It was 5 minutes to 10 when I checked the
clock. Wow! I exclaimed to myself, I have the whole morning still in front of
me to work! I work from home and on my dining table. Don't laugh at me, because
from there I can preside over my house help, make sure my Mother goes to the
hospital for the 3 times a week dialysis and also take care of the couriers and
sundry other visitors. I give instructions for what will be cooked and at times
walk into the kitchen to make sure the recipe is accurately being followed. In
short, I am a work at home, home maker cum working mom. And I am skilled in
many other home tasks. I have scoured, plastered and painted a room, cleaned
spark plugs in a car, repaired a wall that had lost all its plaster-of-paris
coating, I am quite tom boyish and would take on any task absolutely. My
husband is blessed in short, to have such an uncomplaining wife. Smile! Smile!
But I never knew that saving life was to be added in my list of odd jobs.
Getting back to
where I began. At 10:00 a.m. I had just made a call that had not been picked
up. I was planning to leave a message so the person would call me back. My
mother's care giver shouted from the balcony, "Aunty,
Aunty!" Her voice
getting louder and more anxious. We ran!
My full time maid, the cleaning maid and I. I reached first, to find my mother
having a seizure, her mouth open on one side, crooked, her face hardened, she
had no consciousness, her body stiffening. I thought it was a heart attack. We
immediately put her flat on the floor. Just
last evening I was in an exhibition and a girl had fainted, my colleague, a Retired
Navy commander had done exactly that to revive her, serendipity! My mother’s
tongue rolled out and she bit it, blood trickled out of the tongue. I opened
her mouth and pushed the tongue in. Her eyes were wide open and rolled up. Her
lips blue. The maids began to cry. I took courage and remembered the
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation process (CPR). Heave, heave heave, at the chest
and blow in through the mouth. I had forgotten the exact method, but I kept
pressing the chest and blowing into her mouth.
Call the
Ambulance! I thought. I could not operate the smart phone, my hands were
wet and shaky. I had 3 house helps at home, all 3 had no idea what to do. I
sent one to get a neighbour, who would take charge of the phone. The sun shone
down at us at the balcony, where my mother lay unconscious. I prayed, as I
resuscitated her, that she may not die like this. Two of the maids rubbed her
hands and legs frantically. I had no hope, there was no pulse that I could
detect. There was just a limp body which we kept resuscitating and massaging hopelessly.
I finally called the ambulance, the first number, I was put on hold. The next
number, I had luck, the ambulance started from the hospital. I calculated 45
minutes in rush hour traffic. I realised I was not making any progress with my
mother. I called a Doctor friend from another city and took his help to learn
the right technique to resuscitate. I called my husband, but he would take time
to come. A neighbour was still needed. One of them had shut her door in some
sort of urban fear of death and dying!
Finally a
neighbour called, we had plans to meet that day, she was just checking if I was
available, I asked her to come, and she came almost instantly. It was she who took
charge of the phone from that moment on, coordinating with the ambulance, my
husband, the maids and my doctor friend's instructions. She also tried to find
a doctor in the apartment. With her around, many thanks to her presence, I put
my entire attention to my mother's resuscitation.
Nobody can give or
take a life. God made it such that only he knows when a person will cross the
threshold of life into death. We are just mediums. And on that day I was going
to be his medium to save my mother. I saw a faint twitch of an eyelid and I
knew she was alive. Then a finger just barely moved and I knew she was trying
to get back, and then slowly, laboriously, she became more and more present and
I knew it was working. Heave! heave! heave! blow in, I kept doing it till she
got up. And then the doctor friend called again, he kept calling me to check
the progress, bless the good soul, he advised for us to get some sugar syrup,
she might be hypoglycaemic (extremely low blood sugar level, it is really
dangerous for diabetics). We made half a cup of sugar syrup and started
spooning it into my mother’s mouth. By this time the ambulance arrived. 40
minutes after the ordeal began. She drank half of the syrup by the time the
paramedics were in my house.
The 40 minutes of
hell had ended, I got up from the balcony exhausted, my knees would give way
but I kept standing, I had yet more to do. I was walking in a trance. A state
of shock I could not easily snap out of. I just kept up with the task at hand.
I realised I had just brought back my Mother to life. A person who was ailing
for almost 3 years now. Someone who was praying to God to not live. Who am I to
take that decision on behalf of God? I feared relapse, I feared the worse. I
went in the ambulance holding my mother's hand all the while, giving her hope.
She hung by a thin line, hope mixed with fear and exhaustion. At the hospital Emergency
Unit, the doctors took her over, informed me their course of action, a routine
procedure, and handed me the slip to get my mother admitted to the ICU. I just
held the slip and sat outside the emergency ward, waiting for my husband to
come. I knew everything could wait for now. I could depend on him now. My
husband arrived surprisingly quickly and took charge of her admission process.
As we sat down to have tea after the admission I realised I had an unsteady
gait, I could not hold myself together anymore. We rested long enough so I
could be back on my feet.
19 years ago at
the midnight of 6th December, 1997, my dad had succumbed to a heart attack. I
have no idea if I could have revived him, I was asleep when he passed away. I
have carried a guilt since that time. As my mother lay limp, I begged God to
not do it again.
Here are a few
tips you need to know when a person is having a seizure:
- Do not get
nervous, you are the only life saver at that moment. Doctors and paramedics
come in later.
- Make the person
lie down flat on the floor and lift the mouth upward, lift up the legs by
putting pillows under the legs. Do not use a pillow below the head under any
circumstances. You have to open up the trachea (the wind pipe, connecting to
the lung), if the head is raised the trachea gets blocked.
- Don't let the
tongue roll out. Put a spoon in the mouth so the tongue stays in the mouth. I
kept opening and pushing the tongue back in place.
- With your palms,
one on top of the other, push the sternum (Chest), at the middle, hard. I
feared I might damage the rib, the doctors say that even if you did, the person
would still be saved, but I would suggest to be mindful of the pressure.
- Press the chest
three times and then open the mouth and blow in air covering the patient’s
mouth fully in yours. Blow in hard.
- Under no
circumstances make the person sit or attempt to take her to hospital in your
car. Those minutes can be used successfully by administering CPR.
- Remember it is
important that oxygen is being supplied to the patient, else the patient may
end up getting paralysed. Therefore the blowing in of air mouth to mouth is
done.
- Once the patient
is conscious enough, administer sugar syrup to the patient, 3 spoons of sugar
and a pinch of salt in half a cup of water.
CPR is an
exhausting process, sweat dripped from my forehead, my arms buckled. As for the
patient, CPR leaves her in immense pain. There are excruciating muscle pains on
the chest area, which last as long as three months. Recovery is a painful
process. CPR cannot be administered very frequently to a person.
Life is beautiful.
Inexplicable and complex. Painful yet addictive. I am addicted to life and so
is everyone else. And that is one addiction we could live with!
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