INTERNSHIP DIARIES #1

Hospital doors, corridors and window sills have several love stories to recount. More grounded ones. Selfless love. That triumphs over the disease.

One fine morning, I had to accompany a patient to the CT room, to take a biopsy. He was actually a case posted for bypass surgery of the heart, but things took a harsh turn when the chest Xray showed an opacity that the pulmonologist described as that of a neoplastic etiology. Turns out that the differential was indeed true, after the CECT chest confirmed it but we had to wait till the biopsy report arrived.

So here I was, waiting outside the CT console, with the bystanders of the patient - his wife and his daughter. I had to fill numerous requisition forms of CT, proformae and histopath. The bystanders seemed to be depressed. As I finished filling the forms, I put them aside and walked towards them.

The patient's wife was a poor old lady. Her eyes had welled up with tears. I couldn't hold back myself as she told me,

"Doctor, heart la block irukku nnu solli namma bypass operation panna vandhom... Aanaa ippo avanga solradh cancer katti irukk nnu..."

Meaning, the patient came for bypass surgery for his triple vessel disease and then only they came to know that he has a growth in his lung which could be cancer.

Saying so, the lady broke down and sobbed quietly.

I was crestfallen. True, it was as if the world had ended for the lady. As she wept uncontrollably, I tried to pacify her, telling that the biopsy was a simple confirmatory test for the presence of cancerous growth and there was nothing to worry unless the biopsy report stated so.

As they say, true love doesn't betray. Nor does it grow old. Hospital floors have witnessed the most intense stories of love unfold. The stream of compassion that flows on one's being, separating life from death and moribund.