Day 209, Monday, 11th June, 2012

A bit of good news first for those of you who have been reading my blog: my father's dialysis has begun; as of writing this, he has gone through three sessions of hemodialysis, and I have received reports that he is feeling better. Thank you all for caring about him and for praying for his health. I am aware that this is not an illness that will go away; that he will have to go for dialysis throughout his remaining life; that he may - God forbid - fall prey to one of the horrible side-effects of this modern treatment and perhaps suffer more than what he was going through before his dialysis began; that this treatment may cause problems with the health of my mother, who also has health issues and is as old as my father. But through all this, I am also aware that there are many kind souls like you who will continue to wish well for him and perhaps that will spare him and my mother all those dire things I just mentioned. I always feel that if the quality of life has to be victim to modern treatment, it is perhaps better to have such life cut short ... but this may be a cruel thing to say about one's own parent, and so, I will pray this: that he should not suffer through the illness or its treatment; and this: that my mother, too, should not have to suffer much owing to dad's illness or treatment. May Allah spare both of them the travails of living through a chronic debilitating illness and Bless them with His Mercy.


Okay, so yesterday, I took the first step towards the realisation of one of my goals for coming to KSA. I "bought" a study package ONLINE from a web-site called www.onexaminations.com, for the purpose of studying for Part 1 of the MRCPCH examinations. This web-site is owned and managed by the very relevant and respectable British Medical Journal (www.bmj.com) guys. It will give me an opportunity to solve more than 2700 questions along the style of the examinations conducted by the Royal College of Pediatrics, UK. With this purchase, my journey to try and pass the MRCPCH exams has begun. Today, I also contacted the examinations secretary at the King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, KSA, and requested for information for the purpose of registering for the examinations in October 2012. I have received the documentation requirements from them already, and I will try and fulfill the needs and file an application within the next fortnight, inshallah.


My stay in the hospital continues. It has definitely made life easier in the mornings, as I have to only leave my room and climb down a flight of stairs to be in the hospital! On the other hand, lack of cooking facilities and a refrigerator makes life tough too. I generally buy my next day's lunch from a hotel the previous evening, open its containers and leave the stuff above my cupboard, hoping that the food will remain edible till the next afternoon. Dr. Shahid has informed me that he is, in fact, resigning and will leave the country within the next fortnight. I am hoping, therefore, to return to my old house after he has left ... or at least after his family has. In the meantime, I have been spending time reading, studying and so on. 


That's all for now, I guess. Do keep visiting the blog, and leave your comments whenever possible. I need your encouragement and prayers as always. Thank you.


P.S. My blog saw the maximum traffic yesterday, with over 80 new visitors. This is a measure of the love you have towards me and my family. Thank you again. I now have visitors from 36 countries. I do not know how may re-visit my blog, but to all of you I say thank you, thank you, and THANK YOU.

Day 207, Saturday, 9th June, 2012

Since coming back from India, I have not really settled down mentally, as my father's condition back in India continues to worry me. Just a few days before my return, we discovered that he is suffering from chronic renal failure (his kidneys aren't functioning well), and, to push the matter further, I also hospitalised him for a night in Noor Hospital, and managed to carry out all the needed investigations. My brother informed me that his general condition had declined over the ensuing five or six days and his brother-in-law Dr. Saifeebhai had visited him and urged him to be re-hospitalised for possible urgent hemodialysis.


Eventually, we did get him re-admitted a few days ago, and dialysis was begun on him on Friday evening. As I write this on Sunday morning, I am told that he has undergone two sessions of dialysis already, and his general health is improving, al-hamdulillah. 


Back here in Al Muwayh, a peculiar situation developed for me. My room-mate Dr. Shahid had already informed me that as his family was going to visit him, I should locate myself in some other premises for a fortnight, and for the last several days, I was looking around for alternative premises, to no avail. Most available premises were large houses and their rents were exorbitant compared to what I had been paying in the old house (remember we were three persons sharing a monthly expenditure of about SR 900?)


I therefore spoke to our hospital's medical director Dr. Shehabeldin and urged him to seek permission from the Hospital Director Mr. Ahmed Farreh to allow me to stay in one of the rooms inside the hospital. On Friday, after the Jummah prayers, I contacted Dr. Shehab again, and after some consultations he had with the H.D., he allowed me to move in to one of the empty rooms on the first floor of the hospital complex.


Yesterday, i.e. on Friday evening, I moved into room No. 6, thanks to the help provided by Dr. Aala Ashweh, the benign Egyptian ENT surgeon; he brought me with my bags etc. to the hospital and thus facilitated my smooth shift to the hospital. The various male workers then helped me take the luggage upstairs, and also cleaned the room well enough for me to shift in. Later in the evening, I visited the local market (bakalla) and purchased a few things that I thought I would need in my new location, such as tea packets, some biscuits, and so on. I had already carried my tea-maker with me from the OPD to home so as to enable me to boil water in my room. This, then, I used to make myself a cup of tea, and then spent the next few hours sorting my stuff and placing it in the most convenient place within the room.


Today, the day passed awfully slowly, as there were hardly any patients in the OPD. I was on call as well; even so, there was no work, not even from the ER during the evening or the night. In the event, boredom creeped into me over the day, and by the evening, I was crying out from inside and begging Allah to make my life a bit easier and more interesting. I went for a half-hearted walk, and even visited a few super markets to while away the time, but all in all, I was feeling stifled in this very uncharming place.


I took a longish nap in the evening, and also retired earlier than usual to bed, just so as not to stare in the face of immense boredom.

Day 206: Changing climate, changing life, changing Al Muwayh

Summer is here, and how! When I was in T'aif last week, I never realised how warm Al Muwayh had become as T'aif had been quite pleasant to live in. When I came back to Al Muwayh, I missed the realisation of the summer having arrived in full fury for the first few days as I did not go out on my customary walks. Our hospital is centrally air-conditioned, and, in my house, I usually keep the A/C on during most of the day and almost half of the night.

The true temperature hit me on Wednesday, when I first ventured out in the evening for a walk. I could not manage more than a few km, thanks to the sapping effect of the extreme dry heat. My intake of water and juices had already gone up by a big amount, so I was not surprised when the temperature gauge inside a kind Saudi's car showed a reading  of 42 degrees Celsius at 5 p.m. in the evening! When I remarked on this, the gentleman informed me that the temperature in T'aif had already gone past 42 degrees, and it was hovering around 48 degrees Celsius at Riyadh!

Today afternoon, I decided to go to the garden to see in what shape the various things there were. I found that the grass that had grown so well on the lawns there had mostly turned yellow, and many bald patches had appeared where there had been a pleasant green. There was hardly any shade, although it was over five o'clock. There were no children or footballers. Both the black scrub-robins were gone, and there were only sparrows and a few juvenile white wagtails. No yellow ones, and no warblers either. Just a few swallows spun in the air, and they, too, were infrequent flyers over the garden. The hedges gave evidence of sparrowy chirps all through the evening, but the birds could not be seen. The gardeners had trimmed most of the hedges and there were no unwieldy patches now. The grass too had been trimmed down to a bare inch or two, and as it was almost yellow, the appearance it gave was of a landscape that one may perhaps see on the scorched plains of Tanzania rather than on the verdant greens of India. I almost expected to see a cheetah or hear the roar of a lion!

In the later part of the evening, I was called to the hospital to see a patient. The walk from the garden to the hospital is over 2.5 km, and I punctuated it with visits to some of the shops down the main road. In particular, I was trying to ascertain the prices of several household items, because my room-mate, Dr. Shahid, is in the process of selling me his assets before he exits Saudi Arabia, and he has handed over a list of the items he wishes to dispose of, with their asking prices. It was a process of discovery, and I realised that in most cases, his prices were quite competitive. 

The new Date trees

As I neared the hospital, I observed that the centre-pavement of the road was now adorned with new date trees planted afresh. This changed the view completely! In fact, a few days earlier, I had taken a car ride with a Sudanese employee of the road improvement committee of the Municipality of Al Muwayh, and he had pretty much informed me that the trees would be planted soon, perhaps in a day or two. The date trees were, therefore, proof of the truth of his forecast. 

The pentadactyl monument

Further ahead, the area that had an artistic monument coming up had been spruced up further, the land abutting the road had been levelled, and the circular area around the pentadactyl monument was about 80% tiled and ready for display. The evidence of improvements to the civic amenities and roads was astonishing. I wondered if the rich municipality of Mumbai could achieve this much in such less time. Perhaps not, for their aim is not to enrich the city but themselves. And there lies the irony. It is because of the disenchantment one faces in a rich city like Mumbai that many avowed citizens of India go abroad to seek "greener" pastures.