Manjeet Singh writing.  Thought I would update you what is going on within our family unit while I am off work.  (Am off work today and tomorrow; I am a doctor.  I am a neurosurgeon.)

I have been married to my wonderful wife, Aasha, for over fifteen years; we have two beautiful children:  ten-year-old Vida Chunarum, and six-year-old Sanjeet Raneesh.  Sanjeet is severely disabled:  he will never be able to feed himself, walk, talk, dress himself, or see.  He accidentally hung himself while playing on a rope swing, and it cut off his air.  He was without oxygen for over a half hour to forty five minutes before he could be revived by doctors.  It was a horrible, tragic accident that didn't have to happen.

I know we cannot protect our children from some accidents when they occur, but I sometimes blame myself.  I wonder if I could have done more to protect him so he wouldn't end up the way he did.  Now he lives in a home for severely handicapped children, where professionals provide for his daily needs or give him his medications every four/five hours.  Our home life is too busy.  My wife is a full time homemaker while I work at the hospital upwards to 90 or even 100 hours per week (give or take a few).  Our daughter is busy too, with sports; she is a naturally gifted athlete and is incredibly smart, too.

I was home when the accident occurred.  I will never forget the sharp scream emitted by my daughter; when I found our son lying on the floor, with the rope wrapped around his neck, face all blue, I thought instantly that he was dead; however, my medical expertise took hold, and I began to help my son, begging, willing, pleading him to start breathing again, as I breathed air into his mouth and nose.

It was a terrifying moment.  I had Vida call mama on her cell phone; she was home within minutes.  Before I did that, though, I had Vida call for the ambulance; they said they'd be at our residence within moments.  When they came, it was only three minutes after we'd called; yet it seemed like hours.

I never felt as helpless as I did when I watched the paramedics working feverishly on our little boy.  All I could do was hold my wife and daughter and cry helplessly.

While in the ambulance, they managed to bring our son back, but there were signs that he might have sustained severe brain damage.  Having a child in the shape Sanjeet was in was bad enough; to find out that our baby boy was possibly brain damaged was much more than we could stand.  All we could do in that moment was pray to our god and ask him to protect our child and bring him back to us.

We saw Sanjeet later in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.  He was hooked up to a whole forest of tubes; we could barely see him for all the tubes and wires crisscrossing his tiny, flaccid body.  It was the worst moment we could have ever faced as parents:  we were so certain that our little boy was going to die.

Eventually, Sanjeet woke up from his coma.  The news, however, wasn't good.  He sustained severe, irreversable damage to his brain:  he would be permanently disabled.  He would never walk, talk, feed or dress himself, or even see.  He would need twenty-four hour medical care; doctors advised us on putting him in a home; we rebelled, fought against it.  We thought we could handle taking care of Sanjeet on our own.

We couldn't have been more wrong.  Taking care of him was nothing short of a nightmare.  We soon made the painful decision of having him placed in a home for severely disabled children because the stress imposed on us was too great.  Our family was falling apart because most of our waking hours were spent dealing with our disabled son.

Even our daughter suffered:  her grades dropped drastically and she held no interest in the things she loved:  she became very depressed.  So did Aasha and myself; yet I dealt with it by putting on a brave affront and throwing myself full throttle into my work as a physician.

I couldn't deal with it, so I buried it deep in the recesses of my mind.  I wanted to forget all about Sanjeet and his problems.

Now it has been nearly three years since that terrible day, and there isn't a day where I don't think about Sanjeet.  I wonder if he is getting enough care or if he is happy or comfortable.  I wonder if people even respond to him whenever he needs his diapers changed or is due for another feeding or another round of medications.  I wonder if he even thinks of us or even knows what is going on around him. 

It is a terrible way for a child to live:  Sanjeet should be running around, laughing, talking, enjoying the discoveries of life, just as he used to before he nearly hung himself on that rope swing.  I feel terrible for him, and even though I know it was only an unfortunate accident, I still blame myself because I didn't do more to keep him from getting injured like he did.

Well, we are going to go visit Sanjeet at the home, so I will go now.  I or Aasha will write another day, with another update.  Until then, this is Manjeet Singh saying so long!  Talk to you again soon!

~Manjeet.