Medic!
I’ve come to hate the smell of antiseptic.
As a sickly child, I spent most of my childhood in and out of hospitals, having all kinds of procedures done. Shots, blood tests, operations, consultations, medicines. Then along came my brother, even sicklier than me, requiring even more periods of intensive care, requiring me to stay even longer in hospitals while my brother was cured of his ailments. Many an hour have I spent staring at the sterile, clean white walls of a hospital waiting room, awaiting some test result or diagnosis or other, breathing in the sterile, clean smell of antiseptic.
I’ve come to associate it with bad news, is what I’m saying, so as a rational person, it was understandable that I had a premonitory pang of anxiety as I saw the doctor walk up to us, clipboard in hand.
We’d all come to see him go. Me, my sickly brother, his wife, his two kids, my uncle and his wife. Once he was gone, my uncle would be the last of the seven kids my grandfather had had. If he went, I reminded myself. He was strong, undoubtedly he would pull through.
My entire childhood I had been in and out of the theatres of life and death they called hospitals, and my father had ensured that I got a good upbringing, despite my circumstances. My father had been strong for me, and now I had to stay strong for him. There were some tough questions ahead, and they had to be asked. I squeezed his barely conscious hand once more for strength, then turned towards the approaching doctor, squared my shoulders, and smiled.
The doctor was a nice man, perhaps in his thirties, maybe a father himself. His manner was concise without being condescending, empathetic without being pandering, logical without being cold. He explained that they had managed to stabilise my father’s condition with great difficulty, and that, if he were to be saved, the procedure that we had been discussing had to be carried out now. It could not be delayed any longer, he said, and all he needed was consent.
The time had come. I squared my shoulders even squarer than I had squared them previously, braced myself, and looked at my uncle, who nodded at me grimly. He knew what I was going to ask. It was not a pleasant task, but one that needed to be carried out. I needed to stay strong for my appachchi.
The doctor looked at me sympathetically, as if he understood what I wanted to ask, even before I had asked it.
‘If we do the procedure, your father may survive for-,’ he began.
‘Where did you go to school?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me. What medical college, doctor?’
The room suddenly went silent. My relatives and the doctor both looked at me as if I had gone mad. Apparently they had not understood. No matter. I had to stay strong. Stay strong for father.
‘Well, I went to SAITM, but what does that have to do with anything?’
My expression hardened as I crossed over to my father’s bedside. My father had woken up, and was attempting to speak.
‘P…p…,’ he struggled. I hushed him, already knowing what he was going to say.
‘I think he’s trying to say putha,’ said my brother, leaning over the bed. I stared at him scornfully, and then turned back towards the doctor, and looked him straight in the eyes so that he would know that what was to transpire here today was completely his fault.
Addressing my brother, I said, ‘No he’s not. He’s trying to say “PMC apita epa”.’
I cut the life support and my father flatlined.
