A Child is a Father to a Man!

It was the darkest period of my young life. It all began with my father complaining of dizziness and a tingling feeling in his legs and hands. We were not ready for such a diagnosis as was shown to us the next day. After seeing that there is no improvement in his condition we went to Charak Palika Hospital in Moti Bagh. There a doctor friend of my father made the first preliminary examination. He must have immediately noted that this was not a case of routine illnesses. He sent us for a further tests of x-rays, blood tests, ultra sound, etcetera. Even then my father had to be wheel-chaired by me as his legs were becoming paralyzed.

My father was diagnosed with GB syndrome. GB syndrome is an acquired disease of the peripheral nerves that is characterized clinically by rapidly progressing paralysis, areflexia, and albumino-cytological dissociation in cerebrospinal fluid. It is autoimmune in nature and affects both sexes; in the post polio era it is the most common cause of an acute generalized paralysis. In short it could paralyse my father in a few days. And that was what happened.

As the day came to pass we realised that this was not a minor routine case it must be something serious or else we would have been home. On top of that the doctors wouldn’t tell us the whole story. After a few days at the hospital my father’s condition became worse; he could hardly lift his hands, his legs and eventually his voice inaudicle.

Even when all these were happening my father would be the one to tell us that in a few days he would be fine. We would go home and live our normal lives. Oh! What a luxury a normal life really is!

After almost 10 days at Charak Palika , his condition became desparate and so my father was transferred to Safdarjung Hospital. By that time we had our comfortable, if that was possible under the circumstances, routine whereby one of my cousins would be at home cooking and looking after the house while I and my mother would always stayed with my father (he would not let my mother go home even for a few hours for bathing, etc). A friend or another cousin brought the lunch or dinner at the hospital and took back the boxes home.

Most of my time in hospital was spent looking after my father's needs and wants. Meeting friends and wellwishers from every walk of life who took the time to come by and visit us. There were calls from all over the country and also from my father's numerous friends in US, Europe and South-Asia and Australia.

The doctors were not very optimistic of my father's condition - he by now found breathing very difficult. At night we would listen if he was at all breathing. The doctors gave my father only six months to live!

But miracalously after the doctors started using an injection, which would have cost us over 1.5 lakh had it not been for the help we got from a nurse who basically helped us in everyway possible, my father improved over the course of the injection and was discharged within 14 days!

Unfortunately though, within a few months after he was discharged, one morning while going to the bank my father was ran over by a motorbike and died around 1:15 pm. Thus my childhood ended around that fateful day in April 2005.