Optimism

It was 3’o clock in the morning, I was staring the window curtains at my left, a cool midnight breeze was waving me a hello which struck me with a low intensity and I turned to my right to bring my sleep back. My upper eyelid was about to meet the lower one but a bright light in the dark room wrecked the meet of my eyelids. The light was being flashed through my phone which reminds me of the patient in the ICU ward. His daughter keeps on messaging me every now and then to check about her father’s health. She feels extreme nostalgia due to his absence at the house. Every time she makes a video call to see her father the urge to meet him is clearly visible in her eyes.

I wonder how will I face her if I cannot save him. Somehow I managed to sleep with these thoughts and woke up at 7 am with my mom’s call. After preparing and consuming all the nutritious drinks and eatables directed by my mother in a video call just a 15 minutes ago I reached my work place wearing a mask and covering myself with the personal protective equipment and headed towards the ICU ward. The patient was in a critical condition by the time I reach him.

His condition was transforming into worse and now it’s an emergency. While we were assigning everything for his treatment we lost the power supply. He badly needs the support of a ventilator and an oxygenated bed and the power loss made his condition slip from our hands every second. Working hard for almost 30 minutes the hospital staff fixed the generator and the power was back again. But the 30 minutes gap gulped the lives of nearly 25 critical patients. Luckily Ahana’s father was not one of them. My staff and I finally made it through all the struggles and painful marks on our bodies caused by the equipment. Now it’s time for Ahana to meet her father. I wanted to see her reaction but she being under 18 wasn’t allowed into the hospital. The day again went on hearing the news of 38 deaths due to Covid in the hospital.

The situation is going worse day by day and everyone has hopes on us. But we aren’t also being able to save everyone. We as doctors build extreme guilt in ourselves with every life lost. With all these thoughts in mind I attended a virtual dinner with my parents showing them my fake smile and not revealing the numbers which fill me with agony to avoid their knotted brows. While I was applying ointment to my wounds and weeping for the unsuccessful treatments and lives lost, my phone beeped and it was a message from Ahana. She and her parents captured in a picture with a smile and captioned below “Thank you doctor didi, baba is finally back home.” And I dozed on my partially neat bed with a smile hoping for the mask free days to be back again.