My mind continued its search for any known answers through mining the areas of main memory but to of no avail! I decided immediately to take up a short course in the appreciation of dance forms in the Indian Classical system! The decision came around 5:40 AM. It dissolved into the realms of vast ocean of such decision repository around 7:15 AM!
***
I gulped pieces of dosa with a dabbing of coconut chutney with some difficulty since my throat was chocking often due to the presence of the chemotherapy drug flowing all along my body through blood. Last week, a few rashes started showing up on my face - especially the chin area, around lips, cheeks and sideburns - which caused enormous pain and irritation while I was my face. I could see a couple of rashes on my upper thighs too! Since I had had these rashes and their effect on my mobility in the last spell of my chemo sessions, I was not completely surprised though.
I waited for my cab to arrive and pick me up. The driver did not turn up until 9:45 AM and I expressed my concern over phone for his being late in his expected duty. "Sorry sir! I am on the way", was his cliched answer all along my calls until he arrived. And, finally, when arrived, he offered an explanation:"The driver who was expected for this trip suddenly was out of station and he informed me in the last minute! Thus, this delayed me in reaching you, sir. I am sorry!" Ah! What a convincing one that was! I know of the internal dynamics within these guys, and I had an instinct to offer my mind on some kind of OD intervention to fix their problems. But, I could not do that for free! :)
There was huge traffic on the Palace Grounds road, Vyalikaval, Le Meridian and Basaveshwara Road, a manifestation of a typical scene on roads on a given Monday in Bangalore! The two-wheelers were crisscrossing with a great gusto and guts in the space that they could get in between the awful four-wheelers! Almost every one seemed to lose their sanity on roads with only one objective - reach the destination by hook or crook, by rev up or jump, by kiss the other vehicles or be kissed!
***
I reached the hospital around 11:15 AM and straight away rushed to the counter in the third floor to collect my requisition form for my day's blood test and to pay for it. I ignored the dull eyes of the elevator operator and what they meant for me! I ignored the breaking English words of the guy in the counter who was facing difficulty explaining a apparently learned woman - with a a big bindi on her forehead and heavily blackened eyes - on the procedure to take a mammography test. I just ignored the foul smell of the strong disinfectant spreading in the lobby like a slow monster!
I went down to the Lab in the second floor and straightened my arm with the technician who collected the blood sample from me. After a few failed attempts to locate a good vein on my right arm, he switched to my left arm with a kind of melancholic looks in his face. I did not wonder at this expression of his since I got used to this situation ever since I had started to have the chemotherapy sessions last year! The prick in my left arm was smooth meaning some how that my blood condition was somewhat kind of okay. Which also might mean it might not be okay.
***
With a strap of band-aid and a faint smell of the traces of the alcohol swab on the pricked area, I plodded along towards the stairs that took me back to the lobby area of the third floor. The results of the blood test would take at least two hours and the time of waiting started for me now!
I looked around the area with no specific expectations. The seats were not completely filled and people had started talking over their cell phones or to those sitting beside them. Some hushes and some shouts making an overall picture of a movie theater just before the movie starts. The security guys were seen pleading some standing in the lobby to occupy the chairs instead, and some kind and polished souls obliged, some did not react! There was a gradual increase in the noise with the seats slowly getting filled up and there was a time when no chair was available with the new patients coming in and the security guys facing hard time convincing and managing the noise in the floor! The frequent loitering of doctors did not impact the environment. Every one was in their own world - the world of one of the most deadly diseases, its effects on the lifestyles typically and the heavy expenses which were sometimes totally unexpected!
I opened up the day's edition of THE HINDU and rushed through the interview of Ms. Melinda Gates, Co-chair and co-founder of the Gates Foundation, who was recently in India. With the motto of every life has equal value, the foundation is working hard on the areas of HIV awareness and infant mortality primarily. Charity is for all and can be done by all in various measures. I thought of all my friends who had helped me in the times of distress and I remembered each one of them and my interactions with them since their help was truly priceless! And, I finally thanked Mr.N.Ram, Editor-in-chief, THE HINDU group of publications, who interview Ms.Melinda Gates, and indirectly influenced my mind in thinking of charity and its effects on the well-being of the human psyche.
I took a brief break for a couple of minutes and kept down the paper. My eyes were fixated towards the entrance area of the lobby where there was some hard discussion going on among the floor in-charge, Ms.Prema, security guys for the floor, and the immediate boss to these security guys. Ms.Prema was complaining on the unavailability of the security in the crucial peak times of the patient traffic during the mornings and the guys were becoming defensive - overly sentimental sometimes with their explanation of their need to have their breakfast! Obviously unconvinced with this, others in the group were condescending enough to make the defensiveness of the poor guys to become completely ineffective! After a protracted discussion, it was decided to tackle the issue later! :)
I dabbed again on my own reading, this time with the day's edition of THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE. The paper was one of my favorites because of its whitepaperish perspectives on the topics of business, corporate management, finance, investing and management. The items that caught my attention and set my thinking were: (a) How could the rural areas in our country be connected for broadband: either through the optical cables or through the wireless network? (b) Of all the newspapers available, what made the Rajeev Chandrashekar-owned Jupiter Ventures to invest in the Kannada daily, Kannada Prabha? What decisions were to be made towards this move? (c) Why ethanol-blended petrol was vehemently lobbied against by the petroleum players? (d) What is Carbon tax and what are the modalities for its imposition?
The chain of thoughts on these topics branched off to set other related thoughts on economics and export policy, when I was suddenly brought into the real world, when Sister Lakshmi
handed over me the results of the day's blood test. (See the attached trend chart with the WBC sloping down gradually over time!) This time, the WBC count stood at 1.95 which was way below the standard minimum of 2.5 needed for a safe chemo infusion. I was aghast at the result though not completely surprised! We spoke to Dr.Smita over the results and she recommended me taking the infusion for the day reasoning that the main drug Irinotecan was not being infused today, so it would be okay to infuse the other drug, Cetuximab. The former is known to have the effect of reducing the white blood cell count in the body with sometimes deleterious effects, in turn reducing the immunity in the body towards even milder infections!With a deep sigh and solitary sitting for a while, I proceeded towards the ground floor reception area to complete the admission formalities. After getting the admission into the recliner ward - the ward with a set of eight comfortable sit-backs just to serve for the infusion to the patients comfortably, - I moved to a recliner in one cozy corner so I could veer around the entire ward freely just to satiate my senses of observation! :) There was only a lone woman in her late thirties accompanied probably by her sister, actively engaged in the saas-bahu political issues so loudly as though they wanted to declare to the world that they too were not immune to such kind of family conundrum! The patient lady was getting infused with the chemo drug and often seen just nodding her head for the verbal diarrhea from her attending lady! Both sometimes, for a brief period of time, switch on one of their cell phone spewing the oldies from Kumar Sanu! It was interesting to watch them talking, discussing, listening, all at one time multitasking, while I was zero-tasking all the way! :)
***
After a brief confusion that prevailed on the status and the location of my in-house patient file, the nursing staff prepared the day's prescription of the drugs and other associated instruments, with the help of Dr.Smitha, and promptly set in action the process of getting them from the pharmacy.
Overseeing the labor at work in the adjacent construction through the window beside me, I swallowed down a few morsels of home-packed pongal and washed them down with a warm water from my bottle that I always carry whenever I visit the hospital. The food was just sufficient to keep me warm and satiated at least for a couple of hours.
Brother Harish made his way calmly but in an hurried manner, typical to his style of business. He reciprocated to my smile and in an act of quick business settled down to searching for a vein for infusion, preparing the drug in the syringes, etc. He came, he pricked, he dashed off! What a guy, he was!
The sister and the brother duo on duty took on from there and supervised the process of infusion with diligence. I sometimes would be amazed by the memory of the nursing staff! They could remember even the quantity to the milliliters of the drug to be infused for a specific patient including the time of the infusion! such was their skill that it beats me once in a while prompting me occasionally to think on my own memory! :)
I heard Kumar Sanu singing in a mellowed voice, Teree aankhon sey hum ney dekha hai, ajab see chaahat jhalak rahi hai, over one of the cell phones from the lady patient struggling with her seating in the sit-back. She suddenly stood up, marched towards the weighing machine as though she remembered to check her weight apprehending of the immediate effects of the chemo drug on it! Her attender was joking on her reading and her sudden dawning upon checking her weight. I smiled at their innocence in thoughts. :)
And, the infusion regimen for me started off and ended smoothly with the usual sequence:
NS (Normal Saline) - 15 minutes
Cetuximab (through a calibrated syringe pump @ 80 ml per hour) - around 1 hour
NS (Normal Saline, again for flushing purposes) - 15 minutes
The whole regimen lasted around one-and-half hour and the IV line was removed around 5:45 PM, when my father proceeded towards the billing section to settle the payment process and to get the No Dues certificate without which we would not be discharged from the hospital.
I called up the cab driver to pick us up around 6:45 PM, the request he promptly adhered to.
***
The weather these days was warm and humid with occasional bouts of cool breeze. Sonu Nigam was answering the wonderful Shreya Ghosal, "Aaramage idde naanu, ninna kandu arey yenaithu..." in the background radio. The cab driver was driving cautiously as though he wanted to concentrate more on the music! At a long pause in one of the road signals, I suddenly desired to climb down the cab, stand in the middle of the cross roads stretching my arms feeling as though I was being drenched in the rain. The rain of hope. The rain of new life. The rain of vigor. Life was good. It gave me enough perspectives to decide on what was important and what was not. The present became more interesting with all its hues. And it is raining music in the air. What a moment it was!
***
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