21 days - a novel in parts...

Day 1

How do you tell a nine year old that she is going to die? How do you tell her that she won’t live to see her tenth? That there wouldn’t be any clowns at her next birthday? That she will never get to have a slumber party with her friends? That she will never get that tingle before her first kiss from a crush?

How do you tell her parents that this will be the last time she enters the hospital? How do you tell them that their daughter has less than a month to live? How do you tell them that the college fund that they set aside will be used up for the funeral service? How do you convince them that none of this was their fault?

How do you tell yourself that you have done the best that you can do? How do you tell yourself that you have explored all the options? How do you tell yourself that nine years of medical college and there is nothing that you can do except watch helplessly? How do you tell yourself that what you are doing isn’t a waste of time?

Simple. You don’t tell anyone anything. I did just that. I went home. Swiped my card at the Chemo block and went home.

The patient’s name was Smita. Smita Jayakumar. All of nine years old. Terminal stage of lung cancer. It has been a week since I saw her first. A frail, sick looking child sitting in a wheelchair near the registration counter.

I wish I had taken off that day. I wish I had never seen her. I wish I had never stopped to say hi. I wish I never had a glance at her chart. I wish I never met Dr. Agarwal, chief of medicine that day and got assigned to her case.

What is done is done. I thought it would be another typical case. Having worked in the cancer ward for 5 years, I have learnt to separate emotions from work. It was one of the toughest things and also the first thing that I had to learn and learn quickly. I thought of myself as an expert in that but somehow this got to me.

Smita wasn’t the normal kid that I am used to. 5 years and 22 deaths later, that is a huge statement to make. I have seen kids barely out of their teens, newly married people starting on their life; old people ending their life and one case of a baby succumb to this life-altering disease. But never have I seen such a patient.

Never again will i too.

Day 2