Youth is arrogant about its health, flaunting the body perfect: candles can be burnt at both ends and still not run out. But, as encroaching age gathers momentum, we become more conscious of the candle’s dimming flame and are affronted by our failing bodies. Sometimes, the problem is simple and the cure is effected, but sometimes the problem does not have a solution and one is faced constantly by that unpalatable question, ‘Where do we go from here?” The most common and likely answer is, ‘The Hospital!’
The hospital room that hubby and I inhabited, as patient and caregiver, was shared strangely enough by both youth and age. Youth was impatient, eager to up and go, while age was resigned. After all, this was an expected pause in the journey.
S was 26 and from Bengal. A karigar (artisan), he was employed at Jhaveri Bazaar (the local version of a gold souk), to realise in gold the designs dreamed up and demanded by his boss’ clientele. He kept pacing up and down the ward, untethered by drip or tube, in a convalescent state which was not ‘dischargeable’. He missed his work and his companions. But most of all he missed his native food. And as he regaled us with tales of his village, heavily embellished with comparisons with Mumbai, his homesickness was very apparent. His greatest enemy? The mosquito that was responsible for landing him in this inhospitable place. The day he was discharged, he was incandescent with happiness. I was mightily surprised, therefore, to find him visiting the ward two days later. I teased him about the risk of running into Sister and her ‘bloodsucking syringe’, but he laughed and explained how he had sidled past her and hopped into the ward to visit his ‘new friends’. He spent the better part of the visiting hours with us, chatting about his hopes and plans and the world in general. He was one of the good news stories.
R was 24. He had to spend 12 days confined to his hospital bed because of a blocked nerve in his left leg. It had swollen to elephantine proportions. Daily injections in the stomach brought tears to his eyes, but apart from those twice a day teeth clenching sessions, he was a happy companion. We got to know him and his parents as his story unfolded. A commerce graduate with a penchant for Event Management, he was itching to get back to his social round. A native Maharashtrian, pleasant and articulate, he enjoyed the assurance of a well-loved first born son. Both parents came either together or in turn and fussed over him. The mother was shy and reticent, but the father was jovial and outgoing – genes obviously inherited by his son. R has since been discharged with a clean bill of health, a hefty hospital tab, and a list of precautions. The blood thinners he needs to take will require some circumspection. Still, youth is buoyant and his release was a matter of celebration – he distributed KitKat to his fellow patients! He was the other good news story.
Age was represented by hubby, of course, and a very dignified ex-military gentleman, who came in for an eye operation. He surveyed us out of his one good eye and offered us pertinent advice on how to go about our lives. Solemn and sincere, he delivered his homilies with the aplomb of a bishop. With great concern, he looked me over, enquired after the origin of my grey hair and gently advised me about various treatments. I thought it quite legitimate to be ‘salt and pepper’ at sixty. He thought I was much younger. I do love people who are temporarily afflicted with limited vision!
As for hubby, he was brought in because his condition had taken a turn for the worse and he has kept us engaged from predicament to predicament – a learning curve if ever there was one. At one point, he was so out of it that I panicked and so did the Ward Sister. The RMO visited, hummed and hawed, checked the pulse and promptly suggested an echo-cardiogram. Hubby was heaved off his bed and wheeled to the ‘Echo and Stress Test’ Room, comatose for the most part. When the procedure was over, we rode the elevator back to the ward and, all of a sudden, hubby woke up quite cheerfully to his surroundings.
Apparently, the journey on the gurney had a reviving effect!
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