What gives

I just said goodbye to a friend and I feel sad.Max is my junior doctor.A quiet kid who when he joined us looked like he would prefer to disappear from the usual welcome and farewells that go on.For the past two years he has been like a shadow supporting and helping me through the inconsistencies of my personality.I have raved and ranted,he has silently been there....a ready help...one with Divya ,supporting me when I have been at my weakest. I took my time getting to know Max.Anyone can tell you that he is an introvert.Divya and myself often take time to rag him ,he takes it sportingly.He is the junior who has patiently painted the dustbins in the campus,designed the annual report cover for two continuos years,counted the tiles in the acute care unit umpteen number of times,defibrillated patients,done amputations,studied basic medicine with us ,just filled in whenever we have felt out of our depth. I have never seen him loose it,,In the middle of getting picked out for some...

Made a quick trip to Lalitpur to see my friend Sheba and her family before I dash out of EHA ,'Kent'ward bound.Doing the MP highway at 100kms per hour,from a distance of about half a kilometre we saw a motorbike struggling to cross over.He seemed to be an amateur .Kamlesh tried his best to control his car while I prayed hard.At the last moment the man slid his bike right in front of us.Things could have turned tragic but for our Lord's mercy.We hit the pillion ,both the men were thrown out of the bike onto the road but the car made a smoothe stop so the men were safe ,just the light at the back was broken. Out of nowhere a policeman landed up and a crowd came in.Things can turn ugly on the road. Two gentlemen, both of whom looked dignified, just appeared in the crowd and took control of the situation ,kept reiterating that it had not been our fault ,made us pay for the backlight and made way for us to leave the spot.Talk of guardian angels! The morning when we started of...

I am slowly but surely winding up my stuff from Lakhnadon.As usual I take a rough survey of my belongings and decide what I really want to carry with me.I have managed to collect a fair share of kitchen items ,thanks to my sunday cooking to feed the twelve youngsters.I never realised I liked glass so much as when I started filtering through my stuff only to find my weakness for the cutleries made of glass.I have a terracotta black pot which I have managed to put into a cardboard box.Apart from that I have an oven ,a coffeemaker and a blender I would like to carry with me. I have two or three boxes of books some of which have lived through my various movements around the country,many added to the collection in Lakhnadon.. Strangely enough,I don't have much clothes and anyway none that I covet.Bulk of my beddings were bought when I had visitors in Herbertpur,most of which I am not planning to lug around and ofcourse I have two or three files full of papers which seems to be the...

The last week has been strange to say the least,I had to travel to Raipur for my IELTES.I had three days in hand in a strange town.Divya booked a place for me in the pastoral centre which fed me with the tastiest putta I have had in my life.The cost was unbelievable ,just two hundred rupees per day. The written and the spoken were in two different places which were a rickshaw ride away from the place where I was staying.The first day an old rickshawpuller seems to have fleeced me of fifty bucks extra.The next day I decided to partly walk and caught a rickshaw halfway.What amused me and touched me also the next day was the reaction of the rickshawpuller to my ten rupees coin.He blankly refused to take it from me. Just a day earlier I was catching up with my juniors on current affair.One of them commented that one rickshawpuller had committed suicide because he could not feed his family,but he further added that it was his own fault because he had an old one thousand rupees n...

Today was unlike any other day for me. Driving through the ins and outs of the village roads I saw a lone elder ,barefeet...in his seventies with basic minimum ,building God's house brick by brick with his bare hands .Not only was he the only labourer for the day ,he had demarcated the land from the portion of his own property.All I could do was hug him .He beamed a heartwarming smile and bent down on his knees to pull out barbed acens (weeds)from my woollen skirt .It brought tears to my eyes. I saw an old lady hunched ninety degrees, washing her face in a puddle of muddy water bring out her first fruit of around half a kilo rice  and offer it .It reminded me of the widow's mite. I saw a congregation of saints barely able to discern the inheritance, in faith, pray for healing. I saw a man paralysed with most probable congenital fusion of the cervical vertebrae lying in bed,stutter his greetings in the Lord with so much of joy.One could just about discern what he was sayin...

The first few days of the demonitisation period was a swell.It felt nice to have no penny in one's pocket and yet not have to struggle with the chaos every where around.The problem slowly began to dawn on us when we had to start interacting with banks which were trying their best inefficiently to work out the clog.Every transaction became a herculean task and somewhat irritating. Today one of my colleagues commented ,'Soon the government will decide what one is going to eat in the afternoon meal'. The rumours that float around don't make things better. Another colleague of mine tells me that the RBI governer is Mukesh Ambani's brother-in-law. That does not give me much assurance because at the end of the day the brand 'Mukesh Ambani ' shouts loud ,'profit'.However after some net research I conclude this may not be true. While the common man struggles with the nitty gritties of everyday living,struggling,dying in some cases,queing,confused about...

Sitabai (name changed )has been working with us since the founder’s time.Her dedication ,sincerity and efficicency is matchless.I have watched Sitabai excel in her work and yet have been almost a silent spectator to the family struggle she flaps around with.Her husband ,a ganja addict and an alcoholic has been to all eyes a thorn on her side.He has not earned a penny to my knowledge but has been a steady siphon sucking out all her savings on imagined and actual ailments,thanks to the bad habbits. Every now and then Sitabai used to update us about her hubby’s headaches.It used to keep the entire family awake.Much to our chagrin she would take prescript ion analgesics and as would have it one fine day he started developing abdominal pain. He perforated and presented with a serum potassium of 6.5 .We reffered him to a hospital in Jabalpur where he had a laparotomy.Fourteen days into the surgery he was still pouring out pus fro m the wound. One day I took Sita Bai a...

It has been a strange few months or rather half a year for me. I can see some transitions at the door and yet strange peace prevails ,peace that passeth all understanding... Every nook and corner Romans8 vs 28 bombards me...I believe the promise because it has come to me from five or six definite places..from posters sent to me by prophets, to embroidery made on casement, mounted and brought as a gift by praying friends.It has been thrown down from the pulpits and from the inscriptions on the pages of the old books I have not opened since I passed my first professionals.Just how much assurance can I expect from a friend who has called me His kin. It strikes me how fragile our lives are .....and so are the things that we think we do . Our time and our back is in our maker's hand . Sometimes we take on too much in life ..in terms of responsibility,opinions,stands, and we play God,we judge,we crib,we come to quick conclusions......God in His mercy is teaching me to sta...

 Winter months in Lakhnadon are slow to say the least. Max and Divya ,my colleagues are away,Max for his post-graduate entrance exams and Divya to help our neighbouring hospital in Chattarpur with the obstetric load.So here I am on my own for the next one week or so trying to go juggle my work with Modiji's demonetisation drive.I am cashless for a second day in a row feeling absolutely light and nice and yet am heavily involved in the imbroiglo of making it through the system while the patients pay the bill. I am doing a bit of experiment with regional foods of India and it is fascinating to say the least.The other day Divya sent a tiffin with fluffy appams with egg roast for lunch.I loved it.I sat with her one afternoon and wrote the recipe down.She had made it with an appam mix I decided to try making it the traditional way with ground coconut.It took me close to fourteen hours to put it on my plate but it was worth it.The weather has taken a turn with the temperature around ...

         Came back from home ...everyone seems to think I was away for long but it has been just a fortnight.For me it was a fortnight of another world altogether..climbing the hills and the valleys with a cousin who has taken a sabbatical from her stint in the Down under...spending time with mom helping her with exercises to strengthen her quadriceps....catching up with siblings and just trying to get past the freshness of the farm food and fruits...and the quality of life back at home.....even watching football matches with my brother and keeping up with my mother's past times.I made pickles,learnt to make wine with guava and pessimon..ate exotic vegetables like the orchid flower,asparagus,water cress,nettles,avacado,..I took time to visit parts of South Sikkim...went fishing in the river....drove to the site on the opposite hill  where a whole chunk had fallen into the sea. I prayed with my cousin on the spot.It was an...

Just when I think I have seen it all and done most things in Lakhnadon,Alok Singh is wheeled into the OPD.He has a history of injury to the heel which was treated in Seoni .Since two days he has severe spasm in the neck and is unable to swallow anything. I last saw a case of tetanus ten years back in Jharkhand .Here was Alok who went into a severe bulbar spasm as soon as I put my spatula into his mouth. I had to go through the tedious experience of explaining the natural history to the  bystanders who were already very difficult to communicate to. Just how do you treat diseases like tetanus in the current scenario?We have long stopped stocking Tetanus anti-globulins.Brought to mind Dr keith Sander whom I had the privellage to meet for lunch during my time in England.he had done some work on tetanus during his stint in Ruxual ,and I am talking about the founders of the organisation ! I remembered our escapades in Oddanchattram where day after day Dr KV during his rounds used to...

Yesterday we attended the ‘Yeshua ‘concert in Jabalpur. It  was a group of young boys leading  the   worship with songs which have blessed so many in the  present generation. There was a lot of   technical snag I believe (Joseph ,our muscian dentist noticed  but  so did he notice the much needed   dental work the lead singer needed,so I don’t know?) because  the unpredictable rains ensured a  change of venue at the last moment. I, for one ,did not notice anything because I was caught up in the worship. The concert started with a salute for the king-all of us stiff people were asked to stand in absolute attention with our salute for the King of kings. There were banters,there was worship,there was an altar call.My heart’s cry was for the youngsters on the stage to be broken individually for God to a greater extent and to be poured out even more for Lord Jesus’ glory. At the end of the worship all of us were on our knees ,...

We are called to be the sons and daughters of the living God. We are called to purity.'be thou Holy even as I am holy.' We are called to grow and be lifted up in Christ. We are called to be taken up in Glory with our savior.

Ashish Ram literally hobbled into our casualty supported by his relatives.His complaints were severe palpitation and giddiness.His heart was racing as was visible from his carotids and his pulse was hardly there.We fitted a cardiac monitor stat and there was a ventricular tachycardia on the run.This fortyfive odd years man had walked with that VT from God knows where? We traced out an ECG ,got our defibrillator into our casualty and I got my colleague going with the machine even as I got the settings in place.The nurses were quick in getting the consent from the relatives.The man was sedated quickly and shocked.He reverted to normal sinus rythemn by God's grace . The second ECG we traced out showed a nice WPW syndrome,the earlier ECG also had a prolonged QTc which had normalised in the second one.The electrolytes which were quickly done through the ABG showed significant hypocalcaemia so we gave him the slow calcium gluconate intravenously with our eyes on the monitor. To m...

Eight o'clock in the morning while we were having our morning prayers,a patient with chest pain came to the casualty.The young nurse during the ward prayer prayed that not I, but Christ would come through to minister to all the patients. The patient was in severe distress with pulses hardly palpable.Max had done the prelimanaries and by the time I reached, the ECG had just chugged out from the machine.the patient had extensive anterior wall myocardial infarction. I started barking orders as usual.The monitor showed a sinus rythemn and the blood pressure was just about holding.We went ahead and thrombolysed the patient. The streptokinase was in ,the analgesics were in and so we expected the patient to settle down,but suddenly he started sweating profusely and went into a ventricular tachycardia,following which he became extremely restless. The man who had so far been relatively controlled gave a blood curdling scream and I thought that was it.I haven't seen too many men wit...

What an amazing season of reaching out to women especially mothers, it has been.We had our women's conference in the last week of August as scheduled.Thirteen ladies sat at the Lord's feet like Mary with our two senior resource persons who have been through it all but carry that 'precious wonder' in their heart which touched our lives in different ways.I find myself so much more calmer and rested and more in touch with myself these days. The vocational training centre has ten women from different walks of life being taught sewing by our very own Mrs Zakir who not only excels in the craft but gives 101% of herself to the task. Since yesterday thirty strong ladies from the village,namely ASHA workers are being trained in the campus in different government modules and will be here for the next three days.This is just the first batch this season and it fills my heart with joy to see these mothers take time off from their busy mothering schedule to attend classes and just...

Prashant was ill when he came ,required intensive care.He recovered albeit slowly but surely.The father realised how ill he was and requested me to do all I could do,his words were ,'Don't worry about money'.Needless to have said that because we never worry about money when we treat a patient. I was away when it was time for Prashant to go home.There was no usual asking for charity here.The father quietly disappeared and appeared one fine day with half the sum.We wrote off the rest.He had arranged for six grands.I wondered how?He showed me the papers.He had leased out his land to another person for a year,sealed,stamped and approved by the local tehsil.No interest ,nothing. Considering how uncertain it was for farmers anyways I thought it was smart. Shitiiz brought in his mother to the out-patient.He went to the local Sahu ,left his mother's silver anklet and got a fifteen hundred rupees for her treatment.He has to pay an added interest of fifteen rupees per month.I...

I had been in a woman's conference for two days and then in Lalitpur to see my good friend Sheba.Coming back to work ,it was ward  rounds with my juniors as usual.In the male ward ,a young boy gave me an unabashed heartfelt smile and told me 'my father is coming today'.I was taken aback wondered if the boy was a little behind in the growth milestones? When I asked Max to update me the history,I realised it was Shyam.How could I possibly not have recognised him. On one of my duty days he was wheeled into the casualty cold and clammy ,unconscious with a heart-rate of thirty beats ,ECG showed a complete heart block and a barely recordable blood pressure. I thought we had a case for pacing but just a dose of atropine saw the heartbeat returning to normal sinus rythem and that gave us some time for some history and basic bloods.His ABG was nothing to write home about. Shyam had followed a truck driver to Mumbai was what the father said.The truck driver had dumped an uncon...

Ok what have I been doing in the last few weeks. I have had my hands full organising a women's retreat in lakhnadon . Twelve beautiful ladies took time out from their hectic schedule to sit at the Lord's feet with Mrs Renuka Sanghi and Mrs Pushpa Waghmare. Mrs Renuka  took us through the Garden of Gethsamane and the Garden of resurrection poetically,lightly,gravely and impactfully whereas Mrs Waghmare made us travel through the current scenario in missions making us think through and surprising us with questions we have never been aware enough to ask ourselves.I found myself in tears often enough. Following the retreat I made a quick visit to Lalitpur to see my dear friends. It was a restful two days . 

Every once in a while in my responsibilities I feel extremely over-whelmed and there are times when you feel out of your depths and unable to move further.This has happened to me in the past.During my tenure in Satbarwa,I used to have a group of officers around me who used to literally carry me.It was a team ,earnest and never questioned me but stood through times when I felt it was just too much.I have often felt like that in Lakhnadon.Yesterday was one such night.The government hospital was all into mucking up simple cases and pushing them into our hospital.At one o'clock at night one previous caeserian section case given a trial labour and failed was pushed into the casualty.Much like any other caeserian case we posted her.The bystanders were insistant that she be steralised.We started the surgery well enough with an inexperienced assistant.Her haomoglobin was all of 7.5gm percent.She was bleeding from all over and inspite of all our efforts medically even after she was sutured...

I was dreading the last three days in the hospital with its unpredictability in the patient load.The last month or so have been hectic to say the least.I had allowed one of my juniors to take the much deserved leave for ten days and Divya was in her community stint.I could always call her if I needed her but I was alone for all practical purposes.Even when three of us were there,every evening I would come home by eight or so and I was severely sleep deprived.Whenever I could I would catch up. By God's grace in the last three days,I could actually fill in on my sleep except for sunday when I was at it the day and the whole night.On fifteenth August I could get to my bed only at six in the morning. On thirteenth of August evening as usual I came back from work at five and then without wasting time I decided to catch some sleep before I got the next call. At seven forty sharp I got woken up by a spiritual nudge and an intense pressure to pray for Djongu. Djongu is the hill opposi...

In my short time in the new region where I have worked I have wondered often how people meander about the paraphenalia with all it's implications to be effective in their ministries.We know they are effective because we see the fruits.Everytime our goodman came to the out-patient he always had a most wretched patient brought in for medication.It would be a destitute,a lunatic,a schizophrenic.Everytime he would have a positive report about the well-being of the patients often attributed to prayers. One day he was in the out-patient giving us an update about his work.I had had a busy night and the day was busy.I was impatient but was trying my best to curb my baser instincts and practise politeness.Suddenly a gentleman entered the out-patient with another patient who had fever. Our man was greeted with effusive  enthusiasm.When the patient had been dealt with and the duo left ,our good man shared how he knew this gentleman.Apparently he was one of those village practitioners.He had ...

One busy out-patient morning I found Max examining one tribal lady with a high grade fever who looked toxic.In the passing ,I told Max,just keep her in the wards for the day till her fever subsides and then she can go home in the evening with her family.I became busy with other patients.When we went for rounds in the evening at around five ,she was sitting up in bed.Her husband was nowhere around. When I asked after her husband she told us that he had gone home and had not returned.She had not eaten her lunch so I requested Geeta Bai to give her some food from the mess which she promptly did.I was on duty that night and it was a busy duty.I did not get a wink of sleep and so missed the morning rounds.Suddenly mid-morning the lady and her husband with a little kid bounced into my out-patient.The lady was very excited about the fact that we had fed her and looked after her and was narrating it to her husband. The bill had gone up to Rs 2000  .The husband did not have a single ruppee...

It has been a month of activity in various forms.It is raining cats and dogs.Thank God for that. The flowers are blooming bravely through the rains.I am enjoying spending time with the plants in the morning.I remember trying drip irrigation for my roses through the summer heat.The plants have survived so many summers and brought so much of joy to our hearts everytime it beats the heat to brighten the paraphernalia and our days. The hospital has never been so busy.We had almost ninety percent occupancy for a day or two and we also had some very sick patients.There were times when I have murmered ,'Oh Lord when will it end ' only to guiltily ask for the Lord's forgiveness for we have prayed for patients and He has sent them . My juniors always tease me about how various very sick patients seem to respond only to my queries about their health during the rounds.One palliative care patient with stroke would start weeping as soon as I started talking to him and gradually as h...

It's five in the morning.I pull my deck chair to the verandah of my quarter to take in the cool ,fresh monsoon air of the morning.I tilt my head to listen to the sound of the nature,the bird in earnest conversation,the rustle of the leaves,dew-drops quietly tiptoeing to settle into the grass in the lawn,the lone birdling singing away to glory.My senses alert, I do not take it for granted anymore.It has been some time since I have been able to really listen ,to the nature beyond the voices of my own head and the manyfold noises of the paraphenalia and the constant tinnitus in my left ear. It is a beautiful morning ,it is a beautiful day and it is a beautiful life.So much to be thankful to God for. We are working towards a women's workshop in August in Lakhnadon ."Women-a method of God"-Two stellar ladies Mrs Renuka Sanghi and Mrs Waghmare have agreed to guide us through various topics.We are sincerely praying for the right candidates to attend the conference. God j...

Every once in a while you want to carry on through the corridor ,stroddle the two steps onto the bridge but stop just ten yards before the cafeteria into a heavy door on the wall which reads ‘Quiet room’.In the action filled acute medicine setting it helps to spend a portion of your lunch break beyond that wooden door.It is a chapel of sorts,a room to be exact.Carpetted but with very sparse furniture.A lectern with a bible,a side table which holds church addresses,brochures for church activities,small booklets on various subjects like bereivement,etc. As you scour the place what really strikes you is the board .It has flaps of tiny hand-written prayer requests,cards ..people who have just poured their hearts out to ‘you will not believe ,who?’.It is letters to Jesus. One of them reads , ‘Dear Lord Jesus,please be with my eighty year old mother who is having a hip replacement.She has never been to a hospital before.Please look after her and help her to heal.’Sam Anot...

We hitch-hiked the himalayan route we had often driven through . From Mangan, we had to fend for ourselves through the steep mountain tracks ,beautiful wisps of water-fall,reflecting the rainbow . We  mercilessly hacked our way past civilisation,innocent smiling faces,army settlements,labourers with loads. We walked with the river companionably beyond our second breath. The wooden cottages in Lachung beamed with spots of snowed roof and carpets of vibrant primulas . Sweet slumber ,with rice and chunk of meat with lard completed our day. It had been well-earned.

The heat seems like it is here to stay.One can hardly put any food in the mouth and yet the scales are unforgiving, not a dip to the right or left.A colleague tells me it is going to rain on Monday.We just went through a water crisis of sorts for a few days but we are back on our feet, on track ,surprisingly enjoying the unmeritted grace of God in big and small things. Patients?what about patients.As usual the hospital is as unpredictable as it gets.Somedays are busy to the hilt and some as quiet as a monastry.Our collections however have been steady by God's grace. The coolers are on every hour of the day at work and those of us who are fortunate enough have air-conditioners to keep us sane.Just sitting in the OPD with cooler at full blast for stretched hours make one feel nauseated so you can imagine what would happen if we had an out-door job. The patients are a study at impractility .One often ends up doing all the math for them so that they can save maximum money. We have ...

I have been dealing with a lot of mallnutrition cases overtly. There are the usual ,obvious cases that glare at you from the paediatric out-patient and then there are others which are there because they have not been eating due to other reasons. We get a lot of cases of starvation.There is a common myth in the villages which says that patients who have enteric fever have to be put off food. So a vicious cycle resumes.Patients are not given food ....and then later their stomach shrinks over time and then they lose their appetite. We had a twenty five year old cachectic lady come in with a history of  fever. We screened her for everything one could think of in a cacechtic person and she came negative except for enteric fever.She had clinical features pointing towards the diagnosis.She had been treated with various antibiotics so we put her on Multi-drug therapy for enteric fever and her fever crashed by the second day.However her blood pressure continued to crash inspite of ade...

When there is no rain ,there is drought, There is no food .Two square meals ..what is it? Life becomes tougher,struggling for that two pots of water. Cycling   at four in the morning To the community well . The water is receding, The doctor talks about clean,sanitized water , We want just water,water to drink,to wash ,to cook when there is food. Will the rains ever come? I can hear the thunder In the distant sky. Are our prayers heard? Yes the rains will come and with it Malaria,acute gastroenteritis and ofcourse , The snakes will be out to enjoy the respite… Lalli has been bitten , Will she survive? The drought,the starvation,dehydration, The fever ,the   snake-bite Or the doctor’s bill.