THAT EMPTY BED
It’s about the time when I was working as a registered medical officer in one of the ICCU ( Intensive cardiac care unit )nursing homes near Gateway of India in Mumbai.
That period was one of the best times of my life. I had immense training from learning patient care to assisting surgeries. Got to meet different kinds of people as well.
The nursing home was quite close to my house that allowed me to stay back even after my shift was over. Although shift timing was from 8 am to 4 pm, I ended up staying till 8 pm.
I was around 19 years old at that time when I got this opportunity to work under my sir who was a cardiologist. He was an amazing person, but a perfectionist, and wanted things to be done perfectly. It was his nursing home and he made sure each patient should feel homely when admitted. He was short-tempered but some of us knew how to handle him. He was very fond of cricket and when there was a match he made sure all the patients should also know the scores :)
I remember I used to finish all my work before time and then he used to be so delighted, that made me so happy. He never appreciated much but at times appreciation coming from him made me feel so excited.
No doubt I enjoyed my profession but the only issue that came in me was that I was too emotional. I could not handle seeing the pain of people, the misery that one goes through.
At that age, I didn’t know who empaths were but the only thing I started to understand that I was unable to take too much of the pressure of the pain that people went through, whenever any unfortunate event took place in the hospital it used to be in my head for days and used to feel low and wonder why is all this affecting me, after all its just my work and my duty and need to love what I was doing but the awareness was also not that much. I used to get too involved but that is how I was.
Being in an ICCU nursing home we had many emergencies like accidents, suicide cases, etc to take care of. there were operations too performed daily.
That day too we had an emergency, I had packed up for the day when a few people carrying a 33-year-old man on their shoulder entered the nursing home as he was unable to walk. He was in a terrible state and was immediately admitted. I thought of staying back for some time till he gets a bit stable. He was under monitor and treatment was started. The bleeding time was more so the blood was not clotting as per the time and that was a bad sign. He had been an alcoholic so his liver had almost given up. After the basic procedures were done I left for the day.
The next morning I came back and attended to the patient, I was feeling so sorry for him. As he was serious I thought of being with him more and do whatever I could. The nurse was doing great work but I wanted to more. Feeding him half a glass of juice took almost an hour of my time as it was difficult for him to swallow. He could not speak much or open his eyes. since he was in the cardiac care ward his relatives were not allowed inside. I still can’t recollect his face, the only thing I knew was he was in pain and I didn’t like that. My shift got over and I left for home a little sad though. he was admitted for two days.
Generally, I didn’t speak much about my work at home because I didn’t want to bother my parents with what’s happening in the hospital.
the world inside the hospital is so different than what’s going outside. If one needs to learn the art of compassion then one should do some volunteer work in the hospital, it will help in real transformation.
My dad was a government employee and he was posted in Goa at that time but my mom and my sisters were in Mumbai. I used to sleep with my mom. That night was different, I was very restless, as I used to close my eyes I could see the same patient in front of me. I kept twisting and turning in the bed but in vain. The whole night, he was in my mind.
finally, with a lot of struggle, I fell asleep and suddenly he came into my dream and he just said thank you for taking care and waved his hand and said bye, I woke up with a jerk, I wondered what exactly happened and hoped that he should be fine.
My head was heavy as I couldn’t catch up with a night of good sleep. I had a longing to visit the hospital as soon as possible. I left to work a little early and as I was walking towards the nursing home I met the night shift doctor who had just left to go home. he told me to go fast to the nursing home as the patient had died last night. for a second I felt the world got collapsed.
I ran towards the nursing home and I was in my head thinking No, how, why, and as I reached, the nurse told me that the patient took his last breath last night. And I felt shattered.
At a moment I felt how he came into my dream to just say a thank you and goodbye. A person whom I had never met in life, someone whom I had not even known, no blood relation, then what is it all about, I didn’t have much of understanding at that time the only thing I felt sometimes you can’t do anything but just give the best with a complete heart after all we all are connected with strings through hearts that’s it.
Finally, there was this empty bed but life continued…
I used to wonder about the mysteries of life and death. There used to be many unanswered questions in my head that used to drive me crazy and that lead me to read many scriptures just to know what the truth was.
