Just Another Day in the Hospital

Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Bombay

Just Another Day in the Hospital

     Namaste from Bombay!
     I was up again at 4.30 am following a very restless night during which I awoke almost every two hours and fell back to sleep again.  I guess the prognosis of Dr. Derrick D'Lima had left my mind overstimulated and it was tough to get a restful night's sleep. I awoke and began blogging. Then a long whatsapp phone call followed with one of my dearest friends in the US, Bonnie, who is always such a joy to talk to. She wanted an update on Russel as well as to support me as much as she could, long-distance.
     In many ways, Bonnie can empathize with the special situation in which Russel finds himself.  For 21 years, she and her husband Art, raised a son with cerebral palsy, called Matt. In the devotion they had to their son I always saw reflected the utter devotion of my own parents to Russel. When Matt passed away in his sleep of a catastrophic seizure about ten years ago, it left the family devastated. It took them a long time to return to any sense of normalcy again. As friends, we had all tried to prop them up as best we could--but the major 'work' of grieving has to be done by the grievers themselves. Bonnie is best able to understand how difficult it is to get Russel to learn any new behaviors at this stage in his life (he is 58). And teaching him to function with a cast on his leg for 3 months is not going to be easy either on him or on us. She also caught me up on family news and we ended the call making plans to chat on whatsapp once a week.  Where, oh where, would any of us be without friends?
    This call was followed by another lengthy whatsapp one with another prospective publisher now based in New Hampshire. He is reading my London memoir and wanted to offer me some feedback on it. He said that it needs an in-house editor and that even if he were to take it on, it would only come out in 2020 as he already has a list of 40 books coming out next year. Wow! I was not too happy at the thought of waiting that long.
      However, he was more interested in talking about offering me an open-ended contract for any prospective book that might come out of my current Fulbright research. I thanked him for his kind offer but told him that I would prefer to wait until the research gets underway--I have done exactly nothing so far! I also told him that I prefer to wait until I have the manuscript in hand and can then find the most appropriate publisher for the book at that stage. He was willing to work with me on those terms.
     I had to await the delivery of my tiffin before I left for the hospital. I had told Dad I would be there by 1.00 pm so that he could be relieved, could go home, eat his lunch, take a nap and go to Church in the evening to conduct the novena to Mother of Perpetual Succor which he has done for the past 15 years. However, by about 9.00 am, the deafening hammering next-door began and I felt done for. It continued for about 45 minutes when my next-door neighbor Forum rang my bell and told me that they would be done in five minutes as she had told them to finish up as quickly as they could. True to her word, the worst of it stopped in five minutes. For the next couple of hours, the work continued--consistent hammering, but at east the electric rotorooter they used stopped functioning and my life felt sane again. Forum, who is getting married in January of next year, told me that they are re-doing their kitchen in time for her wedding and that the entire project will take about ten days although the worst of the hammering is probably over.
     My tiffin delivery was delayed and at 12. 15, I called to find out what had happened. It turns out that my usual delivery man Noel had a sudden emergency and had to leave half-way through deliveries. His relative Henry delivered instead at 1.10 after apologizing for keeping me waiting. I had just served myself the last of my leftovers from the previous delivery--so it worked out okay.
     Throughout the morning, I worked on my laptop on the editing of the Goa book manuscript. It is coming along nicely. I am hoping to be done by the end of the week when I can return the final proofs to the publisher and finally get a publication date from him. This project has gone on long enough and I am sick and tired of it. Meanwhile, another prospective publisher of my memoir in the US emailed me some queries and I responded. It is wonderful how one can multi-task when on the internet--a good thing and a bad one. It can also rob you of focus...
     After lunch, I walked to the hospital and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening there.  Dad and I spent a few minutes chatting about whether we should keep Russel there until the stitches are removed, i.e. until next Tuesday or take him home by ambulance if they are willing to discharge him in the next couple of days and bring him back by ambulance next Tuesday. Russel was asleep when I arrived and so Dad and I spoke in whispers. Dad told me that he continues to be very quiet--he is, in fact, quite miserable. Who isn't in a hospital, right? Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. And every patient I have spoken to on this floor during the past week has told me how much they would rather be home.
     Dad left at about 2.00 pm after the two of us went downstairs to the pharmacy to buy one of the injections Russel needs. Throughout the day, nurses come in and hand us prescriptions which we fill at the pharmacy on the first floor. Both Dad and I have lost count of the vast amount of money this crisis is costing. But I really do believe that we live and work and save our entire lives only to give all our money away to doctors at the end of them! This reality seems to be playing out for me right here and now.
     Russel slept for most of the rest of the day.  I arrived at the hospital at 1.30 and I only left at 9.30 pm.  With the day attendant Naginder, I was able to convince Russel to turn around on his side on two occasions as we are terrified he will get bed sores. He needs a lot of persuasion to do that. Lenita, his physiotherapist, arrived at 3.30 pm and went through muscle-toning exercises with him--both hands and both legs. You could tell that Russel was straining and struggling to do leg exercises associated with his injured leg--this is a very good sign to us as it indicates that he is experiencing pain. Lenita is cognizant of the fact that she is working with a special patient and is giving Russel a very wide rope. Still, given the situation he is in, he co-operates beautifully with her. She is quite happy with the sessions she has with him.
     Russel did not have any visitors today; so I had a very quiet day and managed to get a lot of editing work on the Goa book done on my laptop as he also spent a lot of the time asleep. I am hoping very much that he does not get into depression. He simply doesn't talk and wants to lie down flat on the bed most of the time. I managed to persuade him to read a bit of his magazine Charis India. He also seems to have lost his appetite or his interest in food. He eats and drinks but without any enthusiasm. I suppose all these reactions are normal for anyone who has gone through such severe surgery. But it is hard for me to see him like this.
     In the evening, the sister of Paul, the patient on the next bed came to see him. She spent over two hours of her time scolding him to the extent of verbally abusing him for putting her through so much trouble by becoming ill. Paul is a bachelor and dependent on the kindness of his siblings. It was shocking for me to have to witness this sort of abuse. Finally, when I could take it no more, I decided to step in, as tactfully as I could, to offer Paul any help I could give him. The poor man is ill, recovering from two bouts of  malaria, weakened by illness and defeated by his vulnerability. How is it even conceivable that his own flesh and blood would treat him so harshly? The woman kept grumbling at him for not taking care of himself, for not speaking up, for pretending to be ill, for "not listening" to the advice they give him. In conversation with me, she told me that the entire hospital is full of crooks only out to make money. When I tried to defend the hospital, she told me that she had years of experience with it and that I knew nothing. I was stunned at her suspicious nature and at her unwillingness to accept that her brother was in the hands of professionals who only wanted to make him well. She would have none of it.
     Paul now has a night attendant, but during the day, he is dependent on the nurses--whom, I have already said, are a useless lot. Luckily for Russel, a nun-nurse named Sr. Sevika has been assigned to him and she is doing a very good job while being kind and communicative. In small ways, I feel that we have lucked out.
    In the evening, one of the interns, Dr. Vijay, came along. Dad had told me to ask him the specific question of whether or not Russel's stitches would require dressing every other day--in which case, we would not take him home and bring him back. He told me that they would open the knee dressing tomorrow to check and see how much was draining and if the fluid was filling up again--they ardently hope not. He said he could not comment until tomorrow. This means that Dad will not have his answer until tomorrow. Still, I found Dr. Vijay to be very patient and very kind. Really, I have no issues with the doctors here--they are wonderful. I am adjusting to the cultural differences in health care in the US and in India; I am also adjusting to the manner in which American doctors and medical personnel interact with patients--and the differences are vast.  But I can tell you that I am satisfied with the level of expertise of the doctors here and the manner in which they communicate with patients.  
     Our friend Dr. Chris D'Souza, an ENT specialist at the hospital and a family friend, whom I had called in the morning to inform him that Russel was in Ward 409, visited Russel at about 9.00 pm--late in the day after he had finished with his own out patients. He told me that he had spoken to Russel's orthopedist who seemed happy at the way Russel was doing. It is good to know that there is someone to bat for us in the hospital--although, having said that, I really have no complaints about the doctors who have been superb. It is only the nurses that suck...
     At 9.00pm. Russel's neurologist Dr. Tandel stopped by and insisted that Russel be turned. With the help of the ward boy and our attendant, I did manage to turn him and he stayed on his side for about 15 minutes. At 9.15pm, the orthopedist Dr. D'Lima did stop by too. He too instructed Russel to sit up, turn and change position for fear of getting bed sores. Tomorrow, I will need to take some Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion and some Neosporin ointment to the hospital as Russel has very dry skin on his legs and his hands and I have been applying Ponds cold cream to get them to be more supple. I am sure that the lotion will do the trick. Tomorrow, too, I will get to the hospital by 1.00 and stay for the rest of the day so that Dad can go home and get the break he needs.
     My days have fallen into routine and will probably stay this way until Russel is discharged. I am grateful that despite having lost so much time on my new research project, I have been able to get a lot of other work done--every cloud has a silver lining--and this Goa book might actually come out faster this way.
    In the past one week, it is amazing how much I have learned about hospital routines, about caring for the sick--they need kindness and affection more than anything else. I have also not spoken as much Hindi in my entire life as I am speaking now with the attendants. Listening to them and learning from them--they are from UP and speak 'shudh Hindi'--pure Hindi--is making my own Hindi improve by the minute. It was the same when I lived in France.  Just listening to people speak, I learned so much and improved my own competence in French exponentially.
     Until tomorrow....