A visit to the Hospital

“After you find out all the things that can go wrong, your life becomes less about living and more about waiting.” ― Chuck Palahniuk

The bottle lay limp on the stand with little saline accumulated at the bottom, a  tiny drop trickled lazily into the tube to reach the snap on the hand, and a bubble of air thrust itself down the vein. Durga fretted, fumed and said,’intravenous infusion therapy has failed, it is painful’. I wondered where she had learnt those words, perhaps Google. She raised her lean body and thumped the bell near the bed. We kept looking at the door in the anticipation of a cheerful nurse, but we saw a haughty young lady dressed in salwar kameez and a white apron with loosely tied hair stomp into the room in annoyance. ‘I will disconnect the bell in case you call me incessantly’. Durga seemed frightened and shivered under her feeble personality and said, “The dribs have stopped, I fear air getting trapped in”, the lady said that she had slowed the trickle and peered into the intravenous set, we rushed behind to see whether she was right. A small drop formed seconds later to fall into the tube. 

Durga was never plump but had been healthier than what she was today. Her short stature and lean figure made her look childlike, her face was bright with the dense curly locks that covered a large part of her forehead. A Gandhian by principles, she had never indulged in food other than her two meals. I have never seen her drooling over food, yet she was down by an attack of Gastritis. As soon as she checked into the well-known Hospital for Spine and Bone Therapies she was rolled into the casualty ward, she looked around to see the accident victims struggling and writhing in pain. It was then that she saw a hit and run victim who was brought in for a post-mortem report, the smell of strong disinfectants, painkillers and the wrapped body like a mummy was frightful and nauseating. Her sister pleaded and argued with the authorities to move her into a special room. They could not provide one but were willing to provide a bed in the general ward. She refused to accept the offer and the authorities moved Durga to room number 208 on the 2nd floor. The attendant handed her the hospital gown and pyjamas which seemed unwashed. Durga took one look at the pyjamas and hurled it back into the attendant’s arms saying that she wanted a washed one. 

The attendant was remorseful, but Durga got a washed pair and the bed sheets changed before she lifted herself on to the bed. The young nurse said that the preliminary tests would be conducted, she poked the back of her palm pulled a vein and thrust the intravenous needle to fix the snap and the saline dripped at an average speed making her psychologically well again. 

A case of diarrhoea doesn’t require hospitalisation, but she was a bait for the hospital authorities to hook on. The doctor on rounds was Dr Madan, a young tall dark man, in spectacles who came along with a few medicos and a nurse. It was a moment of achievement when he peered into her and said, ‘She suffers from a severe stomach infection’, and dictated the head nurse a few jargons. Durga wondered whether the doctor knew face reading. She mildly asked what kind of infection, and about the tests that he would conduct. Dr Madan said,  ‘the blood sample was collected when the intravenous was plugged in’. Durga felt her memory failing as she had not seen the nurse collect the blood. 

The right hand with the snap had begun aching. She asked the sister to move the intravenous. The nurse changed her position and poked the syringe in the left hand to fix the intravenous. The right hand was swollen, she felt like a wounded warrior with both her palms fixed to their sides. A middle-aged lady clad in a pink sari with dishevelled hair rushed in to use the toilet in the room. Durga a hygiene fad jumped up and told the lady that the room was a private one, she could use the one in the corridor, but before she could end the sentence the young nurse walked in and said, ‘In the hospital, things cannot be classified as your or mine…it is ours’. Durga fell back cursing her fate. 

Dr Madan appeared only on the third day in the morning. He said, ‘today we will get an endoscopy done’. Durga felt weaker than ever, the diarrhoea continued, and the nurse was the same old one, she told her,’you haven’t done any of the preliminary tests, I haven’t received my blood reports’. The nurse said, ‘let’s go for an ultrasound and blood reports today, tomorrow we could go for an endoscopy’. Within minutes Durga was rolled to the ground floor for an ultrasound scan of her stomach and abdomen. The long queue and the people petrified the nurse, she quickly rolled her into the adjacent air-conditioned Intensive Care Unit. Helplessly Durga looked around as she recollected the room where her sister Kusum had been admitted when she had accidentally touched a live wire and was thrown mercilessly to the ground on her right shoulder crumpling the strong shoulder blade into bits within seconds. The hospitalisation, the operation and the errands made Durga a stronger person emotionally and physically, but the schedule, the job and her inner self, hampered her digestion.

Durga’s reports were normal, but the diarrhoea seemed to be at home with Durga now, none of the antibiotics worked well nor the tests revealed her ailment. Dr Madhusudan said, ‘I prefer going for the jumbo tests like Endoscopy rather than do the minute tests like the complete blood picture’. Durga felt a surge of mounting pain physically and emotionally. Nothing enticed her, the aroma of clarified butter sizzling on the pans with buns being roasted for pav bhaji wafted into her room from the restaurant adjacent to the hospital. It did not allure her. She looked around for one last time in determination. She handed the hospital gown and pyjamas and slowly made her way towards the counter for her discharge.

'Before you examine the body of a patient,
Be patient to learn his story.
For once you learn his story,
You will also come to know
His body'......THE MAXIMS OF MEDICINE by Suzy Kassem”