Memories are what we are left
with as the time passes. Some are good and some are bad. We tend to forget some
and treasure some. We like to believe that we have the power to control what we
want to remember. But in the end, we have every bit of our past stored in some
part of our brain, only we cannot recall all of it all the time.
Ever since I started writing
about my leukemia, I intended to dedicate a post to the 6-7 days that I spent
in the ICU. Those days, in the Pediatric Intensive care Unit of Christian
Medical College and Hospital, Vellore, are covered under a shroud of mysteries.
What I remember of those days can be summed up in an hour! I spend 144-168
hours in ICU and I barely remember anything.
Choosing to forget something and
not knowing that something in the first place are two entirely different
things, the former can help you move on and the latter one can practically
drive you crazy. Every now and then I go up to my parents and ask them about
those days, they avoid discussing it. They bluntly reply me in a line or two.
My doctor doesn’t seem to be of any help either. Everyone thinks that it is a
really nice thing to have not remembered that ‘terrible’ moment! This only ends
up making me more curious.
Here is what I remember-
I had been vomiting everything
that I ate for some days till finally on the evening of June 17 2008, I felt
the pain in my stomach so badly that I did not know anymore what was happening
around me. Everything around me was blurred, not out of sight. It seemed to me
that I wanted to say something but no one heard me. I heard people shouting,
saw panicked faces, felt my body being moved. There was chaos everywhere and
suddenly there was nothing. Nothing at all. The next thing I hear is my mother
asking what the chances of my survival are. 15% said the doctor. And again,
Black out. I heard nursery rhymes karaoke being played. I enjoyed it. But not
for long. Black out. I saw a lady standing in front of me. I did not recognize
her. I could not speak. I asked my dad to switch on the fans, it was hot. He
did not understand. I asked him to use the newspaper to fan me. He did not
understand again, I assume. All he did was put more blankets on me. Black out.
The ward sisters and mom made me sit, I fell back. Doctors hunted for an artery
line in my arms. [Probably all the veins were already poked and taken] My uncle
showed me my brother’s picture at his new school. A doctor came to ask me if I
like the music. I say yes. They played some bollywood karaoke tracks. I felt a
doctor poking my left thigh to connect a long line. It did or did not work. I
just saw a lot of blood on a large amount of cotton. Black out. I heard someone
mourning at the bed adjacent to me. Black out. I was taken back to the ward,
out of the ICU. It was 23rd June 2008.
Throughout those days and nights,
what did I feel? What did I think? Nothing. Nothing that I remember.
I was later (much much later when
I asked) told that I was taken to ICU because I was in a state of SHOCK. I was
neither conscious nor unconscious. I was attacked by Acute Pancreatitis which
was the only side effect of L-Asparaginase, one of the most important drugs
required for my treatment of Pre B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. I was also
told that side effect is rare but I have realized over the course of time that
everything that was rare usually happened to me. Moving on, my dad said that I
seemed to be a body surrounded by the most number of medical instruments that
he had ever seen. My mom said my blood pressure had gone down to 23/9 mm/Hg which
actually made my body freeze and so I was just being covered up with as many
blankets as possible. She doesn’t remember her conversation with the doctor
about my chances of survival or so she says. So, I do not really know if it
really happened but yes the statistics is true-15% survival chances. My body
had swollen because of all the fluids entering my body from different veins at
the same time. My eyes were tiny, almost closed. My lips were deformed when the
ventilator was taken out of my mouth after a 3 day stay. I did not speak.
Everyone says that the stage I had been in is when people go into COMA. But I
did not. So I have been tagged for having a great will power or so. One of my
friends’ parents also came to visit me in those days and I have no idea at all.
I cannot even picture them. All my doctors came to visit me turn by turn
everyday, not that I remember. I always responded when doctors talked to me.
Even after all these years of
asking people, I do not have a clear picture of what had happened to me. I now
know that my questions wouldn’t ever be answered to my satisfaction even if
people gave me every little bit of information of those days. All I want to
know is what I felt in those days, what I thought of in those days. Was my mind
really blank? I cannot answer these to myself. It sucks. I will probably never
stop hunting for answers but as of now 17 June 2008- 23 June 2008 is a locked
chapter of my life whose key is lost somewhere, or wasn’t even made at the
first place.
I am glad that I have the clear
and vivid picture of what happened after 23 June 2008. But that is another
story, a bit serious, mostly funny. Or may be not. That would require another
blog post. I have always looked back to the ‘Leukemia’ chapter of my life with
an optimistic view. But sometimes I am visited with the ghost of the by-gone
days, when things weren’t as happy and cheerful as I mention them to be. Having
no idea about what I thought of those days is the scariest part. But anyway it
feels great to know that people were actually scared of losing me.
As of now, all I know is that 5
years ago people prayed and were glad that I did not stop breathing. My life
turned upside down in those 6-7 days. These days everything around me has been
falling apart. It has been 2 weeks that I have been continuously loosing and
breaking things unintentionally. I had almost lost my temper, but then I
realized five years ago at this time I was 7 days away from knowing that
leukemia is cancer. And even then I knew that no matter what happens, every
piece of my life’s puzzle will fall into its place and make perfect sense. And
that’s probably the best thought I have ever had. No matter how screwed up I am
emotionally, physically, mentally; I am still breathing. And that’s probably
the best part.
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