Nearly Home

On the 1st, the doctor discharged Appa. We waited for the bill while Appa ate lunch and watched a little TV. Someone in the bowels of the hospital was typing up the Discharge Summary. One bottle of Albumin remained to be given via drip.

As soon as all these things were done, we were free to leave.

Sometime in the afternoon, while Appa slept, a nurse came in, saw that he was asleep and left. A little while later, after their shift change, another one came in. 'Discharge over, no, madam?' she asked. Yes, I said, but we have to wait for the papers and for the IV to get over.

She went up to the drip and tapped at the tube, checked the flow and twiddled something before leaving.

It was 4pm. I had to give Appa his evening snack. I dithered, wondering whether to wake him up or not, but he had been sleeping for more than three hours and since he'd eaten so little at lunch, I really had to make sure he got something now.

I touched him to wake him up and found he had a high fever. In a few minutes, he was shivering but not in some delicate, refined way: these were hard, convulsive shivers.

I rang for the nurse. As usual, no one came when they were called.

I called the doctor on his cellphone and another doctor soon gave instructions. Appa was delirious and I had no idea what was happening or why this had suddenly happened.

A nurse finally came and disconnected the drip even though it was not finished. Another nurse came in and checked his temperature. She started to swab him with ice. The shivers became shudders.

I held his hand and chafed at it. His palms were bright - I mean bright - red.

I called the doctor and said I was not going to leave and that even if the discharge summary had been written up it was to wait.

The temperature came down but he was clearly not in his senses. I looked at the soya milk I was supposed to give him and wondered what to do. I gave him some, against my better judgement, but he could neither be propped up nor was he able to have any of it. Remembering all those who had choked to death because of someone's stupidity, I wiped his mouth and left the soya milk on the table.

I called home to say we were staying. Since Amma hadn't planned on coming to hospital, expecting us back home, I stayed on. Appa was semi-conscious.

I am convinced now that only my holding on to his hand for the next hour or two, muttering frantic prayers under my breath, kept him back. I turned his palm over and looked at the colour of his palms and knew he was failing and slipping away. I held on to him.

At some point the doctor on rounds visited. 'What Sir, you don't want to leave us or what?' she said.

Even now I can't be sure it was an act, because his replies were so lucid, so clear. Later that night, he would tell me that he had no memory of the doctor visiting or anything that happened after lunch. What had happened, he wanted to know.

What happened, the doctor thought, was that he was reacting to the albumin. She gave him a shot and left, issuing instructions to everybody about us staying one more night.

The fever subsided. Slowly he returned to the other state, the one before. I stayed awake through the night watching him, wondering if I was going to watch him die in this hospital, with no one else around, with his pink robes that didn't even tie properly across the back, and drips and needles in his hand and the oxygen bubbling above the bed and the night light near the floor and dinner drying on the table because the ward boy didn't know we hadn't left.

Did we talk before he slept? I'm sure we did but if it occured to me to make my farewells, to say all the things I ought to say so that I had a clear conscience for the rest of my life, I had no idea how to say it.

If you keep up the fiction of eternal life maybe those whom you love will live despite themselves. We slept after a normal 'good night'. Appa may even have told me not worry:

'Don't worry. Whatever it is we will face.'

Yes, Appa. Good night.