The long wait ended when Purva saw her son come running towards her. He looked like none other than the little naughty Krishna about whom she had read numerous stories in her childhood and had prayed to God every day (even in that innocent infancy) that she should get a son like Him. She used to go into a trance for hours and enter a world where she conversed with the God himself. She was a normal young girl who was a successful professional in her career. Her parents got her married and after 5 yeas she had a dark, handsome baby. She had named him ‘Gopal’ seeing his complexion and she assumed to be the most happiest mother on the earth. All her prayers were fulfilled and today after 6 years of his birth, she was waiting for her little kid who was coming out of the hospital.
He was one highly impressive kid. He loved playing cricket and spent all his free time in examining the bat his father had bought him when he came back from an official tour. She had left her job for him as they had got this child after 5 years of marriage and after lot of complications. So she did not dare to take any risk. Although her in laws were also staying with them since after the child was born, still Purva thought it was the most important period of her life with her child and happily chose to be with him. She even did not find it appropriate to let her old in-laws do any work. Still she did all the justice to her decision. She woke her son up at early hours of sunrise and taught him lots of little shlokas and how to worship the Sun God (as He was the only God who was visible to any living or non living being) with Surya Namashkar. He obediently followed her and welcomed this part of the day with a pleasant smile. Then Gopal would do skipping (his favourite exercise) till Purva begged him to stop lest he got tired. Then after her husband went for work, she played with him for hours keeping him active and cooked and read stories to him. He knew all the songs taught by her mother by heart and was quite bright in grasping things taught at his school.
But in teh past one year her life had taken an abrupt 90-degree turn. Since the day she came to know about her son’s illness she had doubled her praying hours and went into trance again after so many years frequently. She had not known about it till many weeks until one day, late in the evening Gopal was weeping non-stop unlike his usual self. Being a 5 year old, he was a boy who rarely resorted to crying as a solution. So she was more worried and being a kid he couldn’t express his thoughts and was repeatedly pointing to his legs. She put some oil and massaged. She was such a lively mother that he started laughing uncontrollably within minutes listening to her stories of ‘Lord Krishna and the demons’ which he had been listening since years now and with whom he had started relating to by now. Then she fed him and made him sleep. This happened on number of occasions and she had started worrying a bit as little Gopal started limping one day. When asked he said he was enacting ‘Shakuni mama’ of Ramayana and both of them laughed heartily on his joke and presence of mind. The same day suddenly Purva noticed a swelling in his leg, below the knee. That’s when she decided she would take him to Dr. Sen who was her father’s friend and their family doctor. She was not a kind who would expect and depend on her husband for all external work. She understood the emergence of situations and acted very smartly in such situations always.
Dr. Sen performed loads of scans, tests and biopsies and finally verbalized their fear as ‘Osteosarcoma’, which she couldn’t even pronounce properly. She was in a state of mixed feelings which majorly consisted of sadness, anxiousness, happiness, tragedy, vengeance (to God as to how her kid could be targeted like this) and felt like an uneducated mother who couldn’t even pronounce her child’s illness. With the fear of being declared as an idiot, the very same day she had found out on the Internet that Osteosarcoma was the sixth most common type of bone cancer in children. It apparently began in the bones and sometimes spreads elsewhere.
They had told her that survival rates of 60% to 80% are possible for the Cancer that hasn't spread beyond the tumor, depending on the success of Chemotherapy. She had felt all her education go in drains when she heard most of the words in the sentence, baffling. Her thoughts went back to the Biology classes when she used to keep making sketches on the last page of her notebook. Needlessly she was repenting all that now. She came to know that they were going to do limb-salvage surgery (thankfully not amputation which involved removing part of a limb along with the Osteosarcoma) in which only the Osteosarcoma would be removed, leaving a gap in the bone that would be filled by a bone graft, which is usually taken from the patient's own pelvis (hipbone).
Now he came running out into her arms and she bent down to collect him in her arms and kissed her endlessly. He was so happy to sit on her lap in the car. They reached home and she handed him the gift she had bought for him. He happily and anxiously tore it open and found a beautiful bat in it…
He was one highly impressive kid. He loved playing cricket and spent all his free time in examining the bat his father had bought him when he came back from an official tour. She had left her job for him as they had got this child after 5 years of marriage and after lot of complications. So she did not dare to take any risk. Although her in laws were also staying with them since after the child was born, still Purva thought it was the most important period of her life with her child and happily chose to be with him. She even did not find it appropriate to let her old in-laws do any work. Still she did all the justice to her decision. She woke her son up at early hours of sunrise and taught him lots of little shlokas and how to worship the Sun God (as He was the only God who was visible to any living or non living being) with Surya Namashkar. He obediently followed her and welcomed this part of the day with a pleasant smile. Then Gopal would do skipping (his favourite exercise) till Purva begged him to stop lest he got tired. Then after her husband went for work, she played with him for hours keeping him active and cooked and read stories to him. He knew all the songs taught by her mother by heart and was quite bright in grasping things taught at his school.
But in teh past one year her life had taken an abrupt 90-degree turn. Since the day she came to know about her son’s illness she had doubled her praying hours and went into trance again after so many years frequently. She had not known about it till many weeks until one day, late in the evening Gopal was weeping non-stop unlike his usual self. Being a 5 year old, he was a boy who rarely resorted to crying as a solution. So she was more worried and being a kid he couldn’t express his thoughts and was repeatedly pointing to his legs. She put some oil and massaged. She was such a lively mother that he started laughing uncontrollably within minutes listening to her stories of ‘Lord Krishna and the demons’ which he had been listening since years now and with whom he had started relating to by now. Then she fed him and made him sleep. This happened on number of occasions and she had started worrying a bit as little Gopal started limping one day. When asked he said he was enacting ‘Shakuni mama’ of Ramayana and both of them laughed heartily on his joke and presence of mind. The same day suddenly Purva noticed a swelling in his leg, below the knee. That’s when she decided she would take him to Dr. Sen who was her father’s friend and their family doctor. She was not a kind who would expect and depend on her husband for all external work. She understood the emergence of situations and acted very smartly in such situations always.
Dr. Sen performed loads of scans, tests and biopsies and finally verbalized their fear as ‘Osteosarcoma’, which she couldn’t even pronounce properly. She was in a state of mixed feelings which majorly consisted of sadness, anxiousness, happiness, tragedy, vengeance (to God as to how her kid could be targeted like this) and felt like an uneducated mother who couldn’t even pronounce her child’s illness. With the fear of being declared as an idiot, the very same day she had found out on the Internet that Osteosarcoma was the sixth most common type of bone cancer in children. It apparently began in the bones and sometimes spreads elsewhere.
They had told her that survival rates of 60% to 80% are possible for the Cancer that hasn't spread beyond the tumor, depending on the success of Chemotherapy. She had felt all her education go in drains when she heard most of the words in the sentence, baffling. Her thoughts went back to the Biology classes when she used to keep making sketches on the last page of her notebook. Needlessly she was repenting all that now. She came to know that they were going to do limb-salvage surgery (thankfully not amputation which involved removing part of a limb along with the Osteosarcoma) in which only the Osteosarcoma would be removed, leaving a gap in the bone that would be filled by a bone graft, which is usually taken from the patient's own pelvis (hipbone).
Now he came running out into her arms and she bent down to collect him in her arms and kissed her endlessly. He was so happy to sit on her lap in the car. They reached home and she handed him the gift she had bought for him. He happily and anxiously tore it open and found a beautiful bat in it…
3 comments:
nice story..keep going dear...
me..
Hey,
Nice story I guess you would have elaborated more and could have developed the Idea more.
But yeah story is short and sweet.
Regards,
Deep
awesome. im already a fan of ur blogs... is this real? hope not..
Post a Comment