I live a very moderate kind of life. Nothing like live-life-king-size and I like it that way. My friend circle also consist of such like minded people. So, usually there is nothing dramatic happening around me. Of course, my level of understanding people is constantly declining which lead to surprises every now and then but still it is not close to what happened last weekend.
A friend of mine living in the same town as me called on Saturday morning (last week) and asked if I could drive him immediately to the town of Regensburg which is around 500 kms from our city. He didn't had a driving license and taking a train or flight would take more time. A friend of his had taken about 100 paracetamol tablets in batches of 50 in a span of 10 minutes, the night before (reasons not known). He was now in the hospital struggling for his life. As soon as I heard that, frankly speaking I was at loss of words and also emotions. I felt like laughing at this since I believed such things only happened in Bollywood. So, I asked my friend if he was kidding. Hearing the seriousness in his tone, I quickly realized that things were pretty nasty. The guy was seriously struggling for life since his liver was failing and needed a transplant. Kidney was next in line.
Without loosing any time, I packed some clothes, picked up my friend from his place and off we were to Regensburg. I had met this guy previously on one or two occasions before at some get-together parties. So, I vaguely knew who he was. The mood on the way was tensed. There was hardly any talking except preparing ourselves for the worst. At times, we were trying to narrow down the reasons which could have made him take such drastic steps. He came from a well off family, is the only son, had a decent education and job. So, we could not make out any logical reasons behind his actions. In the end, we gave up and concentrated our energies on what was about to come next.
The scene when we arrived at the hospital was pretty crazy. The guy was in ICU and really struggling to survive. He was in so much pain that he even told us it would have been easier to die than to end up like this. We tried our best to console him and stayed by his side all the time before the doctors asked us to leave. We kept in constant touch with his parents who did not even had a passport back in India. Usually, I am a person strictly against the idea of 'jugaad' but this was one of the few times when I did not cared what means I was using to get his parents here. The only target was to get them here asap. No useful contacts were left unexploited. They arrived on Wednesday but the two days on Sunday and Monday were really crucial.
There is some sort of a liver value which under normal conditions is around 70. It was running at 14 for this guy on Saturday evening and still dropping. By early Sunday morning it dropped to 7. He was already on the list of donated liver recipients but by Sunday he was moved at the top of the list under the most critical situation. His kidneys were also failing to process the liquid intake and was close to be put on a dialysis machine. There were several other patients also in the same ICU. Two were on ventilators, one was lying with his chest still half open for the surgeries to be carried next, one was completely yellow in color and was in dialysis. There was one time when I myself was about to throw up seeing all this. I don't think I have ever seen such disturbing images with my own eyes except on TV and I always thought I had a strong stomach to see everything. That situation was proving me wrong.
Saturday and Sunday went hard, real hard. I think it was one of the longest weekends I ever had in my life. The doctors tried to gave him blood plasma but somehow his body rejected it. He got all red and developed allergies. Doctors had to counter their actions by giving some other medicines. There was always that machine used to give shock to the chest ready by his bedside. Due to the partially working kidneys, the water in his body kept pushing up to the lungs and he had trouble breathing. He was constantly having hiccups. But miraculously on Monday afternoon, things started to change. His values started to stabilize. Suddenly, there was a chance of recovery. There was time when we thought we almost lost the guy. But he was lucky. Destiny had planned something else for him. He was still in a critical situation but was recovering steadily.
Finally, his parents arrived on Wednesday and it was a tough sight for them as well. It was good that they did not saw him two days back. We took a sigh of relief and handed over the son to his parents. We were happy that we handing him over in relatively better shape. I am not sure how we would have faced the parents in case something bad happened. Anyways, we made sure the parents knew their way around and how to commute between the hospital and their apartment since me and my friend had planned to return to our city the next day.
Before returning on Thursday, we went to say him goodbyes. I could not hold myself back when he took our hands and said please don't go. Stay ! We consoled him, cracked a couple of jokes to lift his spirits and then left. We were dead tired on our way back but still the feeling of relief that all ended well was constantly providing us the energy. Finally, it was all over. A heck of a weekend !
Without loosing any time, I packed some clothes, picked up my friend from his place and off we were to Regensburg. I had met this guy previously on one or two occasions before at some get-together parties. So, I vaguely knew who he was. The mood on the way was tensed. There was hardly any talking except preparing ourselves for the worst. At times, we were trying to narrow down the reasons which could have made him take such drastic steps. He came from a well off family, is the only son, had a decent education and job. So, we could not make out any logical reasons behind his actions. In the end, we gave up and concentrated our energies on what was about to come next.
The scene when we arrived at the hospital was pretty crazy. The guy was in ICU and really struggling to survive. He was in so much pain that he even told us it would have been easier to die than to end up like this. We tried our best to console him and stayed by his side all the time before the doctors asked us to leave. We kept in constant touch with his parents who did not even had a passport back in India. Usually, I am a person strictly against the idea of 'jugaad' but this was one of the few times when I did not cared what means I was using to get his parents here. The only target was to get them here asap. No useful contacts were left unexploited. They arrived on Wednesday but the two days on Sunday and Monday were really crucial.
There is some sort of a liver value which under normal conditions is around 70. It was running at 14 for this guy on Saturday evening and still dropping. By early Sunday morning it dropped to 7. He was already on the list of donated liver recipients but by Sunday he was moved at the top of the list under the most critical situation. His kidneys were also failing to process the liquid intake and was close to be put on a dialysis machine. There were several other patients also in the same ICU. Two were on ventilators, one was lying with his chest still half open for the surgeries to be carried next, one was completely yellow in color and was in dialysis. There was one time when I myself was about to throw up seeing all this. I don't think I have ever seen such disturbing images with my own eyes except on TV and I always thought I had a strong stomach to see everything. That situation was proving me wrong.
Saturday and Sunday went hard, real hard. I think it was one of the longest weekends I ever had in my life. The doctors tried to gave him blood plasma but somehow his body rejected it. He got all red and developed allergies. Doctors had to counter their actions by giving some other medicines. There was always that machine used to give shock to the chest ready by his bedside. Due to the partially working kidneys, the water in his body kept pushing up to the lungs and he had trouble breathing. He was constantly having hiccups. But miraculously on Monday afternoon, things started to change. His values started to stabilize. Suddenly, there was a chance of recovery. There was time when we thought we almost lost the guy. But he was lucky. Destiny had planned something else for him. He was still in a critical situation but was recovering steadily.
Finally, his parents arrived on Wednesday and it was a tough sight for them as well. It was good that they did not saw him two days back. We took a sigh of relief and handed over the son to his parents. We were happy that we handing him over in relatively better shape. I am not sure how we would have faced the parents in case something bad happened. Anyways, we made sure the parents knew their way around and how to commute between the hospital and their apartment since me and my friend had planned to return to our city the next day.
Before returning on Thursday, we went to say him goodbyes. I could not hold myself back when he took our hands and said please don't go. Stay ! We consoled him, cracked a couple of jokes to lift his spirits and then left. We were dead tired on our way back but still the feeling of relief that all ended well was constantly providing us the energy. Finally, it was all over. A heck of a weekend !
4 comments:
May be his work here was not yet finished. But really life is way too precious for losing it this way!
That's too sad. Once he recovers physically, he needs a lot of psychological help. Hope he gets better soon.
Hopefully this guy will get the help he needs in the form of therapy. And no, it doesn't just happen in movies...I have clients who have attempted overdoses more than once. One of them has damaged her liver at the age of 14.
The good news is that he is recovering fast !
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