Some incidents in life always wants to teach you a great deal not because you are wrong but because you over look sometimes. when i discovered this most unusual incident in my life which made a great impact on me and something i can never forget in my entire life.
I was doing my masters in Bombay (now called Mumbai) where i used to see tons of amputee patients everyday and used to finish their evaluation,diagnosis and treatment plan, all in a given timeframe. though a hectic schedule but it used to be fun.my profession has taught me to treat all as one and i always did so but i am human and i can make mistakes.
A patient once very filthy (i should not use such words for patients but most of them belonged from a low socio-economic strata of society) came in his pyjamas with one leg amputation to get a artificial leg fixed for himself. I took him to one of the cubicles which was covered by curtains and started taking our usual basic history for my subjective evaluation. For the first time working in this profession i felt very disgusted to stand near a patient. My olfactory nerve were constantly making me aware of the odor coming from him and i was trying to side myself every time. He smelled tobacco,the smell of his clothes made me nauseatic and i guess they were not clean since a year or so and his overall persona forced me to finish my case history at the earliest. I tried hastening the whole process at that moment but still there were number of things i had to test on him like to decide which prosthesis was good for his condition n all. Taking the advantage of knowing several languages in India always helps especially if you are in a profession where you meet people who are so culturally diverse.
A friend came to help me so we could go for lunch and our conversation began in medical terms which patients generally don't understand. The patients occupational history didn't leave a good impression on me as he was a beggar by profession, a homeless,he sold tobacco in train and consumed the left over everyday, he slept on the platforms and continued the same routine every day. We had a medical social worker in our university and so i thought to help him in some way but the smell still killed me and forced me to finish my stuff. My examiner was waiting for me to present the case and my friends for lunch. How difficult a situation can sometime become when you stop behaving like professionals .Someone called in between and i said “the patient is stinking too much” in English because by that time i figured out the native language of patient was Hindi. For me to start measuring his limb girth i wanted him to get out of his pyjamas so that i could get a perfect measurement of his residuals but he denied to have extra clothings with him and said he has the same pair of clothes since he left home. I was touched by his words and wanted to know more about him and help him. But he was not interested. He kept giving me blessings and asked me to make him alright. He came for treatment after 5 years of amputation which was not a good sign of prognosis because this requires active participation from patient and the cause of his amputation was gangrene with history of diabetes which was not a simple case to follow up but there was some missing link to all this i could sense “i am not getting the history properly from the patient” i told my examiner who was on the other side of the curtain. No patient comes so late for the prosthetic leg . Gait training becomes so difficult as the neurons in the brain starts to loose the site of lost leg and retraining is mostly unsuccessful and many patients have to go back to crutches. We have to do our duty and provide the best care always. The patient got a loose cloth from someone who accompanied him to the hospital who was his companion and did the same job. Mean while i described the whole episode to my examiner and he insisted that we should not get prejudiced by someone's outlook and i should not spend much time on such things and should finish the measurements and leave him. “His new outfit had much weird fragrance than the earlier one”i said from the other end of the curtain “he is really very dirty and its getting difficult for me to take the measurements”when i turned to the patient to continue what i was doing,he sat over from supine and said “I am not dirty daughter, its my hard luck that i appear dirty”, i was stunned. He knew English and i kept blabbering thinking he was uneducated(In India English was known only to educated people) and he was listening to all my frustration which i was facing while evaluating him, I felt very ashamed. I didn't know how to face him and what to speak of, all that i just did was a big blind mistake which should not be forgiven but he was so kind enough to tell me that i am sorry if you are feeling bad for yourself . “I can understand whats happening with you right now. You are like my daughter and my doctor who will make me normal so that i can go walking to my house. 5 years back i left my house in the same clothes i have now because my wife wanted me to get a prosthetic leg immediately after my amputation as she felt ashamed that i had gangrene and was handicap now. I was so depressed with all this that i left my wife, my daughter who was so much like you and my son. After i left, i realized i had nothing to do because i was a amputee, i slept on the platform since then and now thats my home. I earn a living which gives a bread everyday and nothing more and now after 5 years i have realized that my wife was so correct and i want to go back to her and i want you to make me alright.so i have come to you to get new legs and will go to her walking with them..i want to see them and you are the only person who can help me and make me walk. I didn't feel bad for anything you said , may be I deserve this” .. i had tears in my eyes by now and i kept saying sorry to him that i underestimated him just by his outlook .i was so wrong . My examiner was listening to the whole conversation from the other end, that made me feel more guilty. When i came out of the cubicle after finishing the whole examination ..my examiner looked at me and said..its ok for what happened with you right now because you will never commit a mistake like this in your entire life now,not that you did wrong, you just misjudged a situation . A situation which is practically bound to happen but technically should never occur. I feel bad even today for what i did. But i know i will never commit a mistake like this again till i am alive.
Suspenseful and close to home, Rain of Deception 2 will leave you in Tears. Much like Part 1, this will shocking sequel will keep you on the edge of your fingertips.
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Some incidents in life always wants to teach you a great deal not because you are wrong but because you over look sometimes. when i discovered this most unusual incident in my life which made a great impact on me and something i can never forget in my entire life.
