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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Questions...


My friend's dad is a surgeon. A few days ago, a 27 year old youth had a bad road accident and was declared brain-dead. That is, the heart will keep beating if given adequate life support, but theoretically, the patient is dead.

The patient's family decided to donate his kidneys. As routine protocol, the operating senior surgeon, in this case my friend's father, is required to switch off the life support system after the operation is over.

He duly proceeded to do so, but for 20 whole minutes, the heart kept beating without any technical support whatsoever.

How did this happen ? I'm not looking for any technical explanations here.Was it sheer will ? Was the heart just not ready to give up ? Was his brain (but he was brain dead wasn't he? ) telling his heart to keep beating for some more time ? Or is there an unknown control that has the power to take such decisions ?

I wish I knew.

Do we take life for granted? I think we do, in fact, we take our existence for granted every single living minute.

Is this why, people with disabilities sometime outperform , outshine and out-everything us. My Pathology teacher's son is physically disabled, one side of his body is paralyzed and the other side is almost useless. Yet, he has written three books in braille for the blind.

I am normal , but will I ever be able to write even one book in my lifetime ? Do I lack the will, the talent , the drive or the spirit ?

Questions.. questions...

Someone once told me, its only when you attend a cremation/funeral of a close relative/friend that you realize only completely certain, rock solid, unavoidable reality of life.
Death.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I liked this one. It raises so many questions and doubts...are we even half as grateful for the abilities that we take so much for granted? I think not. Every time i crib about how my life is so complicated, what I should bedoing is counting my blessings.

Superdoc said...

Thank you friend, but who are you ? You have posted as anonymous...

Anonymous said...

Yes i think i completely agree with you on this one.We do take ourselves and our abilities as normal human beings for granted every moment until some sinister happens.But at the asme time i think it only human with all the worldly engagements, the haves and have nots.Thought provoking indeed!

Superdoc said...

Thanks, Dr. Punyani... keep visiting..