When we are patients

In the past I have written a great deal about sicknesses, doctors and caregivers that help us deal when we are patients. I realize that I have never written a column about the patients point of view in all this, though I did write a book “ Straight from the Heart” that was entirely from the patients point of view! But it is true that I have never written a blog about it. Anyway I have always wondered what sick patients think about as they lie in their hospital beds and doctors move in and out? What are their thoughts after the relatives and friends have left? Do they ponder their past or worry about the future? What do they worry about ? Money? Who will look after the family? Funeral arrangements? A complete recovery?

Even as I was contemplating this, Fate jumped in with a cruel twist, and I was hit with a triple whammy. A Delhi viral fever weakend me sufficiently to fall victim to the Shingle virus, which in turn infected the bladder to require catherization. In a short space of ten days, I went from a reasonably functioning vertical man to a almost completely dysfunctional horizontal man. 

I could now do my own research, I wryly observed to myself as I lay in bed.

The first thing that happens when you are patient is that your entire universe contracts . It actually shrinks rapidly only to your immediate family. World events leave you cold, even though you may have been an avid follower of the daily news. You tend to ignore newspapers and magazines, and unread books pile up beside your bedside. Your mind is fully concentrated on you and your disease, completely impervious to other more world shaking issues. It is a time of complete narcissism. And you rapidly become the most selfish person in the world.

The reason for this retreat to a different self is the pain that most difficult diseases accompany. A little twinge that you would have dismissed when vertical, become of earthshaking importance when you are laid low. Sometimes you lie still in bed hoping that shafts of pain will somehow miss you. Or when you move,  it is with utmost gingerness lest some parts in your body get displaced. Each little path, even to the nearest bathroom becomes a momentous trek requiring great planning and precise movements. Even when in bed, you turn around with great care lest you let loose some unforeseen and unknown pang of pain.

Not only are your thoughts solely about avoiding any pain, they are completely empty. You lie on the sofa in front of a constantly on TV, yet you hear almost none of the programs. You doze in and out but there are no dreams – only blackness and blankness.

Sometimes when the pain becomes too sharp, you do dream of happier days and times. Or at least you try to, if you want to survive. Other times you may just hug yourself to sleep and cry in solitude bemoaning your fate. A creative time it is not.

And then in your wakeful moments you realize that life is running along- there is food on the table (or served on your bed), the house is clean, somebody is doing the shopping. There is someone tending to your every need, even if your answers are in the monosyllabic. She is beside you when the pain becomes overwhelming and she knows when your depression is unusually deep. She will then quietly organize your children to call you to cheer you up; and stretch her hand to hold yours in the middle of the night.

As you gradually recover and become somewhat human, you begin to notice the courage and fortitude, the thoughfullness and love that underlie this. Yet the sheer burden of carrying the entire load – of nurse, cook, provider, cleaner- is clearly evident even as she sits besides you massaging your back while she hides her own pains from you. As I noted her exhaustion, I  ventured to ask her “ Why?”

Her reply: “ I expect you to do the same for me”