"Dr. Sharma, are you alright?” asked the intern coming out of the OT, with a tone of concern in her voice.
“Radhika, I can’t do this surgery”, I mumbled.
“WHAT? Why...?”
“You won’t understand Radhika, I can’t do this”, I said and handing my mask and coat to the intern, ran away from the place.
“but ma’am, everybody is waitin……” Her voice became fainter and fainter as I was running at the maximum speed that my adrenaline could supply. Within 10 seconds I was out of the hospital.
All the doctors, relatives of the patients, and the hospital faculty stared at me in utter disbelief as I ran out like a crazy peron through the corridor.
Within 15 minutes, I was in my apartment; locked away from the outside world.
My husband was away on business and my younger daughter, Gia, was at college. That left only me alone in the house. It was dark inside and I didn’t even make an attempt of switching the lights on. Slowly, I moved towards the little room just beside the kitchen. It was strange how I could always easily find my way into that room even in pitch darkness; I never forgot my way in there. I slowly turned the knob of the door, trying at the same time to fight back the tears rolling down my stone-hard cheeks. And the moment I stepped into the room, I once again felt the presence of my elder son everywhere; Aryan- the child I lost 15 years ago.
He died of leukaemia at the age of 14. He was one of the toughest kids I have ever known. Inspite of the terrible disease he was suffering from, he never showed his pain and sufferings to others. He was so jovial and lively that no one would be able to guess how much pain he was going through.
That was the tragedy of my life, I had to see my own son slowly and painfully succumb to death as the cancer spread the poison throughout his body - killing him like a merciless poacher, at an age when most children just start to discover the colours of life.
And maybe that was the reason behind what happened to me at the hospital. I had often visited the boy (lying in the OT right now) before today and each time I went near him, he reminded me of my Aryan. The same face, the exact unquestionable spirit to battle for his life, and the very familiar pain in his helpless eyes, as if asking life to give him a second chance. The boy was suffering from a brain tumour and there was very little chance of his survival. He resembled my Aryan so much that even the thought of entering the OT to perform his surgery scared me.
I turned on the lights in Aryan's room and recollected Aryan’s memories by looking at the action figures still scattered on his shelf. I remember how crazy he was about those and how his face brightened up each time I bought a new one for him. I opened the drawer of his closet and looked at the comic books he loved so much and because of which I would tell him off many a times as he would hide them inside his school books and read during his study hours, pretending to do his homework.
I smiled through tears.
As I was going to close the door of the closet, my eyes rested on a black box almost hidden by his clothes . After he passed away, nothing was removed from his room. My husband wanted to keep it the exact way he had left it. I had been in this room so many times before but had never come across this box. I took it out of the closet and sat on the bed.
...to be continued in the next issue
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horrors of the shade
And yet in the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid”.
----- W.E. Henley
I was shocked. I had no idea when he wrote his personal journal. The poem was so appealing that it felt as if it was his inner voice speaking those words. His matured outlook on life at such a tender age made me a proud mom that day.
With eager interest, I flipped over the pages of the old diary. I found that he had noted down each eventful memory of his short life with perfect precision. I was amazed.
Turning over the pages, I came across a passage where he had written about me. I literally jumped out of excitement. It said---- “I to feel so proud have a mum who is so strong and tough. She manages everyone of us so well. Even after spending whole day at the hospital, she spends sleepless nights beside my bed. I wish I could repay her the love she gave me. She is my inspiration. Her tireless struggle will continue to inspire me to battle with cancer till my last breath. My mom is a champ, and so am I.”
My eyes were completely soaked with tears when I reached the last line of the passage. I felt like a loser that time, I felt as if I had let Aryan down by running out of the surgery . at that moment,I somehow felt as if I was getting back my lost confidence. All at once, I wanted to get back to the hospital and save that child. It seemed as if Aryan was urging me to go forward and perform the surgery. I was ready to go back to the hospital.
With the newly gathered confidence, I collected my mobile from the shelf and stepped outside the room. There had been 10 missed calls from the hospital ever since I had left. I was so absorbed in reading Aryan’s diary that I hardly noticed the ring of the phone. I got into my car and rushed to the hospital at the highest speed.
I rushed into the corridor of the hospital and once again everyone stared at me as if I had gone crazy. I ran into the OT and erupted in the middle of the surgery like the eruption of lava of a volcano. Everyone gave me a look of disbelief.
“thank god u came dear, I was really getting worried about the boy”, spoke Dr. Desai with a tone of relief in her voice.
“don’t worry ma’am,I will handle this surgery”, I said.
After putting my best effort in the operation,finally after 2 long hours,the light of the OT was turned off. As I stepped out of the surgery,the boy’s relatives surrounded me with anxious looks and queries. I cleared my voice and putting on a smile, said, “your child is safe; surgery is successful”.
As I stepped out of the hospital that day after an eventful morning, my collegues asked me why I had ran away that time. At that moment,I recollected the quote that Aryan had written in the last page of his diary. I put on simple smile and said, “we cannot always choose the music that life plays for us,but we can certainly choose how to dance to it.” And leaving my collegues in deep and confused thoughts, I got into my car.