Posted:
three vote yes, one votes no.
I will check up again before I begin writing. thanks for the input :)
Brace yourself for the storm of updates
Dear Stranger,
Today I will retell the scene on his hospital bed that haunts me to this day. I wish I could have done something. I wish I could have stopped it. But, I can only wish.
"Hold my hand Madhu", he gripped onto my fingers like they were the last thread on his loom.
The nurse greeted us both formally.
"Won. Won. Wonderful, I am. I am doing wonderful".
There it was again, the blinking, the stuttering, the deep breathing. His body was reacting to the smell of medicines in the oncology department.
"We will be giving you 80 today", the nurse prepared the monitors and RK looked baffled.
"This is not my nurse".
He asked me to take action.
"She is on vacation, I talked to your doctor".
"My normal dose is 85% of standard. Why did you change the dose?"
"Talk to your doctor when she is not busy, okay? I am only doing my job".
"Madhu, stop her. I don't want this. I want to talk to my doctor".
The nurse stormed out of the room leaving me to deal with a terrified Rishabh. I could not believe the level of quality treatment he received in a nation that prides itself in universal healthcare.
"I will talk to the nurse. You will not get any medicine you don't want".
"Miss please call the doctor".
"She is busy. Come back when your nurse is here. I cannot deal with him".
She was blunt and apathetic in her tone. Did everyone grow this numb after with disease for a while? I kept my calm and asked again.
"If you could please tell him the dose percentage, we are good to go".
She rolled her eyes like I had asked for the holy grail. She proceeded to get the charts as I soothed Rishabh. He was crying. I saw a tear escape his eye. "It's the humidity, you know", he wiped it away before I questioned.
"It is 85% so, 80 units of taxol", the doctor had finally arrived. "Now, lie down".
He was more collected now. No matter what the reason, he did not deserve the harsh words. I was angry at the nurse but, I was angrier at cancer. Cancer was a part of him so, by projection, I was angry with him. The dose took over his senses. His teeth clung together. It hurt as they met, I offered him a finger to nibble. He shrugged it away. I could see it in his eyes; it hurt. He lifted up his finger to call the nurse.
She offered him two morphine shots and he was down.
I drove him home and he was nauseous the entire way. He called the board of trustees to complain about the nurse; he looked at me like I was a mistake he had made. Then, he feel in a limbo; a state of no awareness, no sleep: just a limbo. This was his frustration not with the way he was treated but with the fact that he was treated despite her knowing who he was. His illness, he said, had made him a lesser version of himself. A man whose one look could make women drop dead, was treated as a diseased ridden imbecile because he had become one.
At last, I had the realization: he really was temporary. One day this would all be gone.
Dear Stranger,
Life's an hourglass and time is running out for all of us. Breath the moments you spend with the people in your life. You never know when they will be taken away from you.
"The markers are going down. It's good news", he said. The chemo was working but, I was no longer accompanying him. After the fiasco that occurred the first time, I didn't expect him to ask me again. Why would he? Not like I was any help. I was a burden, a distraction he had to hide emotion from. Somewhere inside, that is what I wanted. I wanted the good life with a healthy fiance and a romantic dinner; his news gave me hope. I knew it was too early to rejoice but, when in a bleak situation, the little things serve as comic relief. If the emotion is not expressed, it explodes and raises havoc. So, dinner was the way to celebrate. He had asked me to cook for him.
"Not the celery roots and ginger garlic", he said. "Real food".
For the last sixteen weeks he had been getting G-tube feeds. So, this would be his first real meal. I was nervous. It was a food critic at the table and I, being the photographer, spent more energy on presentation than taste.
The chocolate sauce was drizzled just right. The ice cream was placed in the center of a sushi dish. The wild flower in a lone corner teased the vanilla. It was food at sight but, was it food to eat?
"Every thing my mother would not let me eat", he munched on the chocolate bits. Then, he dropped the bombshell.
"I found this study with promising results. It's in Kzakistan. I am flying there tomorrow".
"This treatment is working, isn't it".
I was not expecting him to stop chemo; I was not expecting him to leave me. Not when I was so invested in the relationship.
"Look at me", he dropped his napkin on floor. "The girls who would drool over my chiselled abs won't give me a second look".
"I love you", I said.
"The employees, whose families I feed, pity my poor soul".
"I love you", I thought out loud.
"I want to live but, I want to live with dignity Madhu. I want to live with pride".
I love you, I did not have the courage to say again.
"I have my bags packed but, I don't want you to visit me. If I find my way to hell's doors, I don't want you to remember me as a sickly bald man, I want you to remember me '.."
"'..as the tall, hairy man".
He laughed at my terrible joke like there was no tomorrow because, perhaps, there was no tomorrow.
"If I come out alive, we are adopting a baby. A cheena baby. No, a black baby. We need to make a statement".
"Let us stick with our own kind".
"Very racist of you", his fingers explored my belly.
"You want a foreign baby to make a statement. Like that is any less racist".
He turned me around to face his eyes. The deep brown eyes were hard to look away from.
"Take me with you, please".
"Every dog has
his day".
When things became too positive for his taste, he would say pessimistic things
that made me uncomfortable.
"You are not a dog so, why are you running away like one?"
"Listen to yourself Madhubala, you are being seflish", he touched a sensitive nerve.'
"I love you".
"And I, you".
We kissed and he disappeared in the darkness. As I looked back in the living room. There were boxes stacked upon each other each labelled: blue hair dye.
"Remember, I fell in love with a blue haired girl", I heard him say.
I laughed and cried all at once.
"I fell in love with your over the top romantic gestures", I screamed to him listening somewhere.
Dear Stranger,
Remember the ode I wrote some time ago? I did not provide any context on who it was meant for. Well, it was meant for my father. I sat through an eight hour operation and just as the surgery reached its end, I left. I was worried not about my father's last words but about what I would have for dinner. By the time I came back, it was too late. He had asked for me in there, the doctors supplied. I did eventually forgive myself but, it took a quite the force. If you are wondering if I was better Well, he did not even give me the chance to say goodbye.
It was a prestigious day in my career. I had been appointed the lead photographer for Men's Magazine. I was preparing for a long night of celebration in the wake of some long due good news from Rishabh's end. I was certain every thing would be alright like he had told me. Just as I stepped on the podium to deliver my speech, a song started playing on the speakers.
"I will go down with this ship".
I remembered Rishabh sending me a copy of his funeral picks. This was the album! He was ddd. Dd. Ddead. I was numb. I fainted and do not recall what events lead to me waking up in the RK mansion.
TBC...
Jasleen!
I can say nothing other than that whenever I read this story of yours I hold my breath. I may pass out one day and it'd be your fault.
😳You flatter me too much.I was sorta worried you would not take to well to the nurse fight. I hope you saw where Madhu was coming from :)
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