Let’s Wait...

“Ravi, you have to go the hospital tonight.”

“But what will I do. I don’t know what to do, how to handle such things.”

“Arre he has been shifted to HDU. The nursing staff takes care of everything. You just have to be present there as an attendant just in case if something goes wrong.”

That is precisely the point. What am I supposed to do if something goes wrong? And what is this HDU? Anyways, the task has already been delegated to me and the schedule has been set. So not many changes can be made there.

So at 10 o’clock sharp, I was standing outside the HDU. There I realised that HDU stands for High Dependency Unit. It is an arrangement similar to the ICU for the patients who are not in very critical condition or for the patients whose case is critical but condition is stable. But for all practical purposes, it was an extension of ICU only with the only difference being that one attendant per patient is allowed to stay with him.

“How is he now?”

“Still unconscious. The doctor came for the visit at around 4. He changed the prescription. Let’s see if the condition improves. He said that the damage is irreversible but still they are trying. I think we are fighting a lost battle.”

“But there must be a way. What about the surgery?”

“He is not in a condition to be operated upon.”

“But..”

“I should go and take some rest now. Give me a call in case there is any problem. I’ll come in the morning at around 9.”

“Ok.”

So I was all alone (with 10 or so patients and their 10 or so attendants) in that room for the night. He was unconscious so I had nothing else to do but to check that the medicines are being administered as per the doctor’s prescription and to keep a tab on those monitors to see whether everything is fine or not. The lights were dimmed at around 10:30. It made the room very gloomy with a persistent hymm of the air conditioning.

I looked at the patient right across me. She was a middle aged lady and the person accompanying him seemed to be her husband.

“She is your wife?”

“Yes”

“What happened? What is the illness?”

“Liver transplant. Her liver is damaged and we are not able to find a donor. This...”

He kept quiet for a while. I thought he didn’t want to continue the conversation. But then I realised that he was crying. The lights were dim so I couldn’t see properly but he was definitely crying.

“This has been going on for last 3 years now. We have to come here every 3-4 months for her treatment. This will go on till the transplant is done.”

“But you couldn’t find a donor in these 3 years?”

“It’s not that easy. There are so many things to be matched for a transplant. Even the doctor is looking for a donor for our case but nothing has happened so for.”

I felt a little guilty. He was preparing to take a nap when I started this conversation. And now he was sitting with me and crying. And I could not say anything to console him. He must have been some 20 years older than me.

“This time the doctor is saying that this won’t go on for long. The chances for survival are less if we can’t find a donor quickly. Her condition is very serious this time. And I am down to the last penny I had. What will I ...”

Our conversation was broken by the nurse who had come to change the glucose bottle.

Poor lady. She is in this condition for the last 3 years. It’s really tough. And just think about her husband. And their children. What turns life takes. And he said he has run out of money. How will he manage from now on? At least money is not a problem with us. But what if...? No in that case we could not have afforded this treatment. But what would have happened then? It’s scary.

With all these thoughts criss-crossing each other, I drooped on my chair itself. Suddenly I woke up to some rumblings. There was some sense of emergency. The nursing staff was actively running around and there were two or three doctors standing there.

“We will have to operate immediately. There’s no other way.”

“Shift her to the ICU and prepare the OT for the surgery.”

There was a lot of noise in the room because of the increased activity. The lights were on and everybody was looking. As it appeared, one of the monitors had shown some problem with her condition. It seemed to be serious. The whole episode took some half an hour in which she was shifted to the HDU was brought to its normal condition. The lights were again dimmed.

“What’s happening”, I could hear the patient next to me asking his attendant.

“Nothing. You go to sleep”, the attendant replied.

It was strange. The room suddenly seemed gloomier. It seemed impossible to stay in that room.  But I have to be there till morning, I’ll have to wait.

What do students wait for? For the exams to get over. For the vacations to start. For “the time with all the masti and no work at all”. If he is a studious one, he will also wait for the results of the exams. “How much did I score? Will someone again be ahead of me?...”

Lovers wait for each other. “Tell me why you are late. I have been waiting here all along. Its 2:35. We were supposed to meet at 2:30. You.... you just don’t care. You have no respect for my feelings. I think you don’t even love me. I won’t talk to you. Get lost.”

When observing a fast, a wife waits for the moon. A kid waits for her mother to sleep. Others wait for the clock to strike 12.

Parents wait for their children to grow up and start their new life. Nothing gives them more happiness than the satisfaction that their children are happy and well placed in life.

Farmers wait for the first rainfall. Nobody looks at the skies with so much hope and expectation than these people.

People wait for the promises made to them to be honoured. “But papa you promised you will play with me today. I waited for the whole day.” “You promised that we will go out for dinner and still you came late from office.”

Ask anyone of them and they will say that their wait is the longest and the toughest and the most stressful and the most testing and... Some people wait to pass their time. Some people wait so that they can show that they waited. And some people wait just for the sake of it.

But sometimes some people have to wait for something they would never want to. Sometimes these people don’t even realise what they are waiting for.

Finally sun rose up and it was time for me to leave.

“Everything was fine or was there any problem?”

Fine, I believe, here meant status quo. “Yeah. He is still unconscious.”

“Where’s that lady gone? Has she been discharged?”

“No. she has been shifted to the ICU. The doctors were supposed to do some surgery.”

“Oh.. poor lady. Ok. You go home now. The car is there in the parking. Here’s the key.”

“The doctor must be coming anytime now.”

"But he too won’t have anything new to say.”

“What will we do now?”

“I don’t know. Let’s wait.... there is nothing else we can do.”

 I took the keys of the car and left that room. The outside world seemed so very different now. One night at that HDU seemed to have changed the whole world outside. I took the lift to come to the ground floor. While coming out of the lift, I saw that man (that lady’s husband) standing at some distance.

I thought I should ask him about the situation. I went closer to him. He looked at me but he didn’t say anything. I looked into his eyes and I knew that I need not ask anything. I just turned around and came out of the building. I went to the parking, looked for the car and set out for home.

While driving, the events came back to my mind again and again. What are we going to do now? He said let’s wait. But wait for what? The doctor says the damage is almost irreparable and there are no chances of revival. Then certainly we are not waiting for him to get well. What then are we waiting for? It became difficult for me to pass one night there. But this has been going on for last 16-17 days. We have waited all along. But waited for what? Are we really waiting for ...

Looking out of the car window, I saw a board saying –

“There is only one reality, death. Rest all is an illusion.”

RAVI JAIN