An uncomfortably narrow escape

Days after suddenly waking up in a hospital bed with no absolutely no recollection of how I got there, I am unbelievably grateful to have emerged from the other side of an unnerving ordeal

I’m so relieved to be writing this column from the other side of my recent ordeal. I spent almost 10 days hospitalised with a case of bacterial meningitis which had spread to a bone in my brain. I have zero consciousness of driving with the ambulance. I only remember waking up at some point to glimpses of a somewhat robotic nurse monitoring my blood pressure, temperature and pulse. I had only questions, but the nurse didn’t make it easy for me. She asked me if I knew where I was, and I responded Bozen because that is where I had a memory of going to some days before at midnight, when I had what felt like an earache from hell. She said we were in Meran. I assumed she was tricking me into saying I was in Bozen. But she didn’t seem so keen on correcting me or disabusing me of any notion of where I was. It seemed irrelevant to her in that moment that I be made aware of where I was. She only told me that my ear had been operated upon during an emergency procedure. I suppose that was what I needed to know most of all, even though the information did nothing to make me feel less scared. It left me with more questions that I had originally anticipated. Because my right ear had already been operated upon once when I was a child, at Holy Family Hospital in Bandra. When did things go so south that I had to be operated upon again?

I seem to have complete blanks in my consciousness from Sunday until Wednesday. My partner says he called emergency services at some point between Saturday evening and Sunday early morning, when I was no longer responsive to him and couldn’t tell him who he was or his name. I apparently seemed very disoriented while moving around the house and he began to get really alarmed. I may have already put our child to sleep. He couldn’t come with me to the emergency services in Bozen, because someone had to stay with our child and my in-laws were in Germany. He said a female paramedic and he took me down the three flights of stairs. I may have been trashing my body around because I have an unexplainable scar on the right side of my forehead. I was apparently taken to Bozen first, but since there was no free bed available in the intensive care unit, I was moved to Meran—a gorgeous historical town further north of Bozen. Those were the mountains that surrounded me when I woke up from being sedated. While I had no idea what day it was, I had the memory of being a mother, of being currently pregnant, of having a husband and a family back home in India and here in South Tyrol. I could remember my birth date, and our child’s name. But I felt tired beyond belief and felt so much discomfort from having had a catheter strapped to my urethra for three continuous days. I’ve been operated upon at least four times before in my life. But each time I was aware of the surgery in advance. This was the first time I had simply ‘landed up’ in a hospital with so many holes in my memory. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. From the time I came too, no one really gave me a satisfying enough answer regarding when I might go home again. I don’t blame them, because they needed to keep monitoring my condition and giving me antibiotics. The fact that I had a toddler to take care of at home meant returning was not an option unless I felt well enough. ‘Do you even know what day it is?’ one of the nurses asked me. I had to come clean about the fact that I was clueless.

After a point, I decided to make peace with the fact that I needed to be there as long as it was necessary for me to be there. On Thursday last week (I think) I was moved out of the intensive care unit into the ENT ward. I was privileged to have a room to myself with a view of the mountains. It was the night of the full moon (I think). That afternoon they had decided to unplug the catheter and being able to walk to the toilet on my own felt like the beginning of my healing. My partner visited me every day during visiting hours and held the fort with our toddler stupendously, as if with golden fingers. I remember feeling so humbled by the extent of his love for me and all its glorious manifestations. I also remember feeling so moved by the level of care I was given by nurses—mostly female—who, in the beginning, helped me with everything from cutting up my food to combing my hair and sponge-bathing me. I was always offered something a little extra, yoghurt, chamomile tea, crackers, fruit… They asked to see pictures of our toddler, a subject any mother is happy to regale others about. I’ve been back home since Tuesday, feeling so much stronger and capable of caring for myself. I am unbelievably grateful to be on the other side of my dire prognosis, alive, healthy and slowly returning to my previous levels of strength.

Deliberating on the life and times of every woman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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