Thus, My Bones Were Repaired
By JIRARA
© JIRARA, September 2022, Published by JIRARA on matrubharti.com
All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, for any commercial purposes without the prior permission of the author and/or publisher.
Disclaimer: It is the same as in my previous articles published in matrubharti.com.
Preamble: Here (and may be in some future closely related articles) is my personal account of the health care that I and my BA (mother) have/had received from our family (and other doctors) over a period of more than last three to four decades. Here, I am going to mention the names of the drugs/medicines/tubes/drops (where applicable and based on my memory) used for our treatment/s, because it is very important to mention these for the sake of clarity and completion (and usefulness in the future); rather than hiding these names for the fear of adverse or over-publicity or being ‘dubbed’ as an advocate of the medicines and/or their manufacturers; and I want to ascertain here, that I am not the brand ambassador of any of these (allopathy or ayurvedic/herbal) medicines, and this story-article is not sponsored or suggested by any of the doctors involved in the treatment. I am writing a true story related to the health of some individual/s, and hence, it is important that I clearly and openly mention the true names of the doctors and the medicines without any hesitation; and I am not interested in any kind of my personal publicity.
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Dedicated To: My wife Smt. Virmati, and our son Mayur who had taken immense care of me during this phase (2020-2021/22). Also, to Orthopaedic (consulting) surgeons Dr. Lokesh Veerappa, and Dr. Vimal Kumar (both of Manipal Hospital, Bangalore) for very successful operation of my multiple fractures. To also, Dr. D. Amarnarayan (former CMO), and Dr. N. Ramakrishna (CMO) for their care during this phase of my treatment.
Also, dedicated to two home-care boys: i) Joydeep Das (from Tripura), and ii) Satyapal Singh (from Lucknow) who took very good care of my personal hygiene for nearly three months.
Acknowledgements: My medical treatment related stories are profusely dedicated to our family doctors: NAL-CSIR doctors (in Bengaluru): Dr. D. Amarnarayan (CMO, now retired), Dr. N. Ramakrishna (CMO, now retired), Dr. Mrs. Swetha Desai (CMO), Dr. L. Prakash, and Dr. Ms. Malvika; and the physiotherapist Y. Nagaraj; who from time to time had provided correct diagnoses, complete prescriptions of medicines, and proper referrals (including health care aspects/suggestions/treatments) to other doctors and/or Hospitals in respect of me, my BA as well as all the members of my family for several decades. In fact, due the treatment that I had received, my health-index had been very high, and my life has definitely prolonged by some years. I am also grateful to some doctors of Netradham (Bangalore) for correct initial diagnoses of my eye problems.
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Note: As I have said earlier, we all are mortals, and we basically need oxygen, water, and food (hence lot of energy) to sustain our lives on this planet. Most of our food is plant based, and these plants ‘prepare’ food by absorbing energy from the Sun. Even though, the most non-veg food comes from animals, these animals also eat mostly plant-based foods, and hence their stored energy in some form comes to us. Now, if there is any contamination in any or more of these ingredients, in most cases we fall sick: breathing problems, food-poisoning, vomiting, acidity etc. Also, if there is deficiency in any or more of these, we become malnutrition-ed; the balance of food is always necessary for usual and normal life sustenance. We also fall sick due to: i) over work (get exhausted, and weak and our immune system becomes weak, and might lead to other complications), ii) some genetic problems inherited from our parent/s, and iii) in many cases due to bacterial and/or viral infections. There are other diseases/ailments: a) blood pressure (BP), b) diabetes, c) vertigo (Chakkar), d) cancer, and others. Also some problems are related to i) liver, ii) pancreas (diabetes Type I and II), iii) kidneys (stones, failures), iv) intestines, v) eyes, vi) heart/lungs, and vii) brain. There are many more minor or major issues (urinary track infection/UTI, allergies, eye-infections, and so on…), since the human body is a vast system in the number of components it has, and the continuous functioning of these sub-systems and their interactions are so involved that a common lay person cannot understand, except only superficially.
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The medical doctors, in my opinion, are like our own ‘relatives’, and true friends; and the correctly prescribed medicines are our routine companions.
Thus, My Bones Were Repaired
It was on Friday, 20 March 2020, at about 4:00 p.m., I took tea and then started repairing my kitchen water filter, in fact I had proposed to change the refill, the main reason was that some very important guests were to come the next day; and in the house most of the items were in order (repaired, renovated, etc.) except this water filter. My son had warned me not to take up this feat, since no body would be in the house, except my 96 years old mother at that time; and yet I had insisted to do this because I said that I had already done it once earlier and I knew how to do it. So, I first checked if the refill was in my store, which was and hence further I was encouraged to do it.
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The filter was a bit above the kitchen basin, and to access it I had to climb on a stool, and rest the left foot on the counter and the right foot on the stool, and I had chosen the plastic stool since it was very light compared to the heavy wooden stool, and the small four-step aluminium ladder. I balanced myself in this position and opened the filter-case, which had 4 screws, and then removed the old filter and replaced it with the new refill, and in doing this I had to come down and climb three times, because I had to keep my arms above (my heart) and I needed some intermittent rest; in the process once the screwdriver fell down and it broke one saucer, and I really got exhausted, since nearly 45 minutes had lapsed, and then finally I fitted the case in its position, and then turned on the water tap, and it started leaking; for which again I climbed to fix the washers properly, but could not fix them, so water kept leaking, so then I closed the taps.
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And when I was trying to come down, I just lifted up my left foot with the intention of keeping it on the plastic stool beside the right one, and just then I lost the balance, and soon as I put the two legs on the stool together, that stool gave the way; its legs bent and slipped away from under my feet, and I fell down on the floor, on the right side, with all my body weight on my right elbow and the right leg; and then I saw that my elbow was loose, because it was crushed, and my leg bone was broken, my half leg was slightly dislocated, so I pulled that portion and put it in the line with the top half; and I tried the same thing with the right hand, but could not do it, it was quite loosened. I was sweating, and in agony, and exactly at the same time (now it was 5:00 pm), that my wife entered the house.
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My mother was in panic, and she sat down on the dining chair, and was lamenting and sort of got scared as to what might have happened to me; but I directed her to go to the living room and sit there. Mean while my wife gave me a big cushion and inserted it behind my back with a support to the kitchen-cupboards, and I told her to call some neighbouring boys, who then came and lifted me and made me sit on the dining chair; I was in continual pain, and then my wife called my son, who had yet not reached his destination; he immediately started on his reverse journey and this took nearly 45 minutes for him to come back, but before that his close friend and Amina (prospective our daughter-in-law) rushed to our house to assist and gave moral support.
**
My son then collected two wooden long-broad strips and tied on both the side of my right leg so that it remained straight, and also put my right arm in the sling so that it would have minimum movement; this reduced my pain a bit; and in the process of time, they lifted me along with the chair and shifted me from the first floor into his car, and rushed to the emergency of Manipal hospital; all the time I was in a great agony; and for the first time I had ever cried so much being an adult, all my previous sufferings were such that I had not cried, may be, at all.
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In emergency ward, the doctors attended me quickly and put new cast on my leg, and the right hand, and then they directed my son to get the x-rays, and CT scan, etc., and these were done and were examined by two surgeons Dr. Lokesh, and Dr. Vimal, and by the early morning (on Saturday) we were told that they would be able to fix my bones, and the operation was scheduled for that day at 6:00 pm, they operated for multiple fractures, under general anaesthesia which took nearly six hours.
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It was during this time that the lock down due to Corona virus D-19, CoViD was declared, and the doctors told my son that I must be discharged within say 2/3 days, since the infection cases had started to come in the hospital. So, after preliminary checks I was discharged in Tuesday/24th March evening.
The doctors had put two triangular-titanium plates with screws in the two places: i) one in the place of broken elbow, and ii) one from my right knee to the point after the line of the broken leg, the latter was not operated and was left to heal by itself.
Due to the beginning of the corona, though the hospital would have provided the ambulance to reach me home, I had not opted for that, and desired that we go home in our own car; this was to avoid undue attention from the neighbours, who might get panicky and might suspect that in our house there was a corona patient.
My son had already done the arrangement for the home-care boy, by a lot of coordination with the hospital, and care-service provider/s of the city, and when we reached our house, a boy was waiting for us!
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My recovery period and the experience of trauma:
Since, it was real beginning of covid, my son did not want anybody from outside of our home, even the guests, and the physiotherapist to come into. So, as the surgeons had said the exercises for the leg and the arm was started just after one week, and it so happened that I was not able to even stand on the left leg that was healthy and un-operated; I had forgotten to keep balance.
So many things were going wrong: a) urinal habit, there was a tube and a plastic bag for at least three months, before I could do it in a big-mouth thick plastic bottle, all the time near my bed three bottles were an exhibition kind, it took other two months to get rid of the bottles; b) was not able to get up on my own since both the limbs of my right-side were operated, and my mind had lost control; c) was getting exhausted very frequently; and d) too many terrible dreams.
The exercise schedule was that I must do it three times a day: before breakfast, lunch, and dinner; which were strictly administered by the house boy, who in addition did lot of my personal cleaning chores.
When it was the time to remove the stiches, which were the staples on both the limbs, my son had studied the procedure, bought all the sanitary needs, and a special device that can be used to unplug the staples from the operated areas of the limbs, and he did all that with meticulous care, and with the clinical accuracy. He also used to do required dressing of the affected areas. As a result, I did not get any infection of my limbs’ operated areas.
So, gradually I was able to get up and stand on my legs, re-learn to keep balance, that was as if I had forgotten, and first started on wheel chair, then on walker, and crutches and finally an old man’s stick, and all this took nearly six months of my arduous efforts and strong determination.
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And during the first two months I had UTI for two times, the second one just after three days when the first one was cured. This was a traumatic experience: a) to be on antibiotics for several days, b) with no good taste of food, c) drinking lot of water, and d) frequent urination, and that to into tubes, which would slip off from the genital organ, and even urination in the diaper that I had to wear nearly for three months before I could go to the washroom for the toilet-habit.
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More Trauma:
I used to get very scary dreams like: i) I am in a very narrow cage, and have become of a very reduced size, and my limbs have been those of a dwarf; ii) some body is cutting me into pieces, and I am screaming but no body is coming to my rescue, and iii) I am just awake, and searching my limbs but I am not able to find, and then after a few seconds I figure out where they are and then I touch all my limbs and reconcile that they were intact in their places.
After each dream I felt exhausted, mainly due to the fear of loosing my full control of my limbs, and the worry whether I would really get alright and be able to walk or not; would I be totally or partially handicapped and similar imaginations.
It was during these three months that I wept and cried a lot, never before so much, and even in the nights; and since I was housed in the ground floor during this period, my wife and my son would hear my loud cries in the first floor and the second floor, and rush to me, and tell me that the neighbours would be disturbed!
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My mishap, multiple fractures, operations, and the recovery delayed the visit of our primed guests to our house, and this was as such a great event for us, at least for my wife and myself, and then finally it took place while still I was using wheel chair. This and the subsequent events went well and most of the things happened as per the desires and choices of the two families, whereupon we got a new bride who is a lovely, homely, smart, talented, and understanding lady in our house for our beloved, talented, hard working and honest son.
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Moral support: I had received several calls/emails/SMSs/W-A messages from several of my relatives, close friends, and my NAL colleagues, and even our neighbours during this phase of my recovery; who expressed their wishes for my speedy recovery, and I was really overwhelmed by this. This moral support added a healing touch beyond what was given by my mother, wife and son; my daughter being out of country could not visit us, mainly because of corona, the international flights were not operating; she always felt that she could not do much for me, but that is what happens for a married lady with her own family responsibilities.
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The home care boys, who each served me in consecutive periods, each nearly for 45 days, wept when they left us; they had got attachment to our family, especially due to the care my wife had taken in respect of their meals, and breakfast; they felt here a homely environment and used to even share their experiences and stories to my son. Their service and attention to my needs were prompt and meticulous.
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A Joke:
My first younger brother (USA citizen), when came to know about my mishap wrote to me: ‘eat items made from pure ghee, and the dry nuts for 10 days and you will start walking on your feet’.
It took nearly six months for me to really walk properly, and with a good balance.
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The first visit to the surgeons, after the operation, was on 1st May 2020, where upon they examined my x-rays and were greatly satisfied; and the doctors further suggested that I must try to stretch my right arm fully out, and do so for 100 times a day; and even it pains I must do it, else my arm would never stretch out at all; and this I was supposed to do under a narcotic pain killer tablet, since it would pain, but this was a must for me; and this I did several times in a day’s time, if not 100 times; also I had to do lot of exercises with weights on my legs, and arms. I carried out this arduous routine for several months; and now I do the exercises without weights.
My son had drafted a thank you letter for these two surgeons, and after reading I had signed, and we then handed over the letters to them along with some chocolates.
Aftermath:
After my recovery, I travelled to my native place and stayed there for three weeks, and when I returned on the 17th April 2021, I had corona; I had gone there after taking the first dose of covishield vaccination.
During all my (three, two national and one international) travels after the operation, I had no issue with my limbs, like pain etc., and at the airport for security checks I used to show the x-rays or the photo copies of the operated parts; the titanium plates are now permanent companions and I am like a half-robot, since my right leg and right arm have these metal plates with screws fixed into my bones. Several kgs of the luggage weights, I could handle on my own, but with two arms.
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