Uncertainities of life!

24th January 2011: Today I felt restless, worried, tensed all at the same time! I was preparing for a competition for tomorrow when Sinchan called. I usually do not pick calls when I am in team meetings but I don’t know why I picked this call up. As soon as I said ‘hello’, Sinchan said, ‘Pracs, wherever you are come quickly to my room, I fell down and I think I broke my leg’. I rushed to Sinchan’s room. When I rang the bell, he called again and said he could not move and so will not be able to come to open the door. Thankfully, he had the presence of mind to have called another flat mate who had the keys. While waiting I kept trying to reach Rahul and Tanu but sadly their phones were on silent. After about 3 minutes, I got access to Sinchan’s room and reached there to see him sitting on the floor, his right leg swollen and shivering due to the pain.  He told us that he was sitting on his chair and working on his laptop for a long time and when he got up, his right leg went numb and he fell down and now has sever pain in his right leg. We helped him get on the bed and tried our ‘dadi maa ka nuskha’ of putting some ice on the swelling so that it reduces. In the meanwhile, Madhur (Sinchan’s flatmate) arranged for the security to come and help us. The security was quick in coming and came within 2/3 minutes. There was a round of questions and then they called the ambulance which was followed by another round of questions from the other end...’is the patient conscious?’, ‘is there any external bleeding?’, ‘can you explain again how the patient fell down?’, ‘is the patient relaxed?’, ‘is he talking?’... Gosh, I seriously felt these questions weren’t really required to call for an ambulance...but then procedures!!! 

While this was going on...Rahul and Tanu came. Only then did I realise that I had been so tensed seeing all this. The swelling on Sinchan’s leg started to reduce and we thought it would not be a fracture. Finally, the ambulance came and Rahul and Sinchan left for the hospital. We asked Rahul to give us regular updates. Initially he sent us an SMS saying, ‘swelling gone down won’t be a fracture’. I was glad! Then after sometime came a message, ‘bad news. Two fractures. One large, one small’. And a little more time passes by when Sinchan calls and says, ‘3 fractures, one large, two small’. I thought ‘well, fracture on the shin would mean a plaster from the ankle to the knee’. And then, they returned from the hospital at half past midnight and when Tanu and me entered the room, we were shocked to see Sinchan with his whole right leg plastered. It was a shock! Tanu almost fainted! Worse still...the plaster stays for 8 weeks and movement during these 8 weeks has to be kept to minimum. The five hours from 7.30 pm to 12.30 am were stressful and full of anxiousness for the three of us but for Sinchan, they were painful. Its difficult to even think of such a severe injury due to a fall in your own room while you were doing almost nothing!

I know what it is like to stay in a room all alone, all day (reminds me of my chicken pox days in NIBM!)... we are just trying that the next 8 weeks are not those dreadful lonely days for Sinchan.  And am sure he is gonna to walking much before those 8 weeks!! 

This blog is dedicated to Sinch... the ever-smiling, brave, angry young man! ;) Hope you get well really really soon!!!