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Family Reunion Awaits
Part 01:
Restlessness was invading my nerves in bottom-up fashion; It's rare because my subconscious mind is known to peacefully rest at night and my soul usually gets wrapped up in a blanket of sound sleep. It's one of those times when most odd things calm us down; for me it was hitting the lamp on and off with my trembling fingers. My eyes were stuck at the wall clock and in a while my wife woke up at her scheduled time i.e. 6 A.M.
Catching me awake she reconfirmed twice if I was in the finest state of my mind; Though my pondering reply left her no less suspicious. I don’t have a flexible time table so I chose to get up and have a cup of tea instead of going for a quick nap. After winding up all the necessary morning commitments I gathered my briefcase, stethoscope and some pending reports to go through on my way to the hospital. I was still feeling uneasy so avoided conversation with my chatty driver. Moreover I avoided briefing my assistant about the sequence in which I‘ll be attending the patients and with a mug of coffee quickly bursted in my cabin. After a usual buffer of 10-15 minutes I rang my call bell to send in patients. Leaving all the thoughts behind I concentrated on examining the patients one by one. Around 12 P.M. an old man entered my room accompanied by a boy who appeared to be in his 50’s and was informed to be his son lately.
The old man complained about the uneasiness he felt in his throat and mild fever. His son assured me that there is no serious medical history or illness his father is suffering from. Meanwhile I received a call from my colleague, a doctor from Italy.
Part 02:
After a quick exchange of wellness on both sides he quoted about COVID-19 becoming pandemic in his town; which I was also following in headlines from the past 2-3 days. He was informing me about the basic symptoms and immediate actions required to take but I interrupted him and said to revert him back after attending the patient.
The symptoms the old man quoted were indicating normal viral infection so I gave him initial treatment and asked to report me after a 3 days course of medicine in case of any new development or uneasiness. During my lunch time I called my friend and resumed our conversation on COVID-19. He told me how abruptly community spread of this virus is wiping off the whole country and he also mentioned that he had forwarded reports of some COVID-19 patients and documents quoting detailed do’s and don'ts in case someone is suspected of initial symptoms. The old man showed me the very next day with his son quoting drastic degradation in his condition and high temperature and even facing difficulty in breathing overnight. He was in his 80’s so I advised him some tests like swine flu, malaria and also as a precautionary measure I suggested the COVID -19 test as I have been hearing from my friend and there were patients tested positive in nearby cities too. After they left for the tests suddenly I felt the same restlessness and stream of negative intuitions sprinting across my mind that I felt the day before yesterday.
Reports of the old man were prepared within 24 hrs and next morning were piled up with other reports on my desk. As soon as I reached hospital I saw the old man waiting with his son; so I told my assistant to send them in first and place his report on top of the pile.
Here was the beginning of my perpetual fight which is going on till date.
Part 03:
He was tested positive for COVID-19...
This was the most horrifying scenario I ever witnessed and was left still for fractions of minutes. The son interrupted and got in my state of mind within seconds after hearing this report. I quickly called up my team and created an isolation ward for the old man and commenced all possible pieces of initial treatments we had knowledge of. Moreover I asked his son to go through the test process of COVID-19 and advised him to bring everyone in his family to go through this process. And what I augured was the result; His entire family was tested positive - his wife, his grandmother and his 21 yr old son. They all were isolated without any delay and in a blink of an eye family of 5 occupied 5 different isolation wards.
We were novice to this virus and its nature. Before we could understand it; the old man whispered his last words. Demises are always painful but I never witnessed such a demise where we humans seemed like masked white robots were the only family that the old man saw from the last 48 hrs.
Within a week huge numbers of families got cursed by this virus and were chased to agonizing death. All the smiles welcoming newborns and all the enthusiastic recovered patients of my hospital began to vanish, all tuned up happy conversations in cafetaria of my hospital began to turn silent, all hopes sitting in the waiting areas began to turn into miseries, all innocent faces began to get masked and briskly we began to race to cope up with this monstrous virus that began to snatch away my dear patients.
This is just a glimpse of the devils we all are fighting here daily; Can’t share much as my 10 minutes break to unmask and get some natural oxygen is over.
Today my country is under lockdown; me, my colleagues and my suffering patients are turning thirsty to meet our families but we are not sanitized enough to lift our children up, touch the feet of our parents and embrace our life partners.
So readers who wish that we can give you and ourselves a dense family reunion please stay quarantined and stay safe.
- a plea forwarded by our masked gods...
-©Anmol Singhal
Restlessness was invading my nerves in bottom-up fashion; It's rare because my subconscious mind is known to peacefully rest at night and my soul usually gets wrapped up in a blanket of sound sleep. It's one of those times when most odd things calm us down; for me it was hitting the lamp on and off with my trembling fingers. My eyes were stuck at the wall clock and in a while my wife woke up at her scheduled time i.e. 6 A.M.
Catching me awake she reconfirmed twice if I was in the finest state of my mind; Though my pondering reply left her no less suspicious. I don’t have a flexible time table so I chose to get up and have a cup of tea instead of going for a quick nap. After winding up all the necessary morning commitments I gathered my briefcase, stethoscope and some pending reports to go through on my way to the hospital. I was still feeling uneasy so avoided conversation with my chatty driver. Moreover I avoided briefing my assistant about the sequence in which I‘ll be attending the patients and with a mug of coffee quickly bursted in my cabin. After a usual buffer of 10-15 minutes I rang my call bell to send in patients. Leaving all the thoughts behind I concentrated on examining the patients one by one. Around 12 P.M. an old man entered my room accompanied by a boy who appeared to be in his 50’s and was informed to be his son lately.
The old man complained about the uneasiness he felt in his throat and mild fever. His son assured me that there is no serious medical history or illness his father is suffering from. Meanwhile I received a call from my colleague, a doctor from Italy.
Part 02:
After a quick exchange of wellness on both sides he quoted about COVID-19 becoming pandemic in his town; which I was also following in headlines from the past 2-3 days. He was informing me about the basic symptoms and immediate actions required to take but I interrupted him and said to revert him back after attending the patient.
The symptoms the old man quoted were indicating normal viral infection so I gave him initial treatment and asked to report me after a 3 days course of medicine in case of any new development or uneasiness. During my lunch time I called my friend and resumed our conversation on COVID-19. He told me how abruptly community spread of this virus is wiping off the whole country and he also mentioned that he had forwarded reports of some COVID-19 patients and documents quoting detailed do’s and don'ts in case someone is suspected of initial symptoms. The old man showed me the very next day with his son quoting drastic degradation in his condition and high temperature and even facing difficulty in breathing overnight. He was in his 80’s so I advised him some tests like swine flu, malaria and also as a precautionary measure I suggested the COVID -19 test as I have been hearing from my friend and there were patients tested positive in nearby cities too. After they left for the tests suddenly I felt the same restlessness and stream of negative intuitions sprinting across my mind that I felt the day before yesterday.
Reports of the old man were prepared within 24 hrs and next morning were piled up with other reports on my desk. As soon as I reached hospital I saw the old man waiting with his son; so I told my assistant to send them in first and place his report on top of the pile.
Here was the beginning of my perpetual fight which is going on till date.
Part 03:
He was tested positive for COVID-19...
This was the most horrifying scenario I ever witnessed and was left still for fractions of minutes. The son interrupted and got in my state of mind within seconds after hearing this report. I quickly called up my team and created an isolation ward for the old man and commenced all possible pieces of initial treatments we had knowledge of. Moreover I asked his son to go through the test process of COVID-19 and advised him to bring everyone in his family to go through this process. And what I augured was the result; His entire family was tested positive - his wife, his grandmother and his 21 yr old son. They all were isolated without any delay and in a blink of an eye family of 5 occupied 5 different isolation wards.
We were novice to this virus and its nature. Before we could understand it; the old man whispered his last words. Demises are always painful but I never witnessed such a demise where we humans seemed like masked white robots were the only family that the old man saw from the last 48 hrs.
Within a week huge numbers of families got cursed by this virus and were chased to agonizing death. All the smiles welcoming newborns and all the enthusiastic recovered patients of my hospital began to vanish, all tuned up happy conversations in cafetaria of my hospital began to turn silent, all hopes sitting in the waiting areas began to turn into miseries, all innocent faces began to get masked and briskly we began to race to cope up with this monstrous virus that began to snatch away my dear patients.
This is just a glimpse of the devils we all are fighting here daily; Can’t share much as my 10 minutes break to unmask and get some natural oxygen is over.
Today my country is under lockdown; me, my colleagues and my suffering patients are turning thirsty to meet our families but we are not sanitized enough to lift our children up, touch the feet of our parents and embrace our life partners.
So readers who wish that we can give you and ourselves a dense family reunion please stay quarantined and stay safe.
- a plea forwarded by our masked gods...
-©Anmol Singhal
