Uninended consequences

Many of my readers were deeply concerned at the bleak tone of my last few blogs. So much so that I had to write to assure them that I was not yet on my last legs but still fighting perhaps alone but still there in the arena. I was trying to live up to the advice I had earlier given my friends in similar staits-- fight fight. ...

and part of that battle was to accurately reflect my physical and mental condition as it slowly deteriorated and left my doctors a trifle puzzled. Yet I had only set out to record, for myself, the changing environment and the various efforts that my doctors made to overcome my travails. But also to record the joyous mornings when my two year grandson, Nikhil, would rush to my bed, followed by his father. His face still sleepy, his hair tousled but his eyes were alredy sparkling with mischief 

" hello dada" would come from this ray of sunshine.

My condition often reminded me of the famed humorist Art Buchald. Art had  dealt with his renal failure and subsequent dialysis by moving to a hospice. He was thrown out of the hospice after six months because miraculously his kidney function came back. (He wrote  of his experience in his last book "Too soon to say goodbye"). And I am convinced he got a longer lease of life  because in the hospice he had a rollicking good time- eating all the hitherto forbidden foods, drinking to excess and  most of all being surrounded by loving friends. That is what I would wish for too.

As messages after these blogs were posted poured in from friends and family, I took solace in Art's story.

"Thanks for sharing the good news! I must say that your previous health reports had created despondency among your readers, but this is good news indeed. However, as a member (albeit relatively new) of the ‘not so healthy heart’ club, I feel I have to caution a fellow member of possible carelessness. The caution stems from the last part of your good news sentence: “...and that I could resume normal life!”

"I  love your blogs and in the selfish interest of reading a lot more items, I feel compelled to advice that you need to redefine your ‘normal’ life. The old normal brought you to where you "are: you need a new normal to bring you to a different and better place, health wise. But rather than pontificate on what that new normal ought to be, I’d rather let you draw your own path to one. "

And another "It is so nice to know that you are off from dialysis. Good health is the greatest gift  from above. My best wishes for continued normal life. Do practice YOGA. It has remarkable potential for tissue rejuvenation and reorganization."

I had not realized how much love and affection there was in the world..These words indeed reminded me that one should never take ones friends for granted or not keep in touch with them.

But a nagging question remains in my mind: At what point is the pain worth the living? And what right do you have to continue to inflict your suffering on those around you who love you?

Should you not be asking, like Hamlet, "  to be or not to be". And

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. .....Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?"

Early January has brought a respite though no one knows for how long and how complete. Still it is a welcome break even as I yearn for more and longer peaceful days in the future. But the future is not ours to see and as the song goes

"Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be."


Sent from my iPad