'A Little Celebration Of Life'

I looked at my watch: 9:30 PM.

“Damn!” I muttered under my breath.

I was late, Anjali and the kids were waiting for me at home. We were supposed to go for a dinner to celebrate the hard-earned gold medal by my little genius of a daughter – Shruti (she studies in class 5^th and had won a gold medal in the English Olympiad). I sighed and started to write my clinical notes on the file of my last patient for the day. Actually, as a junior consultants in a 100 bedded hospital in Mumbai, both my wife Anjali and I (she is a pathologist and I am a physician) are accustomed of being busy and late at everything – busy in ICU, busy in conferences, late for food, late for sleep, late for work and worst of all - alwways late for our family. After all, long hours of work, sacrificing family life and personal interests are part of a doctor’s life.

But not today, I was determined to reach home on time, to be happy and carefree and spend some much-needed moments of bliss with my loving wife and kids. With that mindset, I got up from my chair and started to walk towards the exit of the ICU. At that moment, my mobile phone started vibrating, dreading that it was Anjali, I extracted the phone from my pocket and answered the call without even noticing the caller’s name,

“Hey! Siddharth are you still in the hospital?” I felt my heart sink as soon as I heard Sumit’s voice.

Dr. Sumit is my friend and colleague who was on the night duty today. I knew he was in the hospital because only a short while ago I had briefed him about the in-patients.

My mind started racing – tell him you are already halfway home! I heard an inner voice shrieking inside my mind.

“Yes, I am still here but almost at the door! What happened?” I heard myself saying and immediately bit my lips – why should I even respond to his call – my duty was over after 9 pm.

“Come down to emergency! We have a situation here. I already have three emergencies on my hands and now there has been an accident near our hospital.The scene is quite bad. We need help!” Sumit almost shouted in my ear.

“What? How many?” I yelled as I felt the adrenaline rushing into my mind.

“Come down and see for yourself!” Sumit snapped and the call was cut. For a moment, I stood there, staring blankly at the screen of my mobile, then, I texted Anjali and broke into a run.

"All right! That’s it.” I straightened up with a smile of satisfaction on my face. I turned to look at the sister who reciprocated my smile. We had done everything possible to help the boy. He looked to be in his late teens. He had sustained crush injury of the right leg and a punctured lung due to fractured ribs as he met with the accident. Now, after about one hour of challenging work by our team - with multiple tubes, pressure support and ventilator support he had a slight chance of life worth fighting for!

“Fight the hard young man! You are too young to die! Fight for your survival – I am here for you!” I whispered.

  

“All Set Sidharth!” Sumit walked in to stand by our side. He looked tired but happy.

I opened my mouth to say something when my mobile beeped, I looked down – it was a message from Anjali. Quickly texting back a short message, I turned to face my fellow doctor,

“So, give me the count Smit,” I said.

“Total six-people involved in the accident, boss! Two on the bike and four in the car. One brought dead, two head injuries but stable and one minor bruises and cuts. This boy with polytrauma is the worst – he was driving the bike. The surgery teams have been informed - they are on their way. Lucky that you were still in the hospital, I could not have managed without you”.

Ignoring his last sentence, I looked at sister Tabassum (the senior-most and respected nurse of our hospital) and asked, “What do you think sister, what are the chances for the boy?” Tabassum gave us a blank stare at first then a grin appeared on her face, she nodded in affirmation. With the enthusiasm that would shame even school children, we gave each other a high five – it was fine – the boy was going to survive. Everyone in the hospital knows that the sister Tabassum can predict it correctly most of the times.

The mobile beeped again – I checked the time, it showed 10:45 pm. I called Anjali and started walking towards the elevators. When the lift finally stopped at the ground floor I came out.

“Daddy” Shruti squealed with delight as she saw me.

There on my right, Anjali was standing with Ashish and Shruti. The party was still on – though the venue had changed slightly - we were going to have our celebration at the 24-hour coffee shop at the hospital. I shrugged and with a broad grin on my face rushed towards my family.

Today, it was not only just any celebration of our family but 'a little celebration of life'. A gift of 'life' which only a skilled Doctor can give to a fellow human being!