It would appear that dad has stabilized a bit after coming back from the hospital. What seems to have worked wonders is realizing that he is surrounded by his grandkids. Both my nephews from Kolkata are with him and the niece, of course, is downstairs. Especially the elder nephew – who has always been very fond of grandfather – is giving him a lot of company. And the reports say that he has been busy Googling a lot of my dad’s symptoms to weigh in on the discussions that my brother has been having around the path forward.

The grandkids, in their effort to cheer up grandfather, also make video calls to me so he can talk to me.

One of the more humorous stories from today…

We were video conferencing with each other as one of the nephews held up the phone close to him when he asked…
“Kaaney tulo diye rekhechhis keno?” (We have you put cotton plugs in your ears?)
I could hear the nephews whispering “What?”
After I stopped laughing, I told them that grandfather won’t understand bluetooth or Airpods.

And then we could all hear dad continue “Taaka chaibo boley?” (Are you afraid I will ask you for money?)
All I could see is a flash of his face as he started laughing at his own joke.

And then I saw the ceiling.
Apparently, the nephews burst out laughing, were literally rolling and the phone lying somewhere on the floor after bouncing a couple of times – no doubt!

It is then that I realized that at your old age, medicine is not what the doctor really called for. It is being surrounded by your near and dear ones who you can talk to.

In an irony, they still won’t let me visit the hospices here (because of Covid)

Dad came back from the hospital. It seems that the kidneys, lungs and heart have decided to fight for some more time. Overall, he looks very tired and in pain – but relatively much less pain.

In the end, the suffering was too much at home for him as well as the care takers. Brother reached after midnight on Thursday. Yesterday, the situation reached a point that he had to be moved to a hospital.

Right now the situation in India (at least in Bengal) is fairly grim. Due to Covid, getting ICU beds has become very difficult. And nothing can be done before Covid tests – which can take three days, as I understand. Fortunately, since my brother is in the medical line (he sells medical machines in all hospitals in Bengal) and my brother in law is a doctor, they were able to pull enough strings to get one ICU bed in a hospital in Kalyani.

The initial diagnosis is – as was being feared – multiple organs – kidneys, lungs and heart are starting to fail. But apparently the root cause might be the kidneys. The plan is to see if dialysis makes any difference. However, everything has to await the Covid results.

Meanwhile, he seems to be in a stupor. Which is not bad … I assume he is not feeling the pain then.