Day 762

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Bone doctors can sometimes forget there is a heart and a mind attached to the bone being fixed. Orthopaedic surgeons are the butt of many jokes for some unknown reason. They think it is because everyone is envious of the vast amounts of money they make and of course, they would like to think that.

What do you call two orthopaedic surgeons looking at a chest X-ray?
A double blind study.

What’s the difference between a carpenter and an orthopaedic surgeon?
A carpenter knows more than one antibiotic.

How do you hide a 20 pound note from an orthopaedic surgeon?
Put it in a textbook.

They are not what they are made out to be. Mostly. 😉

I am lucky to work with some funny, gentle and bright orthopods. One of them has changed from a purely professional colleague to a friend through the last 2 years. Yesterday, I shared with him my frustration over any meaningful improvement in the awareness of mental health issues within the medical community and beyond. I feel as if nothing has changed and no lessons have been learnt from Saagar’s death. Many others like him continue to suffer in silence. I feel that I go on banging my head against the walls completely in vain.

He wrote back:
“Saagar, has somehow had a profound effect on me, even though I never met him.

I have a young woman whose humerus I plated last week, and in clinic yesterday I could see her whole life starting to come unravelled: can’t exercise yet, not at work, not concentrating. All the things she used to give her self-worth are not available. Not despair, but the beginnings. So we talked about the dangers, and she agreed to see our psychologist.

You and Saagar have made that change in me, so keep doing what you do: it works.”

Day 734

Posted by kidsaregifts20

The tradition of fasting to death is called ‘Santhara’. It is glorified in Jainism, an ancient religion of India that teaches a life of renunciation. It usually applies to elderly people who feel they have entered the final phase of life with no meaningful purpose left to fulfil.

Early this month a beautiful 13 years old girl, Aradhna, from a Jain family died two days after fasting for 68 days. She lived only on boiled water for nearly 10 weeks. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/13-year-old-Jain-girl-dies-after-observing-68-day-fast-to-bring-good-luck-to-family/articleshow/54750457.cms)

According to the media, her father, a jeweller was in financial difficulty and he consulted some senior Jain monks who came up with the idea of her fasting to get the family out of that situation.

According to her father, it was her wish. She had fasted for 8 days in 2014, for 34 days last year and it ‘suited’ her. She was keen to go further this year. As 68 is an auspicious number in that faith, she wanted to fast for that many days. It was entirely voluntary. The family merely supported her wish.

According to both, the completion of the fast was marked by huge celebrations attended by 600 people. So was her funeral procession. She was anointed as a ‘divine soul’.

According to the hospital, she was brought dead from home. The family’s defense is that she was slowly recovering after breaking the fast gently with fluids and semi-solids but then she suffered a heart attack.

They certainly didn’t know of a condition called ‘Refeeding Syndrome’. When undernourished patients are re-fed there is an increased requirement for phosphate as the body switches back to carbohydrate metabolism, which can be made worse by a background of relative phosphate shortage in starvation. Phosphate levels in the blood begin to fall and mainly affect the heart and brain. So, it is more than likely that her ‘heart attack’ was because of prolonged fasting followed by unmonitored and inappropriate refeeding. (http://www.gosh.nhs.uk/health-professionals/clinical-guidelines/re-feeding)

Was this a suicide? A murder? Pure ignorance? Superstition? Religious blindness? Lack of common sense? Huge violation of children’s rights?The journey of her soul? Karma? All of the above? What values over-ride the basic instinct of parents to feed their off-springs?

It seems so wrong!

Day 731

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Last night as I went to bed, like many times before I prayed for a quiet peaceful death in my sleep. Facing another day has often been a terribly treacherous prospect. A heart so shattered, wonder how it keeps me alive!

I woke up knowing today marked the same wretched point in the circle of time where we were 2 years ago – the same dark spot that has smudged the rest of my days, the same dagger that has gouged an incurable agonising hole in my being.

Finding excuses to stay in bed for a bit longer I turned my phone on. The first message was from a friend who had lit a few candles in Saagar’s memory and said she was thinking of us today. Then over the course of the day there were similar messages and phone calls from Saagar’s friends, their parents, our friends and family. I was amazed that so many people reached out to us. So many didn’t know Saagar and so many I have never met. It was truly healing and life-affirming. Yes. Together we can keep Saagar’s memory alive. And that of many other innocent young people like him. They will not be forgotten. Their life and death will not be a waste. Their stories will be told and retold till lessons that need to be learnt are learnt.

We held a traditional hindu prayer ceremony called ‘havan’ at home in the afternoon. Havan is a ritual of making offerings such as grains and ghee into a consecrated fire and invoking one or more deities. It is accompanied by chanting of Sanskrit prayers and mantras. It is said to purify the environment and allow for transformation of individuals. As I made those offerings into the fire, it made me think of the symbolism of surrendering anger, regret and guilt to the Gods so they could be transformed to love and empathy.

The day wasn’t so wretched after all.
It was a reminder of the enduring nature of love.

Thank you Saagar for being my son and for being you.
Thank you all for reaching out.

Day 722

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Yes. Here’s an admission if there ever was one – I am a fan of the ‘Archers’ (a drama series on BBC Radio 4). Each time the theme tune comes on Si says, ”Let us pray.” I love Helen. She is a woman with a clear mind. Over the past few months I have been gripped by the twists and turns of the dramatic story of Helen and Rob Titchener. I have always had serious doubts about him. Not surprisingly, he did show his true colours and caused great suffering for Helen. It was interesting how insidiously, like a slithering serpent he created a severe degree of self-doubt and confusion in her mind and took control of all aspects of her life. They called it ‘mental abuse and coercive control’.

This made me look up some statistics around domestic abuse. I was shocked.

Domestic violence:

Will affect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men in their lifetime.
Leads to, on average, two women being murdered each week and 30 men per year.
3 women take their own lives every week to escape from domestic violence.
Almost 30 women attempt suicide per day for the same reason.
There is currently no ‘liability for suicide’ law under which an abusive partner can be prosecuted for the suicide of their victim.
Accounts for 16% of all violent crime (Source: Crime in England and Wales 04/05 report), however it is still the violent crime least likely to be reported to the police.
Has more repeat victims than any other crime (on average there will have been 35 assaults before a victim calls the police)
Is the single most quoted reason for becoming homeless (Shelter, 2002)
Is witnessed by 750,000 children per year.

The charity ‘Refuge’ is campaigning for a new ‘liability for suicide’ law that would hold perpetrators of domestic violence responsible for behaviour that drives their victims to suicide. ‘Taking Lives’ is a documentary film which tells the story of ‘Gurda’ who took her own life after suffering years of violent abuse at the hands of her husband. Her brother Nav has been actively campaigning for this law to be enforced. After Gurda’s death, instead of being punished, her husband was awarded financial benefits of the mortgage being paid off and all the insurance money.

Source: (http://www.refuge.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigns/takinglives/)

Here are some of the myths associated with Domestic violence:

MYTH: Alcohol and drugs make men violent.
MYTH: It only happens in poor families on council estates.

MYTH: More women would leave if the abuse was that bad.
MYTH: Abusers grow up in violent homes.
MYTH: Some women like violence.
MYTH: Women ask for it. They deserve what they get.
MYTH: Abusive men have a mental illness. They can’t help what they do.
MYTH: He only hit her because he was under stress.

MYTH: He loses his temper sometimes, that’s all.
MYTH: Domestic violence is a private matter, you shouldn’t get involved.

Once again most of the work in this field is being done by charities like LWA (Living Without Abuse), Refuge, Shelter and Women’s aid. The government needs to do more.

Day 439

Posted by kidsaregifts20

In times of the Buddha, a woman named Kisagotami suffered the death of her only child. Unable to accept it, she ran from person to person seeking a medicine to restore her child to life. The Buddha was said to have such a medicine.

Kisagotami went to the Buddha, paid homage and asked, ”Can you make a medicine that will restore my child?”
“I know of such a medicine,” the Buddha replied. “But in order to make it I must have some ingredients.”

Relieved, the woman asked, “What ingredients do you require?”
‘Bring me a handful of mustard seeds’ , said the Buddha.

The woman promised to procure them for him. But as she was leaving he added, ‘I require that the seeds be taken from a household where no child, spouse, parent, sibling or servant has died.’

The woman agreed and began going from house to house in search of the mustard seeds. At each door, people agreed to give her the seeds but when she asked them if anyone had died in that house hold, she found no home where death had not visited – in one house a daughter, in another a husband or parent had died. Kisagotami was unable to find a home free from the suffering of death. Seeing she was not alone in her grief, the mother let go of her child’s lifeless body and returned to the Buddha who said with great compassion, ’You thought that you alone had lost your son; the law of death is that among all living creatures there is no permanence.’

Kisagotami’s search taught her that she had not been singled out for this terrible misfortune. This insight didn’t eliminate the inevitable suffering that comes from loss but it did reduce the suffering that came from struggling against this sad fact of life.