When my mother almost succumbed

A lot happened in the last 30 days that I was away from writing. The biggest of all the incidents that I wanted to record was my Mother's heart attack. My mother, who is over 70 years old and is the sweetest lady on this earth (for me and I am sure all mothers are like that), suffered a mild attack on 18th Jan 2009. It was not just shocking but was a sad moment for all of us at home. It won't be an exaggeration to say that my mother is the one who runs the family (not financially but operation-wise). She is the central nervous system of our family. It was 2100 hours when I got a call from my dad. He was just crying and could just manage to say, "they have taken your mother to the hospital." I gauged the seriousness of the matter. The iron-lady (that my mother is) doesn't give in to small pressures. She is the goddess of tolerance and even when it comes to her ailments, she tolerates it till the last. I'd to fly to Bangalore (to attend Team Leader's Meet) on 19th - the next morning. My bag was packed. All I did was told Vasudha (my wife) to stay put, stay calm and take care of Ananya (my daughter) and within a few minutes I was on the road to Jaipur. Thousand thoughts crossed over my mind. Meanwhile, I kept calling people. First, I called Louis (my CEO and a dear friend outside office) to tell him that I won't be able to attend the meeting. After I gave him the reason, all he offered me was moral support and asked me to drive safe. Next I was calling the doctor, a family friend and neighbor in Jaipur who was attending my mother at that critical juncture. Vasudha kept insisting to accompany me but I knew it won't be possible for me to wait and take risk with our daughter who's just 4 months old now. All I told myself repeatedly was drive carefully and not to be absent minded on the busy highway. I some how don't like driving at night. One, the road sense of people is rubbish here. Secondly, the high beams of trucks irritate me a lot. But that was an emergency and that too pertaining to my mother. It was a non-negotiable journey that I'd to take at any time of the day. Thankfully, the traffic was less and I managed to reach Jaipur in flat three hours (the distance from my home in Gurgaon and the home in Jaipur) is 220 Kilometer. I think I drove at a high speed but that was natural. Meanwhile, I was constantly talking to both my elder sister and Mayank (our neighbor and the doctor) and by 11:30 I was assured that mom was out of any pertinent danger and she was breathing normally though with the support of artificial infusion of oxygen. When I reached the hospital (it was really a messy one but came out handy in the case of this emergency), mom was awake. She wasn't able to sleep. She glanced at me. I saw great amount of helplessness in her eyes. A lady who's always on her toes and always ready to sacrifice her life for others was lying and was breathing with support of oxygen. A few more needles were pierced in her body to infuse glucose and a monitor was also by her bedside monitoring her pulse etc. It was already midnight. I was told we need to take her to a bigger, better hospital. Fortis ( a super-specialty hospital on the outskirts of Jaipur with supposedly excellent cardiac-care unit) was our target. There were still 1000 questions criscrossing my mind. Nobody knew what's wrong with mom. She's a saintly lady. Her eating habits her lifestyle, her routine - all indicate she is not one of those greedy ones. But yes! she's a diabetic and thus equally vulnerable to heart and other such dangerous ailments. But the way (as I was told) she collapsed, I was compelled to think of the worst. After a brief spat with the Doctor (not my neighbor but the one who owned that messy small hospital who was not ready to discharge her) we were on our way to Fortis. No sooner did we reach there than a fleet of medical attendants started performing their jobs on my mom. Then came the doctor, Sanjeeb Roy - a senior cardiologist and a specialist. He examined her and said, "there's little or no danger. Her ECO was sound, her heart wasn't damaged and she will be alright but he said she will have to undergo an Engeography (a process to see where all there's a blockade in the vessels). Both I and my eldest sister (Anamika) kept sitting in the waiting area and took turns to see mom in the CCU (cardiac care unit). She was doing well. But at the same time she was a little fearful as to what's going on with her. Then came the moment in the evening. The doctor called us to tell a good and a bad news. My heartbeats were haywire. I was a little nervous at that juncture. Vasudha, without much of my consent but thankfully had reached Jaipur with Ananya. She took charge at home front and to top it, took change of my emotional father who was just crying all the time. He is one of the most sensitive souls I have ever seen in my life. Doctor called me to tell that one of my mom's vessels was 80 percent blocked. "We have to perform an Angioplasty (a process to put a stint to broaden the vessel so that the blood circulation becomes normal)," said the doctor. In no time he was explaining me the cost of doing it all. Probably I was in no mood to listen to that part of the conversation. "Money is not the priority this time doctor," I said. And asked him to do the needful urgently. He took me to a consulting room and we were asked to sign at umpteen number of places before he went off again and disappeared. Probably he'd gone to do the surgery. In the next half an hour, he came out smiling and said one of us can go and see mom. My sister went ahead of me. She came out with the news that mom was feeling a lot better and that was the time I breathed normally.

As I said a lot happened. I will tell the rest in my next blog but for now I thank nature to save my lovely mother.