In Memoriam

It has been over a year since my mother passed away. It all began on August 8 last year, when she slipped on a wet floor and got badly hurt at our home in  Kozhikode. I got a call during my morning walk here in Bangalore.

I was dreading and praying it was not a fracture, but no such luck. She was hospitalized and doctors opined that surgery needs to be done as the fracture was a complex one.

This sudden turn of events forced me to rush to Kozhikode. Luckily train tickets were available and I reached the very next day after the fall.

When I reached the Kozhikode District Cooperative hospital she was in deep pain. Initially, she was admitted to the general ward as special ward rooms were not available. The scene there was chaotic with almost all patients with plasters and slings as the ward was meant for patients needing orthopaedic care.

I then went to the Orthopaedics outpatient rooms to meet Dr Reju, who was treating my mother. In terms of appearance, he had a height that would have been ideal for a basketball player. He was a soft-spoken and affable man, probably in his mid-thirties or early forties with a substantial girth.

He said that surgery was the only way out. When I raised my concerns about my mother’s age, she was 80, he said it was still doable and the hospital will ensure that her other health parameters are in check before the surgery. “Don’t worry we will fix this,” he said assuringly.

On his mobile phone, he showed the X-ray print. There were fractures at two points on her left femur bone, along with some minor cracks nearby. He readily offered to share the X-rays with me on WhatsApp and I sent them to a distant relative, who is also an ortho surgeon. He too concurred with what Dr Reju had suggested.

I later dialled up various sources to get a room and don’t know which one worked – she was shifted to a room on the second day. This shift calmed things down a bit, as I didn’t have to witness other patients in a far worse state writhing in agony over the pain caused by road accidents and other much more serious injuries.

For me the daily routine was somewhat like this: Sleep overnight in the hospital; get up to buy breakfast etc for mom and caretaker; leave for home for a bath, shave and breakfast; rush back to the hospital before 10 am to be present during the doctors’ morning rounds; buy medicines; leave for home during lunchtime and return by evening. Luckily my home was a 10-minute walk from the hospital, and I used to walk, except while going for lunch when I preferred an autorickshaw to escape the blazing afternoon sun.

Kerala back then was in the grip of the Covid-19 second wave and daily caseload and test positivity rates were at alarming levels. The fourth floor of the hospital was a designated Covid ward, while my mom was in the fifth.

Ambulances with blaring sirens rushing towards the hospital were a normal occurrence. A couple of times I happened to be near the hospital entrance when they arrived. A flurry of activity follows, healthcare personnel fully covered with white PPT kits and Ku Klux Klan-type hoods used to emerge out of the ambulance, and some from the hospital, also covered from head to toe with PPT kits, would rush to escort the Covid patient to the waiting stretcher or wheelchair.

Almost every onlooker used to dart away from the path and keep a safe distance when the stretcher carrying the patient moved to the lift.

There was an oxygen plant within the hospital premises and it was humming with activity. While getting into the lift I often used to come across hospital employees wheeling the longish oxygen cylinder and getting off at the fourth floor.

The Covid paranoia within the hospital was very strong. Everyone was wearing double masks and I sometimes had trouble trying to make out what those nurses were saying. While the hospital was maintaining safety protocols on most floors, it was lax on the ground floor lobby. It appeared crowded most of the time with people milling around the billing counters, canteen, X-ray room, pharmacies, and outside the consulting rooms of various doctors. 

I sometimes would willingly suffer the toil of taking the stairs to the fifth floor when the crowd waiting at the lift lobby appeared too much for comfort. While taking the stairs, the fear of the virus kept me at arm’s length from the railings!

Hand washes were almost as frequent as looking at phone screens. The clothes I wore at the hospital used to be dunked straight into the washing machine on reaching home. The last thing I wanted was to contract the dreaded virus and pose a risk to others.

On the surgery day, my mother was put into a stretcher around 8 am and wheeled off to the operation theatre. As a bystander, I had to wait outside. Keeping physical distancing in mind, I occupied a seat among the waiting chairs where the next one was vacant. But as the day wore on, the crowd outside the operation theatre swelled and it became impossible to find such seats.

Once the surgery got over the nurse called out my mother’s name. As I approached her, she told me the surgery was successful and told me to bring in her toothbrush and a pair of dresses as she will be spending the day at the post-operative care and may return to the ward the next evening.

After she came back to the ward, she appeared a bit calmer but complained of pain caused by surgical wounds. She was allowed to have semi-solid food by placing the bed on a recliner position.

She seemed to be on road to recovery and doctors during their morning rounds appeared satisfied with the progress. However, Dr Reju used to sometimes chide her for not being active enough, used to tell her to spend time in a recliner position and try to move the affected leg a bit.

A few days later the physio accompanying the doctor began holding her leg and moving it, and she used to shriek in pain. He told us to make her sit in bed and hang her leg a couple of times a day.

As the day of her discharge neared, we made arrangements for a wheelchair and suitable toilet seats for her future requirement. On reaching home, she continued with medicines and other treatments.

Doctors had advised us not to entertain many guests at home, as Covid was rampant in most places. So many of my relatives used to call up to know mom’s condition. In fact, some of them had already fallen prey to the dreaded pandemic and were recovering.

Mom’s condition appeared to be on the mend. She began taking normal food, though in small quantities. As the cot at home was much more low-slung than the hospital bed she found it easier to put her feet down.

It was over three weeks since I came to Kerala and I had some urgent matters to settle in Bangalore. So I had to leave and was planning to return after a few days.

However, fate had different plans. About two days ahead of my scheduled departure for Kerala, I got a call saying her condition had worsened and she has been rushed to hospital. She had a heart attack, the first one in her life.

After having lunch, mom complained of uneasiness, and the doctor couple in the ground floor flat was called. They rushed to attend to my mom and suggested that it requires immediate hospitalisation. The same couple was the first responder when my mother had a fall.  

I managed to get tickets for the 8 pm train, but by 5 pm I got to know that she was no more. After reaching home in Kerala around 8 am, I immediately got ready for the funeral. The crematorium officials had given us a slot before 9 am, as after that they only deal with Covid funerals, which required a much more stringent safety protocol.

After performing a brief ritual, the body was placed on a conveyor belt, which was wheeled into the incinerator chamber of the electric crematorium. As I came out I could see the smoke coming out of the chimney, and the grim realisation that all was over dawned upon me.

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