“Will you fill my water bottle?” I asked my friend after letting my hair down at the Freshers’ Party in college. “No. You can do it yourself,” was her immediate reply. Before I could nudge her, I ran up to the stage to dance as they played one of my favourite numbers. I forgot how thirsty I was.
After 30 minutes, I walked up to where my belongings were stashed in the corner of the auditorium to pick up the water bottle. I realised it was filled to the brim. I turned around to look at my friend and smiled. She winked in return.
She has always been like that. Her first response is always a ‘NO’! And later she’d come around to say, “I did it ‘cos you asked me to.”
This time around, she kept saying no to the Fistula surgery. “I’ll get the chemo port removed for now. I’ll live with this Fistula for a while. I can manage the pain. I can’t do two surgeries,” she whined. I nodded and stayed silent.
Many in the family told me, “I think you can convince her.” I was biding my time.
“What do you think?” she asked me two days before our scheduled visit to the hospital for pre-surgery needs. “I think it’s better to get both done. I’m worried that the Fistula may suddenly spiral out of control when you are alone in Singapore. How will you fight Godzilla then?” I declared. She fell silent. I gave her time to dwell on this thought.
We left for the hospital the next day. We started with a consultation with the vascular surgeon, who’d remove the chemo port. She then said, “Baby, let’s meet the GI surgeon and see what he has to say about the Fistula surgery.” I smiled. “I haven’t decided yet,” she added. I said, “Yes, ok!”
The Fistula needs to be removed. Even if the pain is manageable now, this will end up in surgery later, confirmed the surgeon. One conversation flowed into another as we walked between departments - from package lounge to anaesthesia clearance, blood tests and more. We walked out of the hospital late afternoon having fixed both the surgeries for 7am on May 31, 2022.
“Happy? You have a knack of convincing me,” she commented, as we sat in the car. “I kissed her on the forehead and assured her that it’s going to be okay. “You have to be in the hospital with me again. Be prepared,” she mentioned with a smile. “There’s no without me,” I stressed.
I had to travel to Chennai to attend a function organised for my late mother’s sister, who was going to fly down from the US. I was prepared to skip the event, until my friend forced me to go. “I won’t do the surgery without you. I’ll wait till you get back, I promise. You haven’t seen them for more than 5-6 years. Go and meet them. This will be a good break,” she chirped. I decided to follow her advice.
On May 23, I went with my family to one of my favourite destinations - Chennai. I stayed with my favourite foster parents, attended the event, and broke down upon seeing them. I enjoyed spending time with my cousins. I returned by train two days later. I was petrified while on the train. I was worried about COVID and all sorts of infection. I was literally bathing in sanitizers. I landed home on May 26 and left for my friend’s place the very next day.
I was suddenly running temperature and my throat was scratchy. I was dreading the RTPCR. “Please pray for me,” I told my mother, extremely concerned. “Did I make a mistake by going to Chennai?” I asked my friend. She just hugged me to say everything is going to be fine. “Let’s be prepared. In case this turns out to be unfortunate, I’ll try to postpone the surgery,” she said. I was devastated. This was the last stretch and this was all on me. The result was out on May 29. It was negative. I went and thanked God immediately. I prayed that my friend and I would visit the Hanuman temple near my home.
On May 31, my friend, her dad and I rushed to the hospital by 6.30am. By the time the admission formalities were done and we were in the ward, it was 7am. Her vitals were being checked after she changed into the patient’s gown.
She was nervous, she was trying to meditate, she was fidgety. I was anxious, I was pacing up and down, I was jittery. But we found calm in each other. We knew we were going to get through this. As if reading my mind, she said, “We are almost there. Tomorrow this time, we’ll be done.” I replied, “We are in the last leg. C’mon baby!” We gave each other a high five. Our smiles were hiding the pain endured through all these months.
The doctor arrived to first say that her surgery will be done at 11 am since the admission formalities were delayed. However, after a while, they accommodated her earlier. She was wheeled in at 9 am. The doctor said the cannula will be inserted at the theatre. I was standing out worried if she would find that painful.
Her fistula surgery was scheduled first. They said it would go on for half an hour. Her father and I decided to quickly have breakfast at the ward. Just as I was taking the last bite, I received a call from the doctor asking us to get to the operation theatre. While I knew it was going to be a regular update saying, “Operation successful,” - like what we see in movies, my heart was still palpitating.
“What if the cannula wasn’t inserted properly!”
“What if the sudden start of her menstruation interfered with the surgery?”
Her father interrupted my thoughts, “Hope there’s nothing to worry about, right?” I hid my thoughts in the backburner and said, “Of course, it’s going to be nothing.”
As we reached the OT, the doctor was waiting at the entrance holding a small bottle in hand. “I thought you might want to see the Fistula that we removed.” I took a picture of it thinking my friend would want to know how her Godzilla looked after all.
As this surgeon said bye, we saw the next surgeon saying hi to us as he sashayed into the theatre. There were no seats outside. Our legs were screaming in pain and the security personnel was screaming while directing us to clear the area. I asked her father to wait at the ward. My friend’s mom too was on her way to the hospital. I was dancing on my toes trying to wait for my friend while swallowing the pain.
I tried counting numbers, chanting some prayers to keep my mind distracted. I noticed another lady doing the same, squatting on the floor. She smiled at me. I walked closer and introduced myself. As we got talking, she said that she is a gynaecologist from Agra, who came all the way here to get her son’s jaw fixed. “It’s a complicated procedure. If we don’t get this fixed, he wouldn’t be able to eat and he’d starve to death,” she lamented. Every home has a tragic story buried behind smiling faces.
I missed seeing my friend being wheeled out to the recovery room, but I saw the vasco surgeon. “We have successfully removed the chemo port. She is fine,” he said, patting my shoulder. A sense of relief swept through me. Her parents were waiting at the ward. I conveyed the news to them as I hurried to the recovery room.
I saw her at the far end of the room. She was wrapped in blankets with warm air blowing in to keep her warm. She was drifting in and out of consciousness. She did catch a glimpse of me beside her. I said, “Hey, I’m here!” She immediately began crying. “I’m in pain!” she cried. My heart broke into two when I saw her lips curl and eyes well up. I dragged the nurse in to show her that this girl is in pain. She said, “Calm down. The painkiller is being administered.” I noticed the drug flowing in slow motion into her system. I whispered into my friend’s ear, “The painkiller is on, you will be fine soon.” She looked at me and feigned a smile in all that pain. “We did it!” she cried. I held her face and said, “We wouldn’t have had it any other way!”
After what seemed ages, she was wheeled back into the ward. The mother waiting for her son outside the operation theatre waved to me and my friend as we got into the lift. Her parents greeted her with smiles and tears at the ward. I showed her the chemo port that was removed and the picture of the Fistula. The time was nearly 3.30pm. “How are you?” she asked, remembering my throat infection and fever. I was surviving on Dolo and kept the throat pain at bay with painkillers. “I’m all good,” I replied. She shook her head, as if to say, “Don’t lie!”
She slept through the afternoon. She then took a sip of the juice we got from home, and then some water. She had a tightly wound bandage on her chest. “This is pulling my skin. It’s hurting!” she complained. The doctor later explained that the removal of the chemo port will leave a vacuum in the chest area, which is why the bandage is tightly pressed against her chest leaving no room.
Her parents soon left the hospital and I gave her some porridge. “Can you give me some more? I liked it,” she remarked. I was overwhelmed. I quickly made her some more and ate some dinner. The nurse advised her to not walk to the loo, but she could use the help of a diaper. My friend was unable to relieve herself while on the bed. Until the doctor cleared her to walk to the loo in the night, she just held on. “Ah! I am finally relieved,” she laughed. And I laughed along, “Mad child!”
I was dog tired. I knew I’d sleep like a log. I put my phone on charge, kept her phone beside her and asked her to ring me if she needed help in the night. Before retiring to bed, the nurse came in to give her the antibiotic through IV. Her veins started freezing. “I can’t take it anymore. Please, please stop,” she yelled. I asked the nurse to check with the doc and make it oral. She came back and said that the antibiotic can be oral but she needs to give the paracetamol through IV. The nurse and I kept rubbing her hand gently as every drop of the paracetamol entered her vein. It took almost 40 minutes before things settled down and we hit the sack.
I didn’t know what hit me. I was out like the light. I woke up with a start at 6.30 am and the first thing I saw was my friend entering the loo with the nurse. I was fuming. “Why did you not wake me up?” I raged. “You were fast asleep. I even called you,” she stated. I looked at the phone and noticed five missed calls. I felt like a heel. How could I have missed these calls? How could I be this careless? I was overcome with guilt. I felt ashamed. I wanted to jump out the window.
I hugged her and I wept. Bitterly. She said, “I know you are tired. Please don’t cry baby. I don’t want you to ever feel bad. You are already doing so much.” My heart was wringing. I felt like I let her down, I slipped. She said, “Will you please help me brush my teeth and we can have coffee together?” I complied. We had coffee and breakfast and were all set waiting for our favourite - the oncologist.
“So, you got that out?” the oncologist asked her as he walked in, referring to the chemo port. “I even got this out,” my friend said, referring to the Fistula. “All that is remaining is for you to get out of India then,” said the doctor and we guffawed.
My friend mentioned that her cannula is removed and that she is on oral antibiotics for the next few days. “The only painkiller they have prescribed is Ultracet,” she said. The doctor replied, “You are a walking, talking ambassador of Ultracet. What is there for me to tell you!” He sure knows how to lighten the situation.
The surgeon, who performed the Fistula surgery, arrived to check on her. He ripped off the bandage and advised her to continue with the sitz bath. “It will be painful for the first few days. You can sit, stand and walk normally. Just make sure you do not constipate. You will be fine,” the doctor announced. The nurse immediately waltzed in with a wheelchair that had seating arrangement to facilitate a sitz bath. “I can’t do this. You need to hold me if I have to sit on this. This nurse is so fragile, her back will break,” she said, agitated.
The nurse and I decided to arrange a tub to be placed in the loo for her to sit. The height and the circumference were not convenient. We forced her to sit on that while we held her. “Are you both okay? Can I get off?” she asked every two minutes. “Shut up and wait here for at least 10 minutes,” I screamed. She kept quiet the last five minutes before we were done.
We soon received clearance for discharge from hospital after the vascular surgeon’s visit. He removed the large bandage and replaced it with a smaller one. He asked us to return after a week so the wound could be examined. I quickly gave her some lunch and packed everything while the discharge summary was being processed. Her father had come to escort us home. I tried looking for the woman who had accompanied me outside the operation theatre. The nurses told me that her son was discharged from hospital earlier that day.
“Why not organise lunch for these nurses? They were so sweet to us all the time,” she suggested. I quickly transferred the money to the head nurse to organise a pizza party for all the nurses on the floor. We quickly left the hospital and got home by early evening. She was in pain, both near the chest as well her buttocks, but she managed to catch up with some sleep that night.
The next day was painful when she had to hit the restroom. She was in tears as the open wound was hurting her. There was no way out. She will have to wait it out. The week passed with sitz bath and painkillers and it was time for a follow up at the hospital. The vasco surgeon removed the bandage and stuck a simpler one, which he said could be removed after two days. He also said she can have a regular bath and not be worried about the water on the wound, thanks to a spray he gave, which will form a film over the wound. The GI surgeon said that her wound in the rear was healing well.
“Let’s hope this is the last visit to the hospital as a patient,” I declared to my friend. “Let’s come back with a ‘thank you’ gift to all. You need to think of an appropriate gift,” she stated. As we headed home, she kept ranting out different gift ideas and I kept rejecting them all. They say the best advice may be found on the pillow, but I was glad to notice her sitting without the donut pillow for the first time after her encounter with Godzilla.
