Rough Weekend

We had planned a nice, relaxed weekend at home with the little one - just some time to rejuvenate our tired our batteries. I had a Buddhist meeting to go to on Sunday and so had planned my weekend around that, finishing off my weekly household chores on Saturday. Calculus has a bad bout of the flu - with a throat infection, blocked up nose all thrown in for good measure. He was off work on Friday, a real rarity for him !

Just as we had finished dinner, fed the little one and cleared up getting ready to watch some television to gently ease us into sleep, the phone rang. It was my uncle (the one who lives in South Wales and whom we visited over Christmas). I was pleasantly surprised to hear his voice as I knew that he would have just about landed in Heathrow after a 3-week holiday to India with my aunt. He sounded quite tense, nervous, anxious and panicky.

Apparently they were waiting for the bus to take them home to South Wales when my aunt's nose started bleeding. This has happened many times in the past and my uncle being a doctor, has always managed to treat her and stop the bleeding. This time though, in spite of packing her nose with bandages, the bleeding would not stop. The bus officials did not want to take a chance with her and so called an ambulance. He had called me from the ambulance, giving me the name of the hospital they were rushing her to.

There was no question of not going to see them. We were not sure of their plans, how serious it was, but of one thing I was certain - we had to go. My uncle is a worrier at the best of times and just the thought of him in that hospital A&E, with all his luggage around him unnerved me. The time being well past 9PM, Calculus would not let me go on my own and so he came along.

Our trusted sat-nav got us to the hospital without any mishap. My aunt was quite uncomfortable - imagine having something shoved up your nose and having to breathe through your mouth, when all you wanted was to go back home and sleep after a long flight home. All she kept telling me and my uncle was to ask the doctor to get the pack removed.

Her blood pressure too was sky-high and the doctors wanted to admit her to a hospital in North London, which had an ENT department. Both my aunt and uncle were quite uncomfortable with the thought - my uncle being a doctor knows a lot of the doctors in his local hospital and all he wanted to do was go home. The A&E doctor wasnt very happy with my uncle's suggestion when we told him that we wanted to take my aunt home, but he eventually relented.

Then began the paperwork and we started driving for South Wales around 11.00PM. It was around a 3-hour drive, but the circumstances made the whole drive so difficult. Calculus was sick and groggy with all the medication, my uncle quite tired with the whole ordeal and so both of them were unable to drive. I had not slept very well the night before and I was not sure how i would manage. But we did fine, stopping for coffee on the way and reached home in around 3 hours, inspite of the rains lashing like there were no tomorrow.

We drove straight to the hospital, got my aunt admitted in and finally left for my uncle's at around 4.30AM. She is still there, though its not anything serious. That particular hospital has bad memories for us - my aunt had her operation for the dreaded C disease a couple of years ago in that very same hospital, with me and my uncle pacing the corridors.

We visited her the next day and the vision of my poor aunt in a lonely, hospital room, crying her eyes out (she is normally such a strong person), wanting to go home, just wanting to breathe normally again is one which is not going to leave me for a very long time.