It was my last night of graveyard shift duty at the Labour room as an intern in Gynae & Obs
And boy!!! was I glad?!!!
Now, now...don't go all judgemental...
I love what I do
I do!
But honestly, do storks just have to deliver their goods in the dead of a December night???
I mean, it's not comfortable for the newbie mommies
it's not comfortable for the newbie babies
AND it's most definitely not comfortable for the newbie doctors...
To add insult to injury it was not only really really cold but also the sleeves of my apron had gotten all wet too somehow
So I was cold wet and delivering babies on a freezing December night
Now go ahead and be judgemental
See if I care!
Anyways so here I was grumpily going around doing whatever needed doing when the senior gynae resident walks in...
The young patient who had to be wheeled in for an emergency C-section in the afternoon was going into shock::: she informed
Her BP was fluctuating
She had been put on dopamine and fluids
Her urine output was dangerously low
AND they just couldn't get her a vacant bed in the ICU where all the necessary monitoring facilities were...
They had been trying all day
Pulling all strings that there was to pull....but to no avail!
Someone up in ICU had even offered that if the G&O people could just come up and maybe boot out one of its present occupants and thereby empty out a bed for this one they were more than welcome to do so!
Guess my nerves weren't the only ones frayed around here huh?
There was an epidemic of frayed nerves in progress
*sigh....
So anyways like I was saying this patient's condition was deteriorating...and deteriorating fast
She needed constant monitoring
And well it stood to perfect logic that if a machine wasn't around to do just that a human had to step in it's shoes...
So lo and behold...
I was handpicked by the VS as the one most likely to excel as a machine...
Applause all around please....
Thank you Thank you
*and I bow
So this is how it came to pass that on this particular cold dreary december night I was sitting beside a very frail young woman with multiple IV catheters going in here and there into her...
Delivering a bit of this and a bit of that...
Whose dosage by the way required constant vigil depending on her vitals...
Which by the way I was to check EVERY 15mins...
Her BP
Pulse
Urine output
Respiratory rate
Temperature
auscultate her chest
see if there was any oozing from the surgical wound
etc etc etc
In short, I had to do all it took to ward of any dark angels if they dared venture close to my patient
* shoo!!! You scavengers of souls!
Am in no mood for any of your nonsense tonight
Got that?
So that's what I was doing when this young woman, Arpita [ as per her bed head ticket] opens her eyes briefly and cries out:::
"My baby! my baby??? Oh my baby! Where is it?"
"Shhhhhhh!" I say " You have a healthy little boy and he's doing just fine, he's in the nursery."
At this news she starts whimpering
"Oh please doctor, bring him to me one time...just once...I want to see him just once before I die...oh my baby"
Die...DIE???
What do you mean you die???
I will slap you tight if you die
You hear me?
It's cold
It's dreary
I am tired
And yet I am here
And SO you are not gonna die on me
Get that?
That's what I wanted to scream at her
But I didnt
" Now here, Arpita" I said as soothingly as I could manage in the face of my rising irritation,
"You are not going to die
You are not going to die 'coz I have been working my ass off here just so that your son has a mother tomorrow morning...
Just so that you can feed him and bathe him and hold him and love him and help him grow up to be just as fine a person as you undoubtedly are right this minute..
So you hear me?
You are NOT gonna die
Dont you even dare try" I finished
But by then I wasnt sure she had heard me, she had dropped off again...
I immediately checked out her vitals and adjusted the doses as required and then breathing a very irritated sigh sat down once again to wait for the next 15mins to go by after which I would repeat the whole thing all over again...
Boy!!! Talk about ungratefulness!!!
Die huh?
If she did that I am personally gonna resurrect her and then kill her all over again
*I vowed
She didnt die
She made it
But she slept when my bright-eyed fresh-faced replacement came in the next morning
I handed over the case
touching up all the necessary notes I had made into her BHT & treatment card all through the night
And gave the morning intern a work-up on what had transpired the night before...
He was quick on the uptake
And shooed me away to my unmade bed in my cramped dorm room
Ahhhhh!!! Talk about paradise on earth
I must have outslept Rip Van Winkle that time around
Anyways I had forgotton all about her...
all about her...who had deigned not to die on me that december night...
when one fine lazy spring afternoon
I was strolling down College street
contently shopping for an interesting hardcover to read in a sunlit alcove while sipping fruit juice...
and I wanted it for a bargain too...
So I was busy poking my nose around all those tiny quaint used-books stores...
When all of a sudden I was hit by a petite tornado...
"Thank God!!! Thank God!!!
Is this really you, doctor?!!!!
Oh! I was so afraid I would never get to see you again
to thank you for properly for pulling me back from the dead!!!
Oh!!! Thank God!!!
Thank you so much...
My prayers have been answered!!!
It is you!!!"
"Ahhhhhhhhh well
Ummmmm yes
looks like I am me alright
ummmmmmmm
but am very sorry
I really cant place you"
"Arpita...bed no 161
27th dec....last year...
I had my baby...remember...
You watched over me that dreadful night...
when I thought I would die...
But I didn't
all because of you
Thank You!"
Ahhhhhh yes!!!
The impudently incorrigibly ungrateful soul who thought who could just like die on me!!!!
The guts!!!
By jove!!!
The nerve on the woman!!!
Oh Yes!!!
I remember her alright!!!
And I could still strangle her alright!!!
Boy! Was I cold and wet and tired and a real mess that night?!!!
* I thought
But then she was frantically waving over an young man with a 4 month old baby in his arms towards us
"This is my husband
And this is Priyank
We named him after you."
Oh!
Oh!
WAIT!
What?
Could you repeat that again please?
