Rites of Passage

Every family has its traditions, right? Some carry on from generations, some are created by the family and so on...My kids have started a really sad tradition of making sure each of them gets hospitalised before the age of two, it seems like. Hope that's over now for Bojjandi, as we've had a rough few days.

I got back from the US Thursday morning to find that Puddi and Bojji were both down with a cough and cold. That's standard issue for winters here but given Bojjandi's tendency to breathing trouble, I always get a little worried. Plus the scare of swine flu which has been going around...

We immediately began giving Bojjandi his usual medicines and nebulising him but By saturday we felt he hadn't improved much and it was heart-breaking to hear him struggling for each breath. I've had asthma all my life and I know exactly how he felt. The normally dancing-on-the-furniture, ever-chuckling baby had turned into one who just wanted to sit or lie down listlessly in someone's lap, too tired to even smile.

We took him to the paediatrician thinking maybe she could give him an injection or change his medication and he would get better but she was so alarmed she nebulized him on the spot and told us to rush him to hospital at once. We were in the emergency for four hours, with Bojjandi getting nebulized every twenty minutes. The place was a madhouse, because it seemed flooded with patients of all ages and descriptions, and the hospital was too full to have any beds free. Mind you, this wasn't even one of Delhi's affordable hospitals but a new and expensive one, so God alone knows how the mango people (aam junta) hospitals are functioning under this rush...There was one poor guy lying in the waiting area on a gurney who had been waiting for a bed to be free from the previous evening!

We finally got a bed around 4 pm, mostly because we wanted a single room, for fear of infections and so on. With incredibly bad timing, Dad had left for Bangalore that morning. Usually my parents have been around to pick up our slack when stuff like this happens, and it made me realise how spoilt we are. I wonder how my sister and BIL cope with it in the US, where they don't have people that close by.

I had had no time to recover from jet lag since I had sat up for the past two nights with Bojjandi, so I went home that evening to hang out with the other two kids, and A stayed at the hospital. The next morning I went, and he came home in the evening and so on. It was acrazy time, because Bojjandi was getting nebulized every hour on Day 1, then every two hours. Finally by Day two evening, they started nebulizing him every four hours.

True to form, the minute he felt even five minutes better, he reverted to being his sunshiny self, grinning with his cute four teeth and wanting to wander all over the room. He had cabin fever by day three, and frankly, so did we. It was getting very difficult for us to keep him busy since he's such an active child, and I was petrified of the hospital beds which are so high and have such short siderails.

Finally on Day 4 morning, the doctor said she felt he was 70% better and that while she felt she would like to keep him there another 2-3 days, she would release him at our request. We came home heaving huge sighs of relief. It was incredible to see the look of joy and comfort on Bojjandi's face as soon as he entered the house, and saw his siblings. I think that gave his spirits such a boost that he must have moved up to 80% better right way.

He's doing quite well now, though he's still being nebulized four times a day. Hopefully he'll be fully recovered by the weekend. And so will we!