When Trembling Hands Learn To Heal

Rapt in awe and terror, I watched my Grandmother vomiting blood all over her bed, spilling great big splashes onto the olive green carpet. Her face had turned deadly white and all the veins in her neck were tense and pulsating. She clenched at the bedclothes as the irrepressible sickness continued. The cascade of scarlet fluid stifled her sobbing and moaning sounds. My father, a very brave and composed person, was crying as he tried to hold her feeble body shaking in fear and disbelief. He failed to notice a lean, twelve year old girl huddled in the doorway as the light from the bedroom illuminated a silhouette against the dark corridor. Uncle and Aunt were carrying small plastic basins to and from the bathroom to collect the blood and spill it in the white ceramic sink. Downstairs, someone was calling the ambulance for the nth time as distant sirens were screaming in the chilly night air. She never made it to the hospital. It was a waking nightmare.

Grandma died of a stomach perforation following her three year diagnosis with Liver Carcinoma. The cancer had spread locally and eroded the main blood vessels of the Pyloric Antrum. The distant metastasis had studded her entire peritoneal cavity. Clinically she had reached Stage Four of Hepatic Carcinoma and there was little that allopathic medicine could do, except pain relief and symptomatic measures. Everything that could be done for her had been diligently pursued by a panel of the best doctors in the country. She chose to die at home and not in an impersonal hospital. What happened could not be prevented by human intervention. Of course, it took me thirteen years to gain this insight, while the vision kept haunting me day and night all through my remaining childhood. If a Psychiatrist was ever consulted, he could tell why I feared and hated the color red, why I had trouble going into the darkness and what made me cry when any alarm went off. Ironically, nobody saw the trauma that disturbed an introvert child. I excelled academically, was good at sports, and was a natural orator and leader. I blame no one for this negligence for the scar lay within me and could not be discovered by chance.

The night of 1st December 1991 that took away my last prospect of innocence, gave me a valuable insight into human life and death. In an attempt to heal the demons that lay within me, I aimed to become a doctor. Thirteen years later I was working with half a dozen Philanthropic Organizations and a busy Government Hospital in a poor third world country called Pakistan. Everyday I meet people who face the same dilemma and who find little consolation from people in my professional world. My fellow colleagues forget that the families of all our patients are not medically literate and need to be counseled step by step about what is happening or what might happen next. My patients call me the caring, smiling doctor. I think this is the best of all the prizes I have ever received. Every time anyone in my hospital needs advice and support, someone tells him of a doctor that not only talks but listens as well. The topics of discussion with my patients vary from small talk or family problems to medical management of their ailments. The venues are the corridors, my office, the cafeteria, the roadside and my car according to the choice of my clients. I counsel their kids or spouses for them even though I’m not a Psychiatrist. I am never unavailable or out of office for my cell phone is switched on twenty four seven and I am there whenever I am needed. I am not the best professional hand they can get but I am the most voluntarily available assistance and counsel in a very busy world. When my fellow doctors criticize or complain of my conduct as unnecessary liberty to patients I give them the same patience and advice that I am known for. I tell them that sometimes our love and understanding means much more to a dying man than mere treatment, because after all, we are humans who crave for love from the cradle to the grave.