What After Surgery….?

Western medicine is amazing at saving lives. It saves at any cost. The quality of life it saves might not match the efficiency of saving it. There are oh so many equipments to keep a life going, medicines galore to ward of any possible illness. The question of how the life lives after subjecting itself to the medicines and life support machines does not find an easy answer.

If our father’s hematoma was of lesser size, he might not have needed craniotomy. We are told that smaller hemorrhages get absorbed. As big as our bleed was, a surgery saved our father’s life, now we are trying to heal him.

Heal him is easier said than done. A heavy dose of antibiotic will be prescribed for any hint of infection. If he is coughing, then a chest x-ray is an obvious next step. Is his chest is clear in the x-ray, but he is still coughing, then it must be the brain – a CT Scan of course would give the answer. If the scan shows nothing, then we all are stumped.

There is very little observing the patient and treating, most prescriptions and tests seem preemptive. All I am saying is that I am glad that my father is alive but we cannot hope for western medicine to heal him.

Comments

Sri Narasipura Subbaiah Narayana Murthy

Somewhere in 2011 my good friend Rohan sent me a link to a documentary on Ayurveda . It showcases different practitioners of Ayurveda, its ninth part caught my attention. One, a patient in the film suffered from brain hemorrhage and two, the doctor (he is an indigenous healer / vaidhiyar, not a certified doctor) lived in Southern India which would make the travel not too adventurous. I guessed the adventure part incorrectly. Sri Narasipura Subbaiah Narayana Murthy (the Doctor) lives ofcourse in Narasipura, which falls under the Shimoga district in Karnataka. My research prior the travel showed that all one needs to do is to get to Narasipura or Shimoga and locals know the doctor's place. Our male cousin in Bangalore who is specially fond of my father agreed to accompany me. We left to Shimoga on a Saturday since the doctor consults only on Sundays and Thursdays. Consultation begins at 7:00am, its on first come first serve basis. I thought 5:00am would make us sufficien

Cranio - sacral Therapy and Dr. Manik Hiranandani

Few years ago at our Acutouch treatment we made the acquaintance of a wonderful mother-son duo. Rudra, the boy was all cuteness and Kavita, his mother was friendly and resourceful. Places like these are great treasure troves for information on different treatments and doctors. Kavita highly recommended Dr. Manik Hiranandani who runs an alternative treatment clinic, which is called just that - "The Clinic", at Malakkara in Kerala. He uses a combination of treatments, but the main focus seems to be Cranio-Sacral therapy. After our misadventure with the Varma treatment during our Kerala stay, Dr. Hiranandani seemed worth pursuing. Given his hectic schedule and our inability to take our father to his clinic just for a consult, we scheduled a meeting at a rather unconventional place - the meeting was outside a bakery on the highway that was taking the Doctor from Ernakulam airport to Malakkara. The Doctor after examining our father said that he cou

Metamorphosis

Appa passed away in the early morning hours of December 3, 2014, one month short of his 72 nd birthday. Well, he was 67 yrs old on the fateful night of brain hemorrhage, so I guess we lost the father we knew back then. I have been unable to bring myself to write anything about him since that past 3 ½ years. Each time I think of a blog post, my eyes would tear up, chest turn heavy and breathing would be constricted, sure signs of no blog post. This time I am ready to write about the night he left his physical body. On the night of December 2 nd , as per the routine I was awake until Appa was deep asleep. I called my sister around 11ish to update on him. He was constantly battling infection and was running temperature for the past few months. Appa’s neurosurgeon messaged me back asking to continue his medication and then I called it a night around 12:30am. My internal clock woke me up around 4:00am to check on him. When I opened my eyes, I

RENAISSANCE - Post Brain Haemorrhage

Search This Blog