|
|
|
|
From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 47, Dated 24 Nov 2012 |
|
| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
|
PERSONAL HISTORIES |
|
A series on true experiences
FAMILY TIES
‘Our roles reversed that night. Now I was the caretaker’
By Ramani Atkuri
 |
|
Illustrations: Sudeep Chaudhuri |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
IT IS 2.15 am; time to take Amma for her MRI scan. We hurriedly change. Amma takes off her bangles, earrings and mangalsutra. She puts on a thin gown and is wheeled out of the ward to the imaging section in another building. The night air is cool and we both shiver.
Inside the MRI waiting room, there is an unconscious man on a trolley, a pipe runs through his nose into his stomach. The safety rails are put up and his wife dozes on a chair next to him.
Inside, where the equipment is, it is much colder.
Amma looks frail and worried, dwarfed by the wheelchair, intimidated by the building, by this room that is lit by harsh, fluorescent lights. She is anxious about the procedure. My heart goes out to her. She has been my support system — a woman who denied herself little luxuries so that we could lead comfortable lives, a friend who laughed with us, a mother who would wipe our tears when we were upset. At 66, she was now worn out and in pain, but could work as much as anyone her age. Perhaps even more.
My chain of thoughts is interrupted by the technician who emerges from behind his control booth. “Nothing metallic?” he enquires. We say no. “Take off your glasses,” he snaps at Amma. She hands them over to me. The technician walks her towards the cavernous machine and asks her to lie on the table for the scan, positioning the head restraints, telling her in a loud voice that she should not even swallow during the scan or the film will not come out well. What he does not tell her is that she can swallow once the machine is turned off. I stand at the door and plead with him to reassure Amma, tell her that there’s nothing to be scared of. “Don’t step inside, madam,” he warns me, “I will take care of it.” By now, she has her ear-muffs on. My instinct is to tell him that he should not be rude, but I find myself struck silent.
I began to hover near the window as he shuts the door. All I want at this point is a peek into the MRI room, just to check if Amma is panicking. Thankfully, she is calm.
Outside, a doctor — a petite girl dressed in salwar kameez — comes in response to a call and the scan is interrupted for a minute. “He is not able to understand instructions, and keeps moving his head,” says the technician to the doctor about another patient. “Can you sedate him?” An intravenous injection is given on his foot, into a cannula that has already been placed there. For a moment, my heart pounds. I feel relieved only when the patient calms down and the technician returns to the screen where I can see images of my mother’s skull and spine.
After a few minutes, it is over. Amma is moved out of the coil. I hold out my hand and take her to the waiting room, where we sit in plastic chairs and watch a Tamil music channel on TV (yes, at 3 in the morning). The ward attendant arrives and wheels Amma back.
Back in the room, we change into our night clothes, and with my help, Amma lies down on the bed. I stretch out on the couch in the room and try to get some sleep.
That was two years ago. Amma is well now, but each time I visit her or talk to her over the phone, I realise how protective I am of her. To my mind, our roles are reversed: that sleepless night, I assumed the mantle of caretaker and cannot help but see her as a vulnerable human being. Though for her, I am always a child, someone she needs to take care of. My view on other elderly women whom I meet during the course of my work has shifted subtly too. Through the prism of Amma’s illness, I see more clearly their fragility and vulnerability with the passage of time.
Ramani Atkuri is 49. She is a public health physician based in Bhopal
|
