A Year Ago: Part I

Using Google, i find that the 17th of May 2008 was a Saturday. Is that possible? I suppose it is, because only the second Saturday of the month is a government holiday. I need to know this to remember last year because I was speaking to several govt. officials this day last year.

Last year, the mango tree in our garden had an unusually large number of fruits. The photos are up on my blog; people had groaned at the temptation they were unable to act upon. Udit was there. The kid, Satyanarayana, Udit and I filled up two huge cane baskets - the kind in which mangoes are transported - and there were still more we hadn't plucked. I think we plucked 300 or more mangoes. This year, we had four to begin with and then one fell, half-eaten or rotten; I can't remember which. 'And then there were three', I say to myself, every time I go out the gate and glance at the tree.

There was also the smell of burning leaves. We had fought logn and hard, and constantly to get our neighbours to stop burning the leaves that dropped from the trees on the road or in their houses. Why wouldn't they use it for mulch? But the street sweepers that day had piled up the lot (we hadn't paid them their tea money) under an almost-dry tree and burnt the leaves. The smoke drifted into my room. From the next one, I heard Appa coughing. It might not have been because of the burning leaves, but it certainly aggravated his cough.

I called the Municipal Commissioner. He said to send him a mail. I was mailing govt. officials, making lunch and plucking mangoes. Amma was in Chennai.

Nearing lunch, Appa - who had spent the morning opening the water valve, watering the garden, making coffee and doing what amounted to endless paperwork - went for his bath. In minutes he came out saying he had passed black stools (a sign of internal bleeding).

I don't know that I had a first thought followed by a second then a third. There were things to be done and I did them: did Appa have money? Had we taken the files? Insurance papers? I told Sayanarayana we had to leave. And the maid. I was thankful that Udit was there to be with the kid. How would I have taken a seven year old to the hospital?

I always drive recklessly in such an emergency. I think of the time saved, the bleeding stopped the life held.

Playing it back, I notice Appa had stopped pressing an imaginary clutch or brake. He didn't even clutch his hands. It was I mouthing prayers. We didn't speak.

The Emergency Room is called Casualty. I had already called Dr. DK. He said he'd be there and to let him know when we arrive.

Outside the Endoscopy room, I sign the release forms. Appa lies down, is able to talk, explain. Dr. DK, with the mask around his face, listens. I sit outside with the files, the water bottle and his footwear under my chair. I watch the monitor anxiously. If there's bleeding I can't see it but even after all this time, what do I know?

Dr. DK comes out. He says we have to admit Appa for observation; that though there was no obvious blleding from the oesophagus, if there were black stools, we need to find out where it came from. He says Appa will be taken back to Casualty until I complete admission formalities.

Ten minutes later, I notice a lot of nurses in the Endoscopy room. Appa seems reluctant or unable to get up. I worry. I find out he's been sedated because the doc thought he could do without the pain. But the nurse is shaking him awake, saying, 'Swamiji! Get up!"

I am furious. Now it seems to me it is the Head Nurse on the Fourth Floor with whom we will have so much trouble, but of course that is not possible. I have cut and pasted a different face on this nurse because of how she behaved.

Instead of having him get up, they wheel him out into Casualty. I get him admitted, asking for a single room but being told I should take what I can get (he gets a single room). We have to wait for him to come out of sedation, get an X-Ray before we go up. I wait. I call. In a few minutes when consciousness returns, Appa's speech is blurred. This makes me want to cry. He has never been less than fully conscious. I stroke his hand wishing Amma were here.

X-Ray done, we're in the room. Amma flew in from Chennai, went home for a few things and came to the hospital to stay for the night. Appa was there for three days. They never found out what caused th ebleeding but the did a CT Scan which told the doctors more than they told us that time.

Nobody else came. As we went back home with the discharge summary and a review in two weeks after tests, we assumed it was a false alarm like so many others in the last few years. I recalled that it was in alternate years that Appa landed in hospital; that he had escaped a hospitalisation in 2007 and so this was just a delayed, unspotted bleeder from the varices.

Nothing to worry, Appa said. We repeated this to family and ourselves. I didn't even begin writing out the insurance claim for a week. We had the kid's upcoming birthday to think about. I was thankful that Udit seemed like family enough that he could stay with us, hold the fort in emergencies. I even looked forward to him returning in early June. Appa said to him, you are the child's father. He needs you. Please come often. Did he cry that time or later?

We packed the mangoes in cartons in layers, with newspapers. Appa could not sit and get up like he used to be able to. I did it all and listened to him being annoyed when I was too tired to check every day and rearrange them so the ripening ones were on top. The downstairs room reeked of raw mangoes.