Aneurysm, ICU and Sugar Candies!!!

I thought of penning down some of the memorable incidents and facts related to my recent Cerebral Aneurysm surgery. This is all about smiling at life when life poses challenges in front... As long as you are able to find smiles in life, life will always smile back at you!!!

• I have almost no memory of happenings 16 hours before and then during the surgery. Many of my relatives, Indu and doctors had met and talked to me before the surgery. It seems my surgeon had explained all about my situation and about the surgery elaborately before the operation. In spite of trying hard, I am not able to recall any of it. About 24 hours have been erased completely from my memory.

• I gel well with people and surprisingly became very close to staff at NICU(Neurointensive Care Unit) after my surgery. We cracked jokes and I was soon settled and comfortable. The surgeon arrived the next day – a highly qualified and experienced middle aged gentleman. As the conversation started, I told him I was fine and added that it is such a ‘minor’ surgery and hence what is there to ask. A moment of silence and he burst into into half a chuckle, half laughter and added that it is one of the most major surgeries and reassured me that I am progressing well and moved on. The moment he was out of NICU all the duty staff came running to me amused and all excited. It seems it was the first time that they saw the surgeon laughing out loud, that too inside the ICU!!!!

• After the surgery I was brought back to the ICU and even though it was late in the evening, the staff called Indu inside(The visitor’s hour was over a couple of hours back) for an ‘Identification Parade’. The possible side effects of the surgery is very severe and included memory loss. Well, they wanted to check whether I had become a ‘Ghajini’ after all!!! Hahaha!!! Jokes apart, Indu walked in with one of my ‘best friend’ nurses, Neenu and she asks,” Arun, who is this?” I lifted my head, looked at her, tried to smile and in a feeble, groggy voice and cried out through the oxygen mask, “Bhaya”, my loving way of calling Indu “Bharya” which means wife. Indu burst out in tears and smiles. All the nurses came around us and applauded. I was dumbstruck and did not know what was happening. Indu later told me that I had won the first test in style!!!

• It was pretty uncomfortable for me once I was shifted to room. With tonnes of medicines injected and given orally, I could not sleep at night properly. There was this important tablet to prevent seizures to be taken every six hours without fail which worked out to 12 midnight and early morning 6.00 AM as well. My sleep was disturbed and I was really uncomfortable by early morning. To add to this, the huge amount of fluid intake which was insisted by doctor, made me get up to pee every hour or so in the night. Indu knows my habit of not disturbing others and my self confidence to do things on my own. She doubted very accurately that I would get up to go to the loo without waking anyone up. This was dangerous, but I was really not aware or bothered. I also have the queer habit of getting up and walking without opening my eyes, in order to prevent sleep from going off, you know!!!Once or twice she did catch me sneaking to the loo without waking anyone up. Well, all the physical stress, lack of sleep and on top of that the emotional stress was taking their toll on Indu. By the third day I could make out that she was lacking sleep and was almost becoming a zombie. My request, advise and then threats to make her leave and go to dad’s guest house and sleep, fell on deaf ears. She just would not leave from my side!!! At around midnight a nurse knocked on the door to check my BP and administer medicines. Lying in my bed, I heard Indu wake up with a shock, ruffling of bed sheets, a few footsteps and then, WHAM! I jumped out of the bed and turned on the light to see her struck to a wall on the opposite side of the door! She was grabbing her nose in pain and I could make out that she was in deep sleep and the knock made her jump out of the bed. She was disoriented due to extreme fatigue and ran in the opposite direction of the main door to get ‘glued’ to the wall. Thankfully she was not seriously injured. She opened the door, the concerned nurse walked in, checked her and asked her not to worry!!!

• During the last few days of hospitalization I felt severe low back pain and doctors recommended physiotherapy. Two pretty lady physiotherapy associates came to my room with an Infra red equipment to give me infra red waves to reduce any inflation and pain. The two smart and friendly ladies connected the electrodes over my lower back. They slowly increased the frequency and asked me to tell them when I felt an electric vibration. They kept increasing slowly and we kept waiting. No electric vibration yet!!! They explained probably it is because of severe pain and kept on increasing the frequency – still no sign of me feeling any electric vibration. They had turned 75% of the dial with no result and God knows what made the lady turn the dial all the way over in one shot to make me get a jolt! You may have seen Tom in Tom and Jerry cartoon getting a shock, I was almost like that! Ha ha.. Any other patient would have screamed at them, I was laughing at the situation. Indu was worried about the violent movement of my head in the attempt, but I was safe. Anyway I made them bring back the dial to 75% and started the timer. I could not feel a thing, nevertheless I was not ready to get another ‘shock a knock’ game. The next day onwards I went to the physiotherapy dept. itself to get it done by the expert physiotherapist.

Will be adding more to this.. Keep tuned!!!