The worst Sunday
I always considered February 23, 2003 as the worst sunday of my life. An office broke out in my office and everything that I had struggled over for years and accumulated and built was burnt and washed away.
However, February 18, 2007 beats it by a zillion times.
Imagine being woken up @ 5:00 in the morning to rush and find your father lying on the floor, foaming @ his mouth, laboured breathing and wet pyjamas.
You see it so many times in movies, hear it in other peoples life but when it comes to you, everything becomes a blur. I dont remember my thinking @ that time but I did went through all the motions like calling the doctor, ambulance, informing my uncles and brother.
Dad has a cardiac history. Angiography has been performed and 2 stents have been implanted. Hence, assuming its a cardiac arrest, we took him to a heart hospital. He was given preliminary treatment and then the doctors said that it is a mental stroke.
Rushing him to Sterling hospital and sitting in the ambulance, life flashed by a second. All the pain, attitude, aguish, difference of opinions, arguments, love, good times to gether, the picnics, the gifts, the learning, the teaching that I got from him flashed in front of me.
On admission, a CT scan revealed that he had Intra Celebral Hemorrhage on the left brain, which required an immediate operation. He was comatose and the only way to revive him (with no guarantees) was to operate his left brain and flush / suck out the blood. With 60% of the brain damaged, we werent left with any options but to operate him.
Here was one of the strongest person I had know all my life and here he was being wheeled into the OT room to undergo the biggest operation which shall decide his life. He has been operated before for angioplasty and slip disc, but I knew it in my hearts of heart that this is going to be different.
The surgery was successful but the pudding in the cake lies in the recovery. The post operation CT revealed that the Hemorrhage had been successfully removed as far as possible. Still his skull was not stiched back, just in case if there was need for a further suction.
Being wheeled in the Neuro ICU, I saw my dad enter into the biggest battle of his life. This was one blow, which would require all strenght, not only from him but us as well to take it.
If only he was concious then I would have held his hand and told him, PA we are with you. All the way through. Just fight it out the way you always do. Come back home………