Adventure 2

Four months after my reiki second degree, every thing was sought of falling in its place. I was supposed to get married on so a so date, I was happy where I was in my life. But I had not have a slightest clue of what was coming next. I guess no one does.

I love my dad so much that I cannot imagine life without him. We don’t communicate as much, but I don’t think that it is a part of who my dad is. He loves me back is what is worth it.

My dad has diabetes for almost when I can remember. I have seen my grandma, my uncle suffering from it and lost their lives because of diabetes and related depression. One thing I learnt form them is that the feet are the most important part of your body if u have diabetes. You have to take care of it and not let anything happen to it, not a scar on your feet. Well that’s how it started for my uncle. He got gangrene on his feet spread out in his foot, and had his right foot was cut off and finally he passed away in depression. My dad had some wound on his toes for quite some time, he will have them for months and then they will be gone for some time and then back again. But never to the extent that he had to cut them off. He had wounded his three toes on his right feet. Rainy seasons in India did not help either. When my uncle was suffering with his gangrene foot I could not help. But I was not giving up on my dad.

I started reiki on it. Of course he did go to the doctor; the doctor saw it and said that he will have to cut off his three toes before it spread out to the other parts of his foot. So he was told to get some blood work done. I was sad as why reiki is not working, then I thought may be it needs time to heal, time that I did not have. When the blood results came in, my dad was diagnosed with high blood sugar level, in these circumstances operation will have more complications. So, he was told to go home and have his blood sugar level in control and only then he could be operated. Well it gave me some time but not enough to save and cure his toes. Mean time my dad was taking medications, taking precautions and watching his diet.

After a week or so he went back, with his result, he has a manageable level of blood sugar and was ready for what comes next for him. His doctor mean time went for a 3 week vacation. Everyone in our family at this time was worried if the gangrene spread onto his feet in three weeks. I was still giving him reiki on his feet. By the 2 week of doctor’s vacation, one of my dads toe was drying up as in healing. We did not want ourselves to get head over heels about it yet until the doctor looked at it. When the doctor was back from his vacation, doctor was surprised that his toe was healing. He said that is if gave it time he will not have to cut any of my fathers toes. But he has to keep on doing what he is doing.

So, we did, as Ellen says, we kept on keeping on. After a month or so, my dad went again to the doctor, and was told that two out of his three toes were fine, but he can’t take any chance with the third toe and he decided to cut of only the last toe of one of his feet. Yes we were sad, but we were also excited that he did not had three of his toes cut off.

A year passes by, I am married by now. I was still with my parents as I was waiting for immigration papers. By this time I had my third degree of reiki. By now I could assist a Grand Reiki Master if I wanted to. My sixth sense at this time was getting strong. I would know who is calling by the phone ring; 7 out of 10 times I was right. Pretty good guess or good sixth sense I would say. After I got married I had this strong feeling that I am going to loose one of my parents. I was sad that I will have to leave one of them hanging behind. I did not know what I would do if that happened. There is a very fine line between negative thoughts and sixth sense; you don’t know which is which.

My dad owned a shop and a house of his own, legally both were in his names. Because of my premonition or sixth sense, I was telling him to have a joined name for both the properties in his and my mom’s name. My mom being a simple woman that she was, a typical bharatiya naari (Indian house wife) as we call them. She had no interests in banking or legal matters, which is okay where she comes from. My dad did not think that my advice on the properties was a priority; he wanted me to go to my new family and settle down. There was no way I could have told him the reason why I was insisting on this issue.

It was a cold night, I had my medical test for immigration that day, which I was so nervous about. I was really sad, wanted to share some things with my husband. So he called it was late night, I was upset about my feelings about one of my parents and did not know whom to share it with. I couldn’t even share it with my husband. I guess I did not know what I was going through. I had a nice long chat with my husband and finally kept the phone down. I went downstairs, to get a drink of water and I saw my dad, he was upset about something and like I said, was not that great at sharing. I went back to bed only to toss and turn the whole night.

The next morning I was grumpy and irritated by any little thing. I got a call from my dad and we had a little disagreement and we hung up without solving the issue. Ten minutes after the conversation I thought that there was no point in getting angry, who knows why I am angry and what his reasons were and then the phone rang.

It was from my dad’s shop. But it wasn’t him it was some neighboring business owner. He said that my dad has fallen on the ground and had some foam coming from his mouth and that he will need medical attention. I told my mom about it and she went on her way to the shop and got him to our family doctor. I headed directly to the doctors clinic. When my dad arrived he was unable to walk and was mumbling something. In my mind I was cursing my self and blaming myself that it was all my doing. Our family doctor advised us to take him to a hospital and get him fully checked out because there was nothing that he could have done.

We took him to a hospital, soon he was on EKG monitoring system. By that time he was paralyzed on the right side of his body. He was holding the window drape along side of his bed and talking to the drape, something about returning his money. My worst fear was in front of my eyes. I had to be strong for my mom and dad. I have a brother, but that time he and his family were in US. So I had to collect my act together and say that EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY. But was it?

I made some jokes to keep my mom from thinking about my dads worsening condition. But in my mind I was going through a lot. What went wrong? My dad and I had a lot of disagreements did this morning was the cause of his condition? Or may be all of the disagreements bunched up together and summed up as one and attacked on him one final day? I had no answer.

One of the workers closed down my dad’s shop for an indefinite moment. He dropped by the hospital to hand over the keys to the shop and also to see how dad was doing. He told us that when my dad opened the store this morning he came to know that one of the employee at work was taking contracts on the side and the liabilities would fall on my dad. He was pretty upset about it and had fired him that morning. Secondly a customer came in and paid part of the service charge and would not want to pay the rest, but wanted to collect his stuff.

My dad had this electronic repair shop for 40 years and there were people coming to drop of stuff to be repaired from far away. If you are in India you would know to get all of the money owed at the time of delivery. So there was a disagreement about that. By that time he was complaining about severe head ace and dizziness. When I called he sounded fine but the process of the brain stroke was already started, but I will probably not know the fact for ever. But it did explain my dad asking money from the drapes.

By the night the conditions were not getting any better, it was getting to my mom and me. One of my uncle knew a neurosurgeon, who had a hospital about 2 hours away and recommended that we should get him transferred right away. I had a talk with the doctor about it and his advice was the same and this hospital was not equipped for such kind of tests and patients. So we hired an ambulance and got him transferred to a different hospital near my uncle’s house. Now we just had to wait till the morning and see the neurosurgeon and find out what his opinions were.

I sent my mom home with my aunty and told her to get some rests. I was with my dad, still having the guilt feeling. But what was going to happen, would have had happened any other way. Performed reiki so that, my father will feel comfortable and hopefully better. Praying that next morning I wake up to my dad’s voice, when he would say good bye before he left for work, also hope that all this would be nothing but just some ramsay(horror film producer and director in bollywood) movie. It was all hard to accept and to take in. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.

Early morning my mom comes in and was asking about my dad. My dad was at this time just staring the ceiling, not aware of his environment. I said to her that don’t worry will he feel better. I knew inside it was a lie. The neurosurgeon came in and did his tests and diagnosis. All we had to do now was to wait for the results. Afternoon passed by the news started to spread between family and friends. My friends showed up for moral support, also to joke and make things lighter, at least on the surface. I was still not able to get a hold of my brother and my husband may be because of the time difference or something.

I saw the neurosurgeon pass by with a yellow envelop in his hand. I knew that was the result that we all had been waiting for. I went to him. He asked for a strong minded person in our family. Well I guess it would be me in given circumstances, my mom would not have been able to take any more of the “bad news”, so to speak. He said that my dad has a blood clot in some nerve in his brain and that one of the veins has been ruptured inside. He said that his health is going to deteriorate and that all we have is 2 days to spend with him. I felt that the ground below me was slipping by. Words were not coming out of my mouth all my fears were coming true. The doctor said that if we need a second opinion and better medical care then we will have to transfer him to Jaslok Hospital in Pedder road Mumbai. But he also mentioned that he may loose his life while he was being transferred. That was a risk we all had to take.

I was not going to give up. Not like this. Not so soon. And not at all.

I advised the doctor not to tell my mom about it. All I told my mom that there is a risk in transferring my dad but it will be better. My mom said to me, doctors told you they cant do anything didn’t they? I could not lie to her and I said yes. Her eyes were soaked and she said that she felt it in my eyes. She said I could lie all I wanted but my eyes will give it all away. My mom, the doctor and I decided that we should get him transferred.

We made all the arrangements of transferring him, my mom and I were with him in the ambulance. The whole time I was doing reiki so that we would reach the hospital without any complications. We went through, narrow roads, wide roads, highways and all. One slight heavy breath dad took; we would freak out thinking that was it. Thanks to reiki and the medical staff in the ambulance we did make it. He was soon admitted and kept In ICU. Visiting was restricted, three people in a day and only one hour of the day, if any one had to see him. He was there for couple days, by this time he had all these gadgets attached to his body, some to feed him and the one I hated, trachea they called it, a pipe from his throat the help him breath. It would sound like darth veda (from Star Wars if you are wondering) breathing. Lets us say that it was a sight that I will never ever forget in my entire life.

I would do reiki and had then also asked my guru to do a reiki light circle, where a group would do reiki for the same cause. I also did reiki so that my mom and I could handle things better. By this time everyone knew about my dad’s condition. Family would visit, but with the restricted visitations, barely any one could see him. They would meet me and my mom and go away. On day three of my dad being admitted in jaslok hospital, doctors told us that my dad went into a comma. They were not sure if he would be able to come out of it or not. It might be days or months or years before he came out of the comma, they were not able to tell. They were sure of one thing though, that if he came out of it and was able to go home then he would not be able to walk and would not even be able to take care of himself. On top of that, they said that he might even go into depression and will be aggressive and it will be hard to handle his emotions. He will not only need physiotherapy and may be even psycho therapy. He would be dependent on any and every thing in his life.

By this time my dad was in the ICCU, to go visit him you have to pass one door and wear sterilized shoes, almost like white booties. You pass the next door you have to wear a white disposable gown and wash your hands with a hand sanitizer. Then you pass though the last door, into an over sized room. This room was divided into compartments merely by white drapes between them. There were about 20 sections in that room, one of which my dad was being treated. Everyday I would pass through these doors which felt really long way to go see my dad, whom I could touch and see whenever I wanted to. I would go meet him, hear him breath and stare at the ceiling. My eyes would be wet and hopelessness is what I felt by that time. And when I left the room all I used to tell him,
“I hope you come back, but if you are to come back, make sure that you would be calm collected and independent, or don’t come back at all”.

I do not know why I would say that? Why would I not want my dad no matter how he was? I was going to go away and my mom would have suffered through all. I guess I did not want her to suffer alone. Or may be I was being selfish. I don’t know what was going through my head. When I returned those same three doors, they where the shortest distance possible, as I had to wipe my tears and have a smile on my face and tell my mom that, my dad looks better than yesterday.

But I know that reiki had not let me down by now and it will not in future. Reiki will take test after test, but all it has done is made my faith stronger, by each passing test. I also believe in lord Shiva I call him Baba. My husband and my brother were too far away to have long chats and my mom was not in a situation that I would share my fears with her. All I had was Baba, who took care of me and made me strong.

There was a waiting room outside the ICCU where families of patients would stay, sleep and eat. This hospital was in a commercial zone, so all the patients were mostly from out of the city or out of the state. They would all talk to each other share feelings, bursts into tears together. I tried my best to share but I guess just like my father, I couldn’t. He also gave me a gift to joke, in difficult times, so that’s what I did. There was nothing more I could have done.

I was going though a lot of things. I did not know how my mom would be able to handle things on her own. She will have to step up and take charge, no matter what my dad’s situation would be. How will I leave my parents alone? Will I be able to go to my husband so far away? Away from my parents, my country and the culture that I knew existed.

On the thirteenth day into my dad’s comma, my dad came out of it. We were so happy, as it was day 17th since the incident that means 15 more days then the neurosurgeon predicted for my dad. It was like a dream, after changing three hospitals; it was all worth it I thought. Now we had to wait and see how he will react when he is recovered. He would be paralyzed on one side that was true. But the question was, will he be as the doctors predicted him to be. In my mind I made a deal with my dad, now that he is back he has to honor it. Couple days passed, by this time he was starting to talk. He was suffering from memory loss and doctors wanted to see how much. They ran a test, where they showed him some pictures and he has to tell them name of the person or the place. The pictures included, Taj Mahal, Amitab Bachan( a well known Bolly wood celebrity) and of course my moms photograph. He was not able to recognize, Taj Mahal or my mom, but funny as my father is he recognized Amitab Bachan.

My dad stayed in that hospital for 30 days before he was back home. He could not do things by himself at first and also had some depression. But as time passed by he got more reiki, more therapies more prayers.

He is still with us 8 years and counting. Now my dad is clam and he walks with the help of a stick and is independent enough to wear his clothes and attend nature’s calls.

There was a time when he would not even remember my name. Now he remembers my name and that I am the mischievous one in the siblings and that I cant stop talking. Well I think it is a good thing.

I do not know what worked to make my father better and be with us. I don’t know if it was the reiki we did. Or it was my mom, who prayed day and night for his long life. Or it was the doctors at Jaslok. Or the god almighty with his miracles. Or it was mere my dad’s luck. Or it was a mixture of everything. Whatever it was, I know this for a fact that I would not have been sharing this story and open up my heart if it was not upon reiki. Now I am a Grand Master of reiki my self. And I am happy to have this adventure in my life with the help of reiki shakti.

Hope you will have a wonderful adventure without tests, whatever is upon you just remember that in the end, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.

JAI REIKI