite the sweat on my forehead, all of a sudden I felt extremely cold inside. I started breathing heavily. I knew the time had come when I was going to see something which would disturb me. I looked at Dad and Jiju and then the three of us rushed towards the door. By now, none of us had seen her and I don’t know what was happening to them, but I was shaking. I felt Jiju’s hand on my shoulder trying to comfort me as we approached the door.
‘Yes,’ Dad said to the gatekeeper.
‘Go to the CT scan room on the ground floor. The nurses have taken her there for the scan,’ the gatekeeper told us.
We rushed towards the elevator. The door was about to close when we squeezed ourselves in. At the ground floor, outside the elevator door, I asked the guard for directions to the CT-scan room. Busy with his cellphone he pointed the way. I was running, with Dad and Jiju trying to catch up. I passed by many rooms on this floor and finally reached the zone where I saw a board which read ‘CT scan’. The entrance to this zone was a grill-like structure behind which there was a reception counter.
‘Yes?’ one of the ladies at the reception asked me.
‘Has the CT scan of the patient named Khushi started?’ I asked her, tying my shoelace which had come undone while I was running.
She glanced at the last entries in her thick register. Meanwhile, I turned back to see Dad and Jiju, who were still four blocks away from this room.
‘Can you see that stretcher inside, behind that green curtain? That’s your patient and the CT scan is about to start in a short while,’ she said, pointing towards the CT-scan room.
‘Who are you and …’ she tried to ask me but, before she could complete her questions, my feet started moving towards that stretcher. All of a sudden I was calm. I felt everything around me was freezing, as if time was slowing down every second. The voices around me grew dim in my ears. I was seeing people around me and their actions but was not able to hear them at all. I could see the reception lady behind me still asking so many questions and prohibiting me from going in, but I was not able to understand her and I kept walking towards the green curtain without even blinking. At the door, the ward boy tried to stop me, possibly at the receptionist’s command. I don’t remember his face and what had happened to him, but there was something, something because of which he took his hands off me the very next moment. Maybe it was my tears falling on his hands …
And, finally, I was standing beside her.
Seeing her, my heart melted inside me. Never in my worst nightmare could I have seen her this way. My sweetheart, my Khushi was in front of me and her body revealed what she had gone through. Most of her body was covered with a white bed sheet. Her innocent face had suffered so many injuries. There were blood clots on her swollen right eye. There were scars, big and small, on her entire face. A thick ventilator tube ran down her nose. Her broken jaw was temporarily fixed with bandages. The soft skin of her right arm bore the marks of so many injections that it had turned blue. I could see multiple tubes of different diameters piercing different parts of her body. On her bed she was surrounded by various medical equipment including a ventilator, a small monitor to read the heart-beat, an oxygen-cylinder extension and medicine bags with injections and medicine in them. And there were these constant beeps from the ventilator.
I saw her hand, coming out from under the bed sheet at my side. I touched her little finger very gently. In response, I felt her beautiful fingers crawling on my palm and, with that, I suddenly held her hand and started crying, seeing my dearest bearing that pain all alone.
I felt a hand on my shoulder again. Regaining my senses, I looked back to see Jiju standing behind me looking at her. Dad approached her from the other side and was observing her with love and warmth in his eyes. Indeed, it’s hard for a father to see his daughter breathing with the help of a support system. And there I was, still holding her hand. The three of us, standing beside our dear Khushi, were praying hard, with all our heart and soul.
‘We have to take her for the scan,’ a feminine voice broke the silence in that room. She was the nurse who was in charge and had been to get the CT scan machine ready.
She called the ward boy at the entrance for help and wheeled the stretcher to the scanner. It was a giant, white-coloured, wheel-like structure which I had seen earlier only in some movies. I was feeling apprehensive.
‘Help me to shift her to the scanner,’ the nurse said in a loud voice while assembling the ventilator tube.
We all helped in shifting her from the stretcher. I was standing on her left along with the nurse. Dad and Jiju were at the other side. The ward boy too came and stood beside us in order to lift her. We all were at our positions, but I couldn’t understand how we would shift her with all the equipment and various tubes attached to her badly injured body.
‘Now,’ the nurse said, commanding all of us to lift her.
All hands were at work that moment. Though Dad, Jiju and I took utmost care in transferring her to the scanner, the nurse did not seem careful enough to me. She lifted her from the stretcher without giving any support to her neck and, moreover, the way she gripped her hand was definitely not right.
‘The sali
ne tube has come out,’ the ward boy said.
I jumped and caught hold of that tube to give it to the nurse as soon as possible so that she could fix it. But the nurse appeared too lazy to do that.
‘Please fix that thing first,’ I said to her.
‘Relax, sir. Everyday we handle many patients. Don’t worry,’ she said, arrogantly.
‘Yes, and that’s why you have become so callous,’ I said silently.
Khushi had started showing some movement in her hands, which was gradually increasing, maybe because of the pain. In a little while, she was literally shaking her hands to get rid of the needles piercing her hand. Seeing her, I panicked and asked the nurse to do something.
‘She is in a sub-conscious state where everybody reacts this way. Nothing new,’ she answered, completely ignoring my panic.
Maybe not for her, but it was definitely new for me. I was not able to stand seeing my better-half in that state. I was getting frustrated by the nurse’s behavior but I knew we were not in a position to do anything which might add to our miseries. I stood beside Khushi, holding her hands in mine in order to prevent her from taking off the saline and ventilator tubes.
‘Apart from you, everybody can leave this room,’ the nurse said pointing at me.
‘Why?’ I asked her in a gentle tone.
‘We are going to begin the scan and usually we allow attendants to stay only if we need them. I need you to hold her hands throughout the scan or she might take off her saline needle,’ she explained.
Dad, Jiju and the ward boy left the room. The nurse closed the door from inside and gave me a sleeveless jacket, to protect me from the rays coming out of that giant white wheel, I think. She then went inside the control room to operate the machine. Back in this room, I was standing, holding my beloved’s hands, looking at her face. My heart bargaining with God, ‘Anything, but not her.’
Gradually I felt the strength with which she was trying to shake her hands. It was getting difficult for me to hold her firmly without hurting her. No one was around us. I steeled myself to hold her tight.
And I started talking to her.
’Hey, dear. I am so sorry if I am hurting you, but this is for your good. I am doing this because I want you to get well soon. I am doing this because you are the best thing that ever happened to me and I don’t want to see that going away from me because I simply cannot think of living without you. Come back to me, please. Open your eyes and see, your Shona is here for you.’
Holding her hands in mine, I bent down to whisper in her ears, ‘Fight. Fight for me. For all of us. And I promise you, we will provide you the best hospital, the best doctors, the best medicine and the best care.’
For rest of the few minutes, I kept seeing her face.
Meanwhile, the nurse came in from the control room confirming that the scan was done. I realized that the sound coming from the machine wasn’t there any more. She opened the door and I saw Dad and Jiju standing outside, looking at me.
With the help of the ward boy, we then shifted her back to the stretcher. This time, I took care to shift the saline pouch, the urine bag and the ventilator along with her. I didn’t want anybody to make any mistake this time. After shifting her back to the stretcher, the ward boy wheeled her out of the scan room. We too were walking along with them. Back at the entrance, I saw the reception lady again, looking at me. ‘I am sorry,’ I said and passed by her. On the way back to the ICU the nurse took a different route—an elevator that led to the ICU. Our entrance was prohibited. We stood there, seeing them taking her away.
I joined my palms, praying to God to take care of her and make her get well soon. Then we returned to the ICU attendant-hall, back on the same chairs, amid the same crowd, hearing similar announcements. A little later, Jiju left for home after Dad insisted that he go and take some rest. Dad and I spent the rest of the time in the hospital sitting on our chair, confined to the attendant-hall.
Whatever I had seen in the past few hours was flashing through my brain. Her face, her hands and my one-sided conversation with her.
‘Did she recognize my voice? Did she hear me talking to her? Did she want to say something to me?’ These were the questions I was asking myself again and again. For hours, I struggled with these questions and bad thoughts at one end, and prayers and hopes at the other.
It was 3 p.m. when Pushkar arrived at the hospital with a lunch-box. I met him while I was coming out of the restroom and updated him about today’s CT scan.
‘So did the doctors talk about the reports too?’ he asked.
‘Not yet. They might, during the evening counseling hours,’ I said.
‘Hmm … I thought so. By the way, I have got lunch for you and Dad and me,’ he said.
‘I think it would be better to send Dad back home, so that he can have his lunch comfortably there and rest a little. He seems to be tired.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll be here with you.’
We then moved towards the attendant-hall.
Despite Dad’s reluctance, we succeeded in sending him back home.
I had my lunch after that. For the next few hours, Pushkar and I were talking to each other, about our office, family and friends. And our Khushi.
It was 5.30 in the evening when we saw Deepu coming out of the elevator. The visiting hours had started and I knew he was here to see his sister. He sat beside us, talking about the little problem with his car and that it needed servicing. Dad had already told him about the morning’s CT scan.
When our turn was announced, we asked him to go ahead to the ICU. Back in the hall, Pushkar and I were worried about the CT-scan report. Our eyes were glued to the ICU door, waiting for Deepu to come out with some update from the doctors. And nearly fifteen minutes later, we saw him coming out. We got up from our seats and went to him.
‘The doctors say that the blood clots are still persisting in didi’s brain. But the good thing is that they have not worsened,’ he said before we could ask him.
‘Anything else?’ I wanted to know.
‘Nothing as such. She is in a subconscious state and moving her hands and legs.’
We stood near that ICU door for a while before we walked back to our seats, where we sat for another hour or so. Meanwhile, Dad called up Deepu on his cell. He wanted me to come back home. Though I was not willing to leave the hospital, the frequent announcements finally made me leave. According to the announcements, only the attendants having ICU passes were allowed to stay back on this floor and the checking was about to begin. We just had two passes with us and one of us had to leave. I did not feel like asking either Pushkar or Deepu to do so and so I agreed to go.
‘I’ll drop you home,’ Deepu said.
‘OK,’ I said looking at him and Pushkar.
‘Have some tea at home and relax a bit. You’ve been here since morning,’ Pushkar said, patting my shoulder.
‘I will. See you later.’
‘See you.’
While going down in the elevator, I was asking myself—and God, if He could answer me—when she was going to open her eyes and talk to me. When would I hear the doctors say that she is out of danger? When will things be all right for all of us again? I begged God to talk to me and answer my questions.
Once at the ground floor, we came out of the hospital. It was cold outside. Deepu was saying something to me which I ignored, stuck in my one-sided conversation with God. Looking down at the road, lost in my thoughts, I walked out of the hospital exit following Deepu’s footsteps.
‘That’s our car, over there,’ Deepu pointed.
Without responding, I followed him and got in the car. My silence was obtrusive. But then something happened in that car which made me feel good and broke my silence. The moment he started the engine, the music system turned on and the paused song continued:
‘I am gonna wake up … It’s not my time to go … I guess I will die another day …’
I heard the words very clearly, coming out of the music system in his
car that night. Making myself comfortable on the seat now, I was wondering if this was just another song or if it was God himself trying to make my conversation two-sided, or if this was Khushi somehow conveying what she wanted to tell me when I was holding her hands in mine. I don’t know what it was but, those lyrics were more than just words. Or maybe it is human tendency to choose something which gives the maximum comfort.
‘Amen,’ I wished in my heart and, feeling a little better, started talking to Deepu.
We reached home and after a while Deepu was about to leave when Dad asked him to have dinner first, so that he didn’t have to come back again. In the living room I saw Jiju and Daan playing with each other. Seeing me, Neeru prepared some tea for both Jiju and me. For the next half an hour, the entire family was in the living-room. That night, we had our dinner at around nine, after which Deepu left for the hospital. I wanted to go back to the hospital with him, but I knew Susant was going to accompany him there for the night. Moreover, someone at home mentioned that Susant would be traveling to Chandigarh tomorrow and would return after two or three days. I thought I’d replace him on those successive nights. Pushkar was supposed to leave for his office that night for some important calls.
I spent that night in her room again, on her bed. Before closing my eyes I recollected moments from our happy days and prayed to God to heal her. And so another day in my life passed in prayers, hope and anxiety.
The next day was pretty much like the previous one. Dad, Jiju and I were at the hospital by 10.30 a.m. Deepu told us about the doctors’ plan to operate on her thighs and jaw that very day. According to them, she was in a better condition now and thus they were going ahead with the surgery. We were asked to replace a jaw-plate at the hospital bank, as the doctors were going to use one while operating on her jaw. Moreover, we had to arrange four blood donors for replacement as approximately four units of blood was going to be used for the operation.
I didn’t know about this blood-replacement principle earlier. Dad told me that whenever a blood unit is used for a patient, the same amount has to be replaced by the attendants of the patient, usually within twenty-four hours. It was not about getting some certified blood from a blood bank—what we needed was people who would donate their blood in this hospital’s blood donation center.