When I was young, Mom wanted me to be a doctor. Mind you this was much before Doogie Howser and other glamour medical types made it cool. So, since I had a brain, I was enrolled into the medical side in High School. Close encounters with dissection classes made me wonder …….., I found them gross! Dont get me wrong, medicine is a noble profession – I am not noble. I cant get it. This world is made up in equal parts of the beautiful, the plain, the ugly and the gross. I infinitely prefer the beautiful. Plus I am a lazy irresponsible bum. I dont want to study endlessly, to sacrifice my beauty sleep or have be responsible for someone’s life or death. I admire these wonderful people, but it is not me. I admire them, but would love to be away from pain and suffering. Hospitals house the ill and the saviours. I’d rather give them a miss. So when the time came, I said, “Sorry Mom” and picked up English Literature, Keats, Byron and marriage. Another one of my Great Escapes 
Both my kids are Ceasarian ….. one of God’s divine jokes at my expense. Humph! But I guess I behaved, because no one complained about the horrible patient I was. May be my babies made my family forgive me.
Some of the anaesthetic trips are good and happy, some take you into a psychedelic hell. A few years ago, I had a pretty bad accident, which required surgery. Kid#1 was barely 20 years old. Poor child ….. he swears I will be held solely responsible for any kind of hair loss or every grey hair on his young head. I was wheeled in to my hospital bed, post surgery, with an oxygen mask, totally out of it. I must have been angry and in pain, because I threw a very bad tantrum. Oxygen stinks, and I did not want that mask. I kept pushing it off. The nurse scolded me and said “Aapka surgery hua hai – yeh lagao” ….., well, I was pissed, and I yanked it off my face and plastered it on hers and said “Tere ko chahiye na, Too hi pehenle”. I even pulled off the IV. I have nothing to say in my defense …. except that I was out, and did not know. Kid#1, Kid#2, Kid#1′s group of friends (which included DIL) were all there at the hospital at that time, and decided I was a brat. Hmmmmmm, I have not managed to live that down as yet.
With that in mind, DIL and Kid#1 warned me that I better behave this time. I guess I did, I did not even complain about the sweet corn soup they fed me (even though I told my kids it looked like monkey’s semen – no I have never seen monkey’s semen, dont ask, its just what I thought, so I would not drink it humph!). I drank the juice, so there!!!!! :P
I was wheeled out of the OT, and the kids hovered around me asking “Mom, how do you feel?”. Apparently this anaesthesia was good stuff, and the trip must have taken me to a psychedelic paradise. As per them, I was tripping and answered with a happy giggle “Awesome”
Well, mind you, I do not remember the last time or this one, so I chose to look at the kids with wide-eyed disbelief whenever they tell me about this. It is the only way I can cling on to the shreds of my tattered dignity. Sigh!!!!!
Doctors are another class of people in themselves – so matter of fact and business-like that it gives me the shivers. When I went to the hospital, I definitely was more interested in meeting my siblings for Bhai Dooj, an awesome dinner with wine and mithai and chocolates – getting admitted was not on the agenda. My gynae (poor long suffering soul) was surprised to actually see me keep my appointment. I am the most unwilling patient that walked this earth! She tried to be gentle (even when I rebelled during the physical exam, its instinctive, I dont do it on purpose) and explained that I had to be operated. I asked “Can I come in after my dinner with my family?”. She looks at me and says “Shall I ring up Kid#1?”. End of discussion ……….
Now a days hospitals are better than malls. Yes they are. All major brands are there. You have Costa Coffee, Cafe Coffee Day, Moets and Nirulas there. You even have the most awesome mandir right in the middle of the hospital campus. Kid#2 wanted us to go to the mandir before the surgery. So both of us quietly took a small walk the night before the surgery. I was most impressed by the Shiv Ling and told him it was one of the more impressive phallic symbols I had seen recently. Totally inappropriate humour but it got us both giggling dementedly – and he hugged me hard, wordlessly. It felt good, that clingly baby of mine, now so tall and strong, holding me hard and comforting me!!! Thanks my love, both you and your brother are my strength, my courage, my life 
What’s with hospital food? Do they instruct the cooks to ensure that things should not be tasty? Its like reminding people that they are sick and so have to eat this insipid fare Blech!!!! I should have carried sachets of capsico, chilli flakes and mustard to spice up stuff. Less said about the liquid diet they put me on – soups that had no character whatsoever, lumpy khichdi. Whoever saw a light red tomato soup, I ask you? Moong Dal soup looked like yellow water. The only things I could face were cornflakes and juice. I tell you I started dreaming about masala dosas and pizzas! I need to get a life! Imagine drooling over food instead of men!!!!!
The plus point is that I must have lost a lot of weight :D
