2020- AN UNPRECEDENTED YEAR

 

                                                                                                              

2020- AN UNPRECEDENTED YEAR.

Began with the usual gung-ho about having a ‘happy new year’, dancing, drinking, hugging, throwing treacle in the air, balloons and fire-crackers lighting up the sky as the world merrily bid good-bye to 2019.

A quiet January, a few short holidays thrown in here and there, resolutions stand broken and life gets on, seemingly normal, unsuspecting of the stealthily crouching tiger in your back-yard.

By February, reports filter in about a viral disease spreading in faraway China, where people were being asked/ forced to stay at home, doctors being picked up and transported for service to unknown destinations for an indefinite time. Pictures of deserted Wuhan captured the imagination of millions across the globe, yet for us, it was far too away. Life went on.

Early march, Italy and Spain repulsed under the attack of the virus, now known as Covid-19 and the sand under the feet shook. Trips to European cities stayed suspended as it was they who were affected. We were still denying its existence and went on with our routine.

Mid- March, international travelers brought the first few cases, a days’ Janata curfew followed by first ever lockdown for next three weeks brought our country to a grinding halt. International borders were sealed, air traffic halted and states closed vehicular movement.

Migration of a panicked, scared people working in other than their home states and now dying to go home became a crisis of getting thrown out of their homes for fear of bringing in the disease and deaths in uncountable numbers as they walked in hordes from one state to another in blistering heat.

The virus had attacked, pandemic was declared, hospitals burst at seams with patients coming in with anything from a running nose to severe breathlessness and some dying on hospital stretchers even before help could reach. ICUs seemed inadequate and none knew which medicines worked.

The count was rising and rising and rising!

Protocols during the next few months got set and re-set even as hundreds of doctors, over-worked, tired, breathless behind PPE kits, scared, affected and even dying of the illness, kept their chin up and fought to snatch as many lives as could be from the clutches of this monster virus.

Festivals, gatherings, weddings, parties were banned and face-mask became the unique tiny piece of apparel that would save hundreds of lives.

Economy took the worst hit as businesses spiraled into oblivion, the biggest IT industry moved inside homes of the millions of computer engineers, hotels closed down, tourism stopped and movie theatres remained a memory for avid movie-goers.

The world had changed. 

A new-normal had set in.

The year slowly chugging towards its fag end is a little better today, protocols are in place, drugs are helping in most cases, sero-surveillance and testing are getting that magical dip in numbers, the dipping counts and increasing recoveries, unburdening the massive weight of the health care system as the economy and people movement limps back to sanity. Scientists across the world are in the race to find the magical bullet!

2020 is a year no one will forget and no one wants to remember.

Here is a list of the good, bad and the ugly!

 

WHAT WENT OUT-

Trust.

Get-togethers, weddings, parties, discotheques, social gatherings,  meetings with relatives, going out-just like that.

Movies, eating out, restaurants, bonhomie over craft beer, Gym work-outs, cross-trainers and tread-mills running simultaneously, personal trainers helping you push that last weight.

 Small and large businesses, shopping sprees in malls, crowding in favorite shops for that exclusive item, gold buying in festivals.

Short and long vacations, international travel, flying without fear, night plying sleeper coaches, packed trains.

School, college, new books, new friends, old friends, smell of brown paper and scented erasor, afternoon tiffin, canteen samosas, after- school sports coaching,  tuition, classes, cycle rides to school and back, screaming with excitement in packed buses taking them home, black-board teaching, attendance, home-work, exams and results.

Parks and gardens, beach-fronts and camping sites buzzing with butterflies and delightfully prancing kids.

Public transport, bursting-at-seams local trains and buses, gossip and house work in cramped spaces of local trains, sweaty hands hanging in tiniest spaces of trains and buses to reach home, pushing and jostling to break the serpentine queues, the ubiquitous black and yellow, now mostly white taxi.

Hugs, kisses, PDA’s, one-nights, hand-shakes, late-night adventures, long drives.

WHAT CAME IN-

The new normal.

Fear of life.

Chirping birds, flocks of crows and parrots and sparrows, an occasional leopard or a mongoose or dolphins dancing on sea waves.

Clean air, low pollution levels, less carbon di-oxide damage, green covers.

Families together in large or cramped houses, increased inter-personal communication, more time with children, maid-less homes, learning to cook, wash, iron, clean, and also familiarity breeding irritation, domestic problems and violence, separations, divorces.

Less traffic, less consumption of energy fuels.

You-tube cooking, baking, new business ideas, new survival techniques

WHAT WE LEARNT-

That majority of the work goes on without having to move into tiny cubicles called offices- in short the concept of WFH.

The idea that irrespective of availability of extremely advanced health infra-structure, if you do not respect your body, an infinitesimally small particle will destroy it.

The idea that doctors fight just like the brave men and women protecting our borders but  are human too and need to be cared for and respected just like every other element in the society.

The idea that life can go on without spending endlessly and recklessly.

The idea that basic survival needs are very minimal.

The idea that ‘big fat wedding’, gold, silver, property, assets are not the main reason of happiness.

The idea that people we love, or who love us matter more than our race to reach the top.

The idea that we are ‘mortal’ with a limited time on hand.

 YOLO.

WORDS WE LOVED, HATED, FEARED, UNDERSTOOD, USED AND NEVER WANT TO HEAR AGAIN- ( in Alphabetical order)

Antibody

Antigen

Borders sealed

Bubble

Corona

Covid care centres

Hand washing

ICMR

Lockdown- 1, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0…………

Mask

Migration

Mission begin Again

Nasal/throat swab

Pandemic

Quarantine

Rt-PCR

Social distancing

Ventilators

Virus

Webinars

WHO

Zoom meetings

 

THE ONLY WORD THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR-

VACCINE

 

Wishing all a hopeful 2021

 

 

Dr. Reina Khadilkar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DO I KNOW YOU- ITS ABOUT LOVE, FAITH AND CARE!

 

DO I KNOW YOU- ITS ABOUT LOVE, FAITH AND CARE

Prayer

 My uncle Mr. Shashi Kudrimoti, whom I have written about passed away yesterday, hopefully peacefully, a victim of the menacing virus that has attacked the human race. He is at peace, unburdened by the challenges of daily chores and the ordinary routine that silently makes our day, day in and out. Life has unchained him from loneliness that he fought for, for almost three decades, the last decade unknowingly and in utter sufferance. We in the family, hope this salvation gives him peace, quiet and a release from the ravages of Alzheimer.

I had written this a few days back and was to publish this as a tribute to the love that bonds this family and faith that can move mountains. I know these words didn’t matter to him just as everything else considering his illness. But I hope my prayer reaches his soul.

Dear Shashi kaka, you have been exemplary in life, illness and death! Go in peace.

 

DO I KNOW YOU?

One of my uncles who is now in his early eighties is suffering from Alzheimer’s for the past decade and has had to be institutionalized for care under supervision. He lives in a hospital for the mentally disabled, has a tiny room that includes a small bed, a table which he has no use of and a chair on which he sits only when the assistant helps him to. Perched on the table are a couple of photo-frames of his near and dear ones, whom he occasionally recognizes but immediately forgets. His physical stature is far from what he was a decade ago. The fair, medium tall, good looking, almost like a filmi hero, brilliant engineer who successfully retired as a top executive in a multi-national company, is now reduced to a shriveled old man whose once handsome features stick out prominently on sunken listless unrecognizing eyes and cheeks that almost touch each other from the inside. The characteristic laughter that defined the men in our family, is long buried, replaced by a slight movement, almost a quiver of a smile. Only, he is not aware that it’s a smile.

The routine which we all take for granted has deserted him long ago. Wearing clothes, slipping on flip-flops on feet, combing what is left on the dry pate, even the daily brushing of teeth is no longer his domain. Routine can happen only when a care giver will start his duty hours and do his job. The cup that cheers is now just a liquid that needs to be pushed down the stubborn unrelenting throat because the nurse says so.  It doesn’t matter if there is a potato or a brinjal, (which he hated once upon a time), he has no recognition of what is going down the gullet to keep him alive. The choice of shirt or the pair of pants to match are not his concern at all. Occasionally, there is a burst of emotion, an angry word shot out through a feeble voice or an angry gesture that hardly has any strength with it.

Sometimes in a flash, the kids’ names appear in his memory. How are they, he asks the care giver and even before the reply, the face is blank, the memory lost and the eyes see nothing.

 Is it a day or is it night already? Do I know me? Do I know you?

Yet in this sea of lost pathway, a bright light burns elsewhere. His sister, my aunt to be more precise, in her seventies no less, is the beacon that gives meaning to his existence. She visits him regularly, unmindful of her physical ailments, and spends precious time regaling him with stories of a happy yet long lost childhood, updating him on his children’s progress and nagging him for not eating well. Yet she knows that it all comes to a naught with him. Once in a while, he appears to recognize her and a smile lights up his face when he sees her. Its momentary, like a flash. Next moment it’s a blank face again. He has no memory of his sister. She smiles indulgently, holding his hand!

A few days back, we received a picture on WA which showed my aunt and her family celebrating his birthday with cake and candles. Her gentle hand guided his to the cake and she smiled with utmost warmth as she fed him a piece of cake, knowing fully well that he had no cognizance of what was happening around him.

Long time ago, I had read about the story of an old man who used to visit his wife suffering from Alzheimer disease, who had to be kept in an asylum.  In spite of his severely arthritic knees, he hobbled every single day with a news-paper and a thermos of tea, sat next to her as she lay staring listlessly in her bed, patiently read out the news, especially the editorial which she used to love, tell her how funny the cartoon for the day is, fold back the paper and walk back home hobbling again. This went on for many days. Finally, the doctor called him in his office and counselled him in the gentlest possible voice, “You know Sir, you should stop coming here. She is not getting any better and she does not understand a word of what you say. In fact, she doesn’t even know you”. The old man looked towards the doctor with the most loving eyes and said “Yes Doctor,I know she doesnt know me, but I know her”.

Alzheimer’s disease, also referred to simply as Alzheimer's, is a long-term degenerative disease of the brain that usually starts slowly and gradually worsens over time. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events.  As the disease advances, symptoms include disorientation (including easily getting lost), mood swings, loss of motivation, not managing self, and emotional and behavioral issues. As a person's condition declines, they often withdraw from family and society. Gradually, bodily functions are lost, ultimately leading to death.

 It was in1901 that German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer identified the first case of what became known as Alzheimer's disease, named after him, in a fifty-year-old woman he called Auguste D. He followed her case until she died in 1906, when he first reported publicly on it.

The cause of Alzheimer’s is still a big mystery even after advanced studies on genetics, cellular proteins and enzymes that can cause or prevent ageing and degeneration of the brain. The genetic inheritability, the Amyloid deposition theory, the tau protein theory, so may hypotheses, yet none that could be substantiated for finding a cure.

The bottom line is that we still are very far away from understanding the cause. What remains is fighting the battle together against Alzheimer.

The delaying of symptoms and management has been quite clear and the role of the family, treating doctor, physiotherapist and above all, the caregiver cannot be overemphasized. An active surrounding that keeps the mind alert needs to be created. Physical exercise, mental activity like reading, playing chess and other board games, even a musical instrument keeps the disease at bay although does not stop its advancement. Learning a second language can be helpful as it stimulates the memory and cognitive parts of the brain. Diet also plays a role, as foods rich in saturated fats and simple carbs appear to increase the disease process. Flavonoids and a healthy diet can help in prolonging symptoms.

 More importantly, it is the loving environment and the care given by near and dear ones that will keep the symptoms from rapidly worsening.

The cascade of degeneration never stops. Lot of adjustments have to be done. The deterioration has to be accepted and faced by the entire family and trained caregivers have to be appointed. Economics and other logistics have to be worked out.  It is very traumatic to see the gross physical and mental degeneration of a loved one. The daily fear of protecting your loved one from the inability to comprehend the surrounding gets the better of the entire family. But the collective strength of the family can help us to face this very distressing and challenging and losing battle of our loved one.

The facilities, although available in our country are yet to be at par with those in the developed countries. What sets us apart is that here the family stands with untold love and courage for these hapless victims of age, which is half the battle won! The unconditional care and love given by near and dear ones may not always reach the sufferer, but it definitely makes those flash of moments where memory blinks, happy for that person. It also helps to assauge the guilt we all feel for being normal when disease strikes our loved one, eating his/her body and mind slowly, surely, permanently!

Scientists across the world are working hard to find a way to catch the dreadful ailment and nip it in the bud and eventually find a cure so that all of us can grow old without the fear of losing our mind and body to the ravages of age and degeneration of the brain. 

When I see people like my paternal Aunt selflessly caring for her brother who no longer recognizes her, I am humbled to be a part of this family where love and courage conquers all, and defeats, not the disease, but the purpose of it.

My dear Uncle, You may no longer recognize them but your family knows you and loves you deeply.

REINA KHADILKAR