LIFE WITH MOM #3 [LAST DAYS -2]

Beginning May 1st (2011) mom’s conditions were deteriorating. She came back home on the 28th of April after being discharged from BGS Hospital. When she was discharged she looked hale and hearty. She was so happy, that on some of those days I had applied leave, to be with her. Sharada Periamma gave a lot of service to mom in those days. The service she rendered need be described in detail. There was a feeling of uneasiness but I kept pushing it away. The food they gave at the hospital, mom felt, was very bland and inedible. Well, it was nutritionist recommended food! They took into account the fact that she was a diabetic. We carried food for Periamma or sometimes we had breakfast/lunch in the hotel opposite. Periamma always requested for coffee and flask-fulls of it, just to keep her going. Periamma survived on over-sugared coffee.
Two days after mom reached home may be on the April 30th or so Periamma left for Hyd. Mom was disturbed that there would no one with her in daytime. Periamma reassured mom that she would be back in a week after attending to the receipt of her pension and settling some commitments at Hyd. Each day I tried to put her back on her heart management medication. The day she took those she lost appetite and sleep. She complained of pain in her legs and asked me, or Li or Ananya to keep pressing her feet, massaging her feet, in downward stroke, knee down. With the doctor’s permission I stopped the heart-related medicine regimen, and to let her sleep gave her mild sedative tablets-sleeping pills. The first two days i.e 1st and 2nd May she sort of responded. She had a reasonably good sleep. May 3rd and 4th I gingerly doubled the dose as it was warranted- the one nightly dose hardly worked; she had a disturbed sleep. She pleaded with me not to resume the cardiac medication. They did more damage to her peace than good she had said. I stopped them all. I used to sit with her in the nights to see her sleep for a few hours. She would just manage a light sleep for, say 2 hours and then she would be wide awake. On 5th May I felt an eerie feeling: may be mom’s not going to survive this! I called my sis Gita and told her she should try to reach Bangalore as early as possible. She talked to her boss and confirmed she would be there on the 7th Morning. Mom was happy and eagerly awaited Gita’s arrival on the 7th morning. I went to receive Gita and Shalini. Mom was so happy to see them come. I had gotten late for office, so I applied leave on the 7th May even though it was a Saturday. The three of us kept mom busy, talking to her about many things. Gita took care of her feeding by making soft rice and rasam mix. Li had, on Friday, fed her successfully this concoction.
On 7th night I had a special request from a colleague of mine. He was to meet a god man who was a Malayalee. Their family was to meet the god man to ask his advice on some family problem. Though I was a little embarrassed, having been asked to be an interpreter when they were discussing something private, I accepted since they didn’t mind. This meeting was fixed in some house which the god man frequented. We were supposed to meet him at 1900 hrs that evening. My sister also accompanied me so that we thought we would ask the god man about the prognosis about our mom’s health.
That evening we reached the place and waited in queue, after an initial puja wherein we –my sis and I recited LS along with the god man, who, I noticed was looking at me very frequently. My colleague’s family entered into private audience and had their ‘consultation’. They came out after 30 minutes. My sister and I entered and started talking to the “swamiji” – I spoke Malayalam while my sis asked him her questions in Tamil.
The swami went tangentially off into saying that I had the blessings of Saraswati, that I knew everything about Mantra Shastra but “cleanliness” [what is called ‘madi’ in most South Indian Languages] was missing; He said shuddham porA. I asked, “In which sense?” I said, “I don’t go to puja unless I take bath- and that too Keralite style a full bath!” He said, “I do not observe the separation needed for menstruating women- i.e. my wife doesn’t observe these!” Now this is a very controversial topic. It would be very difficult to get modern day women to accept such things. “In that case” he said, “Just give up your spiritual practices. Satisfy yourself with just the remembrance of the Lord/Dev!i”, was his caveat. Because of this one thing, he had said, even though Parashakti is pleased with the correctness on the application part of the Mantra Shastra alongside is the kShudra devI who buts in uninvited and was playing tricks with the results.” I asked him about the place of Cleanliness of the Mind and Heart. Wasn’t that important? He declined to answer. He kept insisting that bodily cleanliness was more important in Devi worship. I wanted to put a stop to this conversation as I found that we wouldn’t be able to find common ground.
I was a bit annoyed for my sis and I were there only to know about my Mom’s health and prognosis and not to be lectured on the proper way of dealing with mantra shastra. He then returned back to the subject and gave us what we needed to set some things right. He talked of getting some pujas performed to “cleanse” my mom’s family of accumulated karma born of insufficient caring to the manes. There were some correct statements he made about events in my mom’s life and family background, so I resolved to do the needful should my mom be out of this spell of ill health. The man was so vociferous in his warning that unless I mended my ways about bodily shuddhi in rituals, I mustn’t be seeing him. Fine! I resolved not to see him ever again. I wasn’t in the least bit convinced about his reading of my spiritual engagements. I had better confirmation than that. All said and done I did want to take some of his points and apply though I had zero belief in his way of looking at things from a typical Keralite outlook. Does that mean Keralites are the only ones who had powers of mantra shastra based Divine Intercession? I did not want to buy this. God is for all. Devi included. If Keralites are obsessed with bodily neatness to the point of being fastidiousness, yea it has a weather- basis for that and nothing more. What would someone from say Bengal or Assam or any other cold clime do?
That night we returned home by 2200 hrs. All along my wife was very unhappy about my consulting this god man. Since she refused I had taken my sis along. Even on our return, my wife, after being narrated the whole conversation was very indignant. She was cross with me for having thought about this “consultation”. I just kept quiet. I resolved to do the needful corrective pujas soon after my mother’s recovery from the ill-health.

LIFE WITH MOM # 3.0 [THE LAST DAYS-1]

I would like to start with the last days! Yeah, some very overpowering intuition made me express to mom that I wanted to take her on a pilgrimage – to Sringeri, to Shankarankoil – our Family Deity and to Tiruvannamalai. I was just waiting for the Production period to come to a close. I left for Hyderabad on the eve of 1st April 2011. As I travelled in the bus I just called my sister to ask about my mom’s health and to confirm that all is well. I was told by my niece that my sister has taken my mom to the clinic for she had complained of chest pain. This pain had lasted all day! After getting an ECG done the GP had recommended just a higher dose of BP medicine. There was this hint of an advice about getting an EKG done. My mother, her sister (My periamma) and I were to travel to Bangalore on the 3rd of April 2011. There was a DS to be performed at a friend’s place on 2nd April.
When I met my mom the following morning she was quite cheerful despite the episode of chest pain. I asked her if she was in a fit condition to travel. She replied in the affirmative. Mom and periamma and the rest of the family attended the DS function and partook of the luncheon. The net day we left for Bangalore, and uneventfully landed at Bangalore. For the next two to three days we visited some local temples like the Arumugar temple at Shringagiri (4th April 2011 eve), RR Nagar, the Venkateshwara Temple at Vasantapura(9th April 2011), and another Murugan temple in Subrahmanyapura(12th April. 2011- Ramanavami Day!)
After two repeat episodes of some chest pain on the 5th and 6th April I felt the advised diagnostic tests need be done at the earliest. So, we fixed up with Vikram Hospital on Miller’s Road and got the suggested battery of tests done. The Cardiologist Dr.Padma Kumar’s opinion was to get an Angiography done at the earliest followed by an Angioplasty, if necessary. That it was necessary seemed to be a foregone conclusion, even though the steps towards the conduct of an Angiography were being taken with some caution and after a lot of deliberation with my sister at Hyderabad and my brother at San Jose California. All the three of us had daily conference calls.
Having decided to get the Angiography done at Narayana Hrudayalaya we had a consultation with Dr.Ravi Kishore, on 12th April. I was advised get Mom admitted ASAP and that was supposed to be done on the afternoon of 13th April. The travel to NH was by my Civic car on Neice Road. That was when my mom got to know the comfort of riding this sedan. The Angio was done on 14th April –No Tamil New Year’s Day this year- we were going around hospitals. Mom came out of the Angio pretty cheerfully. Dr. Ravi Kishore had left a message for me to speak to him. He explained to me about the blocks in her coronary arteries. The right side had too many blocks,but could be set aside, he said, it was given to understand that the left side was to be studied. The doctor said the blocks were not in positions to be stented. Instead he asked me to check with the surgeon Dr. Praveen Kumar about the possibility of a coronary bypass surgery. But the surgeon in many words and winding arguments for and against the benefits of a bypass surgery, dissuaded us from attempting one considering my Mom’s age – 76 years – and the fact she was on a regular dose of insulin. My Mom had been a diabetic for the past 26 years and on Insulin for the past 3 years.
The angiogram was interpreted by the doctors as the progressive deterioration of my mother’s heart condition in the past 3 to 4 years. Yes! That was the time interval between the passing away of my Father, on the 17th April 2006 and today. My mother used to have weeping bouts where she complained of loneliness and her desire to die. My Mom and Periamma lived together at Hyderabad because, despite her wanting to be with me conditions at my home were not very conducive to peace of mind. The previous writings on Life with Mom would throw light on why Mom’s living with me was near impossible.
The NH doctors discharged my Mom, after throwing in a suggestion to take a second opinion from Dr.Padma Kumar of Vikram Hospital. We did that on the 18th April 2011, only to be corroborated by Dr. Padma Kumar and Dr Ganesh Iyer, the Cardiac Surgeon at VH, not to attempt a bypass surgery on Mom. The same was the opinion of Dr.Thimmappa Hegde Chief of Neurosurgery at NH. Thus being thrice dissuaded was enough for us to go for what is called as aggressive medication. A catch of about 7 tabs were prescribed, and we started administering them to Mom.
On the 20th April was my Dad’s shraddham and the following day my wife had planned what is called as the sumangali prarthanai(also called mangali poNDugaL). My Mom was not in her element; ate very little but was quite active in guiding my wife on the family practices to be followed. By the next day evening, my mom complained of severe constipation and difficulty in passing urine. So, as a first aid we tried administering an enema. Our trials not being successful we took her to RC Hospital nearby, and a soap enema done, sort of gave her some temporary relief. Earlier, say on the 19th April I had taken her to BGS Hospital as an out-patient to get a Nephro referral completed as advised by NH doctors. We had given blood samples for the basic tests recommended by Dr.Padmanabhan at BGS. But even before receiving the reports on the 23rd April Saturday, we were advised after a check at Casualty at BGS, to get my Mom admitted for in-patient attendance to set the “constipated bowels right” and to relieve her of the urine held back- by catheterizing. She was at the BGS for 5 days. She was discharged a relieved woman after the peglec[dose of laxative] and an unwanted, an unwarranted colonoscopy that relieved us of some money too.More about this in a Facebook blog.
We returned home - to continue with the cardiac medication. In the meanwhile we had done a bit of study on the side effects of cardiac drugs- all of them had nausea, loss of appetite or constipated bowels recorded as side effects. When I shared with Dr.Padmanabhan, he only said that even a lone occurrence of such effects in clinical trials would find their way into the warning statements of medical brochures accompanying patent medicines so that the drug companies are absolved of their complicity.
Beginning 1st May we were seeing Mom’s condition causing concern.