I'm Twenty and I Know it!

The thing about birthdays is that they’re never the same. Sure, they may fall on the same date every year, but then something always changes. Some years, you don’t feel the birthday. Some years, you want the birthday to last forever. Me? I just want cake.

I’m writing this and bidding goodbye to my teens at the same time. It’s a funny feeling. On one hand, I’ve grown up enough to be able to drink with Dad and drive his car. On the other hand, I’m young enough (and fat enough) to down three plates of chicken tandoori in one sitting.  I’ve changed a lot in my teens. I’ve been happy, sad, high, angry and I’ve definitely been emo. In spite of all such changes in me, my family has stood by me. But see, that’s the thing about your folks. You can hate them, you can love them. But you can’t be anything without them.

My brother, Sagnik Mukherjee’s also grown up. He’s no longer a kid and that makes me so proud. My little brother, Sourja who had his birthday today is now 19 and the best thing that happened to me so far this year. Come to think of it, meeting my extended family rocked.

Let’s not forget my best friend, my dog Chuni, who sadly left us last year. He’s still in my corner though and goes woof woof now and again.

Lastly, one thing I’ve learnt in all my time here is it’s very important to keep it simple. You need to know what you want and you need to be happy.

I’m happy. I’m happy to have had some of the greatest friends I could ever want. I’m ahppy to have met so many stupid people in these twenty years. I’m happy that my love for music and writing has got me a blog in a corner of the internet. Most of all, I’m glad that tomorrow, all this will be brand new.

Here I am, this is me. And you can’t take that away from me see?

The Bilge Master

No actually...

Ashesh

I C U- A Guest Post by My Mother

This is a guest post by my mother. She has written about the time she fell sick and had to admitted to hospital. This is her first blogpost and she has said she will soon start her own blog. Till then, please read this post.

The Bilge Master

I used to always joke about summoning paramedics, and urge my family to book me an ICU (Intensive Care Unit). ICU’s are places generally remote from an ordinary human being’s life. So, if I caught a cold in my head, or the curry didn’t come out nice or if I lost a spirited argument with my son; I would holler for ambulances and booking of ICU’s. Little did I know then that one day I would seriously end up in an ICU with my life seriously threatened, by a disease called septicaemia.

I had been ailing for some time, with a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). Days passed. Apparently I did not get better, but worsened as the sodium/potassium balance in my body got seriously upset and white blood cell counts rose alarmingly and the poison leaked into the blood; laying all my organs vulnerable. Blissfully, I don’t remember any part of it, but I have since heard from my son and husband that I could not stand, kept falling down, urinated all over the house, because I never quite managed to reach the bathroom in time.

I’m a fifty-three year old housewife. Obese. Riddled with blood sugar, hypertension, and despite urgings from everybody, refuse to walk, follow a healthy diet and spend my time shared between my books and laptop. I love drama and so when the most dramatic thing happened in my life, I was unfortunately quite unaware of it.  The paramedics arrived, the ambulance was summoned and I was driven from Asansol to Durgapur’s Mission Hospital in a semi conscious state.

I don’t remember the emergency room where I was first taken, where the decision to put me into ICU was made. Neither do I remember being wheeled into the ICU and put to bed there. The ICU was a cavernous room where very sick people-both men and women were placed for intensive care. The first couple of days and nights are also now quite lost to me. I remember only blood samples being taken at random, breathing through a mask supplying oxygen and being attached to a monitor . All I wanted was to be left alone to die.

Obviously, in the first couple of days,  my sickness waxed triumphantly and the doctors were finally forced to give me a fifty-fifty chance. I have heard later on, that the doctor in charge of my case had said that he was “trying”. My husband said that he had got nowhere with just “trying” but by doing The consultant was taken aback but by gum he did it. On the third day in the ICU, despit e the channels and the drips and the oxygen mask, I came to myself, and became aware of arteries being cut with needles for blood, bodily thirst for water and I was aware of being attached to a catheter. The vaguest impression of people on either side of me became realistic when they both died and had to be removed. From every bed, emanated pain and extreme suffering. Strapped to my bed, I just watched and realized that this in fact, was ICU.

My bed would be wheeled out, for various tests and back again. Many a time, I felt that I was going away from it all and this meant the nursing staff crowding around and doing things and I would come back.

My husband and son came to visit me regularly. They conferred with doctors. Ventilators were frely spoken of, but I stayed put. The only organs that had been affected by the infection in the blood were the lungs  and they dealt with it.

They were short staffed as far as nursing personnel went, each doing 12 hour shifts, looking after so many. A bunch of young kids really-boys and girls who dealt with death daily and 90% of the time managed to triumph over the old equalizer. They reminded me of my favourite serial, M*A*S*H as they kept sane with crude jokes and basically slapstick comedy. The white blood cells were cowered by the wide spectrum antibiotics. Spread of infection ceased. By the fifth day, I felt hungry. I was now only scared of the ICU and marvelled at those working there day in day out. Finally, I was pronounced stable enough to be moved to a room of my own and the transfer went through.

I left the ICU with mixed feelings. On one hand I was very glad to leave the hall of pain. On the other, deep gratitude, not only to the doctor, but the nurses whose round the clock care had pulled me through. I went to a private room. Here again, I saw the dedication of nursing and doctoring. Finally, nine days after I had gone there, I was allowed to leave the hospital and walked out on my own steam, weak as a cat but alive and well.

I will not sit around anymore. The ICU taught me the value of life and I am going to keep better and hope that nobody has to go there again.