this too shall pass

My father just had a bypass surgery. This week was full of stress, appreciation, anxiousness and hurt, in different measures for different people at different times.
The incompetent trainee nurses poking him on the arm leaving bruises, the writing of wrong prescriptions with spelling mistakes, the rumbling air-conditioner and the fan that creaked all night long in a supposedly deluxe room, the callous security guards at the ICCU and the general apathy of the staff—Stress.

The brilliant doctors, the kind-faced physiotherapist, the anonymous friends and acquaintance who donated 10 bottles of blood voluntarily, the support of my aunts and uncles, my parent’s friends, the constant prayers, the genuine caring without pretence, my friends who called and cared and constantly showed support—Appreciation.

Spending four nights in the SICU waiting room, the single phone in the waiting room that would ring in the middle of the night with an emergency, the constant fear that it may be your father’s bed number that is called out, the wait outside the operation theatre wondering if everything is ok, knowing that your father’s heart is being operated on—Anxiousness.

Walking into the office and having your closest friends not bother to ask about your father because they are too wrapped up in their own lives—Hurt.

matters of the heart

We sat in the waiting room, anxious. We stood up when anyone left the operation theatre— a nurse, a ward boy.

Five grueling hours later a small bald man with smooth skin and a well-trimmed white beard walked down the stairs. ‘Doctor, is everything okay’, my mother gasped. Without smiling he said, ‘Okay’ and turned and walked down the stairs.

I sat, a jumble of relief and stress, a thousand questions in my head, I sat and watched the bald head of the doctor who had just held my father’s beating heart in his hands.