ICU Hangovers and Beyond,,,

I have completed a hellish shift, am still 'zombi-ing' around without sleep, so this surely isn't going to be one of those flippant, meaning-to-be-humorous posts,,,,consider this fair warning,,


Actually my mood is pretty blue (hmmmmmm, has it ever been any other way besides blue?),,and this is partly because I have been reading 'The grapes of Wrath'. I loved the book, and while I can't help but stand open mouthed, in awe of J. Steinbeck's mastery over the letters of the Alphabet, and how he uses them to weave a spell of misery over the readers, at the end of which you can't but appreciate all the pleasures you really have been alloted, by the Almighty, in the midst of all the chaos,,,,I sure am not going to pick this book up again, in a hurry. I am going to read a piece of fluff next, and the proud privilege of getting to be a soothsayer to me, goes to,,, "Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction",, my next read in what is a series of books that are written to appear like the diary of a boy,, from his childhood through his adolescence,, to when he grows up, over a number of books.


I never pick my books as per the Bestseller list,, so there!!!!

It is strange how I am constantly buying books, assimilating a library, when I do not even have a permanent roof over my head, and am practically living off suitcases, like a vagrant-migrant... The only place I can ever call home being too far away,, and there was a roof-high shelf in that home of mine, in my bedroom, where lie the other books I have, awaiting my return,,,to a place where I really feel rested,,at peace.

(a piece of heaven,home)

After this,,I move on to,, 'Eldest' book 2 in the Eragon saga. The third book is releasing in Sept '08,, and you can go to http://alaegesia.com/, for all the details and a peek into this fascinating world.


If anyone does manage to make sense of what I wrote here,, Hats' off!!!

ICU Nites

I am back in my dreary matchbox of a room, after yet another night in the ICU, and all in all it was a pretty uneventful one, which means that I didn't have people dying all over me,, but this complacency was somewhat shaken by a patient choosing the last few moments of my shift to go into a transient hypotensive state, which, thankfully was quickly averted,,,Whew!!

So, here I am, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, and since I never could get myself enrolled into the elite clique of thumb-twiddlers, I thought why not regale my meagre readership with yet another mad, Illogical and warped but entirely original, episode of what goes on in my head,,,

Tomorrow, come evening and I shall be headed off to yet another night of boundless joys at the ICU, and this, I know, will be preceded by an hour of agonising deliberations on what to wear,, which will finally leave me as nondescript as always,,and after reaching there I proceed to take a 'hand-over' from my colleague of the previous shift,,I have the quintessential black-tubed, aluminium laced, talisman cum ID dangling from my neck, and before anyone starts wondering at the seemingly STAR-TREK inspired dress code here, let me clarify, I was talking of the Stethoscope,, the wonderful tools we Doctors have which allows us to listen to your every heart beat, at the same time taking us farther and farther away from all emotions linked to it, leaving us like, unfeeling data banks, with pre-programmed auto-responses to any given situation. When I use the word " Talisman" I do so with a reason, this is the thing that separates us from the so-called laymen, this is the tool that supposedly means that we have the answer to every query the family of those admitted here have,, and so also a solution to every problem, a way around every hurdle their patient faces on the way to a speedy recovery,,,If only that were true,, all of those who are placed in this unfortunate position will understand what it feels like to have eager, expectant eyes turned to you, bated breaths waiting to hear one sentence that could mean the end to all their troubles,,and all we do is stand there trying to figure out how best to put the harsh reality into words that would hurt the least,,,,,my vocabulary always goes on an uninformed break at times like this,,,,,We do not always act as harbingers of doom though,,, patients make steady progress, and we do update their families to the latest good-news,,I wish it could forever be just this way,,Just good news, positivity and hope,,,,,,,,,,,,,

You know what makes me go on? In spite of this caustic, cynical attitude? Hope,,

Hope, in the fact that if we work just that extra bit harder, look that little bit more closely into everything that is going on,,maybe,,,just maybe,,,,,,,
PS,,The rains are finally here, I shall now go back to reading my book-of-the-moment,, 'The grapes of Wrath',,,

What do I write of?

I decided on a hair cut today, and after deliberating on all the salons in the area, I decide, as usual to go to the neighborhood 'bhaiyya' AGAIN,,,,, and on reaching there, I see that half of Hyderabad has had the same insanely brilliant idea, I end up squashed/squeezed in a room meant for 3 people to stay in at a time, with at least 10 other guys, and unluckily for me, the monsoon still seems to be playing truant,,,,more woes of the sweaty, smelly kind for me, who said life as a middle class doctor was going to be easy, right?
Anyways, after a scan of all the magazines lying around the place, almost all of them with pictures of heavily endowed, scantily clad females with various degrees and classes of 'come-hither' looks on their faces, on their covers,, I decide to make a call back to Assam, and during the ensuing conversation (which meant, me talking my guts out, and the other person waiting to slip in a sentence or two, whenever I came up for breath or paused to wet my throat), the person who, apart from being a good friend, was also one of the very few readers of my blog, suggested that I should do some writing commercially, for example write a novel,, collection of short stories, or that I should at least compile these jottings of mine and have them published,,,,,,,Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!
Was he serious? Who would bother to read something I wrote? For that matter, what do I write about? From my experience, people do not want to spend money to read whining stories of endless, bleak sufferings, unless you are someone who has suffered famously, and in the public eye, like Madam Nasreen,,so whoever wants to write commercially has to have a subject which is viable, in the marketing sense of the word,,, and I do not have any such theme in mind,, as yet!
But I really would like to ponder on it for a while, and see if I can do something about it,,,
Till next time,,,In serious search of 'something to write about',,,,,,,Ciao.

Hyderabad blues,,,

There are basically two types of people in the world,, and before the 'Gay rights activists' come and break my doors down, I wasn't referring to the obvious and somewhat passe' division of the sexes,,I meant something else, let me explain myself,,(groans and sighs anyone?).There are some lucky individuals on the face of this earth who seem to sail through their lives with all the ease and buoyancy of a spore bearing tuft of fluff, released by summer plants, to float on, carried by the winds, not mindful of the direction they were taking,always managing to fulfil their goal of propagation, no matter where they end up,,,, and then there are some others, like me who try their best to control what they do and how they do it, and who are so introspective that everything that goes wrong around them, in some crazed way,, maybe could have been prevented from happening, if only they had done something differently,,,.Trust me, if there was to be a nuclear holocaust, and I were to survive, (a remote possibility, the survival part I mean, not the Holocaust) I would manage to find a way, however remote and impossible, to link myself to the occurrence, I go through life, and there are a few other unfortunate idiotic souls like myself, constantly checking back, always on the look out for slip-ups, not because of any outside accountability, mind you,, but just because my OCD (there it goes again), never permits me to take it easy. Even when I am watching a movie, like I was last night, (Love story 2050 is an utter waste of time, and the only reason I went and sat through it was because many people felt I resemble the hero,, poor fellow, he is never going to make it in Bollywood,,) I could only think of better seats that I could have booked, how untidy the people were making the floors, with all the littering, how everybody was engaged in unhealthy gorging of gross oily snacks,,,,and on and on and on,,,,,,,I mean none of the issues were earth shattering enough, or totally in my control, to make any difference, whatsoever,, but when did I ever stop to listen to any voice of reason?

This is just an example,,,,a few days ago, a patient is brought to the ICU during my last night-shift, who is already too far gone, after ten days of suffering, with more then a couple of organs dysfunctional, dies within the next few hours,, and I am left with a dozen questions of how perhaps I could have done something different, when I knew all too well that there was nothing more to be done humanly,,,this goes on and on and on,,,,,,,

A 10 year old is struck with a malignancy and I am left with a million Whys and What ifs,,it doesn't pay to be so emotional and unduly attached to all the patients I see, but how do I stop myself? It doesn't pay to try and right all the wrong in the Universe,, but try telling that to the stupid thing in my head, which is all out of control,,m and never stops to think,,,,,,try telling me that everything that is meant to happen, will happen, no matter what,, but do I listen?

The King of Cynics,,

I have been told recently that I somehow manage to find something worthwhile and good, in whatever situation I maybe in, and here I was, priding myself in being a part of, if not THE most prestigious member of the 'cynics association',,,,Jokes apart, I have always thought of myself as being unduly worried and bothered about every minor niggling little thing around me, and have to make a real conscious effort to keep a smile on my face, at most times of the day,, that too because the ICU, as is an unwritten rule with every single ICU, where I work, is a cheerless place to begin with, and I do not want my countenance to cause any impedance of any sort in the recovery of the poor patients, who have enough woes of their own, without having to keep their eyes screwed up shut, too scared to lay eyes on my Medusa-like visage!
I cannot imagine what led the person to make a remark like that, but it set me thinking, what do people see when they see me?, if the sentence made any sense at all,,,
What do they feel when they talk of me? Does anyone ever really bother to look behind some one's face? Do I? Sometimes it really takes an effort to rise out of the gloom,to think of something nice, something other than what's bugging me at the moment,,,but I have become so used to being down in the dumps, mentally, I feel like I am slowly adapting to staying down there.
I really do not want to turn into this bitter old Scrooge of a person, and maybe this is the reason why I try to find something nice, pretty and good, in people, situations, and life as a whole,, if at all I do,, just to survive, to stop the bitterness from taking over completely,,so I smile,, and joke, and kid around,, and talk nineteen to the dozen,,,,,,,,,,,