Friends, you know that i am a medico, and being a medico, we meet lots of patients each day. I had a very bitter experience recently being very close to my patients.

He was admitted for left sided weakness following a recurrent stroke (occlusion of a blood vessel in the brain) in the medical ward, around 60 yrs old. Near to him was another patient admitted for paraplegia (paralysis of both legs) due to a fall from which he sustained a spinal cord transection. I was very friendly with both these patients. Used to go in the evening to the ward and used to spend time with them very often. The guy with spinal cord transection was Mr. Santhosh. One who has talked with Mr. Santhosh only could understand his mind set. Though he cant use both of his lower limbs, his mind is unaffected by this. He was a bold and sound patient. He is a personality to be felt! His mother was even kind, and wouldnt leave me without giving something to eat.

The other patient with the stoke was also friendly, though not as Mr. Santhosh. Whenever we go near him, he asks “I will be alright soon yah?”. Without doubt and even without passing a second we use to answer him “why not?” for we were very sure he is gonna be alright very soon. Stroke in the brain though is danegrous, if proper medications and physiotherapy is administered would recover effectively. Days passed.

By my professor, i was the one fortunate to take the medical case, history and examination of this very stroke patient. Taking a case isnt so easy. When we take and prsent a case, we should ask and write down systematically the History and examination. It takes for students like us around 30 minutes to complete this.  So here in the midst of taking the case, call came from the physiotherapy department for him. My case taking was stopped in the middle and he was taken to the physiotherapy dept. When informed of this to our professor, he asked us to continue taking the case fromthe physiotherapy dept. We had to go to the dept; physiotherapy is one of the most busy depts of our college. We had to trouble our patient for sometime to comlete the case taking. I remember him saying, he feel like fainting for which we almost dragged him to the bed and gave him rest. So like this we completed the case taking.

Meanwhile i got very friendly with his son. His son was the only caregiver at that time to him. When in the evenings i happened to talk more to him, the son, Mr. Reji, i discovered that he was a computer worker by profession. I was happy to talk with him. We shared our knowledge of computers each other. i had some doubts to clarify in Adobe PhotoShop. So i told i would come to him in the evening with laptop, so that i could learn something from him. I went to him in the evening and he clarified my doubts.  I could learn some new tricks i did nto knwo in PhotoShop.

By all these means i happened to be very close with their family, both of the patients. But it didnt last longer. The stroke patient’s condition  unexpectedly worsened. He was shifted to the ICU. An unforeseen harthal was declared in the district following murder of 2 in Mahe. Our professor couldnt directly attend the patient. His condition was worsening. He was shifted to another hospital in Kannur Town.

We didnt know what was his condition then. Later after some days, from Mr. Santhosh, I heard that the stroke patient was no more. I never expected to hear it. Was disturbed the whole day of it. What happened to him? Why did his condition worsen all on a sudden. Leave all those questions, there might be satisfactory answers for them. But, what had to happen happened.

I left for loneliness out to a mini park near a canal, where we used to go with friends. Closed my eyes and laid in the green grasses for hours… gazed into the blue sky and asked for myself, “Will I withstand these moments in future?”

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