OUR 2021 STORY...IT CAN BE TOLD NOW

Perseverance pays at the end.

- Padmaja Menon

In the Malayalam film Meri Awaj Suno, the hero goes through a bad patch of sound loss and treatment for throat cancer. It jerked my memory to the year before. 1 July 2021.

Tomorrow is 1 July 2022 It sent a shudder through me. Last year, it had been a disruptive date and a bad ...nay terrible year. It had overwhelmed us and difficult emotions like fear and worry, profound sadness, despair and grief had coursed through all four of us.

The feeling, that I will never be able to cope all alone as my daughters Saum and Puju were far away and Covid did not make the situation easier, ate into me. The emotional upheaval that I went through had made it difficult for me to think straight. The thought of 'can I cope...?' was foremost in my mind. That story can be told now...

Lord and master, my pet name for my husband, a chronic gas and constipation patient was going through a bad time. Any visit to hospital was a taboo due to Covid scare. Though he was advised a colonoscopy earlier, fear of Covid had numbed us and our common sense.

Feeling guilty about that if we had got it done, we would have been safe...that guilt will remain all our life. But then it’s all fated.

29th June. Lord and master was on tenterhooks. He had not been eating too well for a few days and bloating was on an all-time high. He groaned that there was something in his stomach. But because he was constantly complaining of gas and bloating, did not pay much attention.

Mean me...? But then things got worse. He began to gag and became nauseous at the sight of food and that was when I took action. Covid be damned. I booked an Ola (thank goodness for them) and reached Aster Hospital.