How We Made Through


 #USA

Post#21

Kaise din beetey kaise beeti ratiya….


The day would start at 4 am even in those days. I would leave home before 4:45am to beat the traffic. It took me 15 minutes for the 15 miles drive if I left home at that time. Every 15 minutes delay would cost me additional 30 minutes in the traffic. I couldn’t afford to waste a minute of my day. I was the first one to reach the hospital, start my rounds on patients assigned to me , put all lab results together, write my progress notes, pick X-ray films from radiology and be done by 6 am when the cafeteria would open. Often I would be waiting a few minutes for the doors to open. 

County hospital had free food with no limits in those days. Even the dorm accommodation  would have been available for free if only the earthquake in January that year had not caused serious damage to the dorm building. 
 At the cafeteria they served the best breakfast burrito and zucchini bread in the morning. Lunch and dinner menus were not great but one couldn’t complain as it was free. It was a place to find a few minutes of relaxation and chat with fellow interns when we were doing overnight calls.
One of my senior professors, a renowned hepatologist (liver specialist) Dr Telfer Reynolds was probably in his 80s at the time. He would be one of the early people in the cafeteria with me. We had become well acquainted with each other. 
He would simply call me Risbud.
A lot of people still think Risbud is an American name. A lot of people,including my patients,also tend to call me Rosebud 😀. I remember one resident asking me “ Are you married to an American?”😀. 

Calls used to be every fourth day. So call on first day, post call next day, a regular day on the  third day and back to call on the fourth day. I got one day off each week and it would be random, not necessarily a weekend and surely not a call or post call day. That was my schedule for 3 straight years. There was no limit those days on how many patients interns should get any call day. Admissions at the county hospital would run an average up-to 25-30 in one day , sometimes going to 45. A 20 admissions day would be considered very good. Once I left home for the call I would return home the next day anytime between 4-6 pm. Basically I would be gone for 36 hours straight. Then go back before 5am the next day.It was a matter of survival. I had to be fast, I had to be efficient and I had to get out of there to be with my kids once the work was done for the day.

I couldn’t imagine simply sitting home during the month long vacation in my junior year. I found out Dr Rahimtullah was going to be the attending on the cardiology wards that month. So with his permission I attended daily rounds with his team from 8-10 or 11 every morning. I learnt so much from him each time . He told his medical students and interns one day, this young lady is joining us every day when she could be sleeping in at home during vacation . I had rest of the day to be with the kids. They would be with Arunaben only for those couple of hours during that month. It worked out well.

One day on another rotation I was returning home post call and suddenly my car stopped in the middle of the freeway during a busy hour. I was able to barely pull over to the shoulder of the packed freeway lest another car hit me from behind. I had forgotten to fill fuel into the car. The gas had run out 🤦🏻‍♀️. Since that day I’ve become so paranoid of gas running out that when the tank is at quarter level I start getting nervous and find the closest gas station to fill it up. 

Another day I was similarly post call. It was winter and quite dark outside when I left the hospital. I walked to the parking garage, started the car and got on to the road. A traffic light on the surface street before the ramp to the freeway turned red so  I stopped, waited till it turned green and started to drive on. Right away I heard a siren and saw bright lights behind my car. It was the police. I pulled over promptly and rolled down my window .The officer came by. I had my license pulled out already to hand over to him. He said I’m not going to give you a ticket. But you passed a red light. I said no I waited when it was red. He said I saw you stopped.But the light was not green for you when you started back, only the left turn arrow was green. But that’s not why I stopped you.  I know you are tired. You don’t have the lights of your car on M’am. Turn them on and drive home safely. Good night.
 ( My car didn’t have automatic lights. They had to be manually turned on and off when needed.)


Abhay could leave later than me in the morning.  He would drop off the kids to Arunaben and one of us would pick them in the evening. On our days off kids didn’t have to go to her place . The expressions on their face that morning when they found out I’m home all day were priceless. Not very frequently Abhay and me had days off at the same time. And we preferred it that way so kids got more of our time. 

Because Advait was barely 6 months old when I started residency Abhay had become his primary caregiver. He used to be such a daddy’s boy that even if I was home and Abhay went use the restroom he would sit outside the door and wait till Abhay came out. I got a stepmom treatment from this boy in those years😀

Despite the tiring schedule we tried to make the best out of our free time with kids, family and friends. I had hosted a couple of residency collegues’ baby showers at home. A kelvan for someone getting married, birthdays of their kids and our kids , Diwali celebration and what not. We traveled during our weekends to Yosemite and Sequoia etc. Even made a trip to Vancouver, Canada when Advait was a year old in December 1994. That was his first air travel. 

I was and am the travel planner for our family since then. Over the years I’ve extended that role even to our close circle of friends. That particular year I had an elective rotation in December and got lucky to get a week off during peak Holidays. I found a return airfare from Los Angeles to Vancouver Canada for only $165 which was a steal even in those days. We wanted to do a road trip from Seattle to Los Angeles after seeing Vancouver. But one way fares were more expensive. So I hatched out a plan. We would fly to Vancouver. Spend 2 days there. Then take our return flight which had a stop over in Seattle. We would not carry check-in bags. All of us would exit the plane with our carry-ons in Seattle. Rent a car and do our one way road trip. 

And that’s what we did. With a 3 year old who had just got off diapers and a one year old obviously still in diapers and a bottle we did a road trip from Seattle, through Portland,San Francisco back home to Norwalk, California. 

In Seattle we took the kids to the Science Center and Space Needle. We got a lot of rain on the segment between Seattle to Portland. Saw a lot of fallen trees on the road. When we finally reached our hotel in Portland we turned on the TV and every news channel was flashing coverage about the worst storm in history of Oregon with advisory to avoid roads 🤦🏻‍♀️😲. We had in our ignorance driven through the storm stupidly with two young kids. We were grateful that we reached the hotel safely. 

In Portland next morning we came across huge trees fallen on roads everywhere blocking access to places. We managed to see the Rose Garden and the Multnomah falls. Then carried on to San Francisco. Took a cruise to Alcatraz, went to the Treasure Island, Golden Gate Bridge , Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman’s Wharf. 

All through this trip we had been on Interstate Freeway 5 that runs parallel along the entire West Coast of the USA from the Canadian border on the North to the Mexican border on the South. Throughout our trip, right from Seattle to Los Angeles traffic kept flowing smoothly, even through the storm,until we were 2 miles from home !! The freeway interchange of 5 and 605 at Norwalk behaved just like any day even at 9 pm 😂. The bottle neck was familiar to us. It just put things in a different perspective after our drive from Seattle this time!!  It was a Welcome Home moment 😀

The saree is a 25 years old traditional silk Kanjeevaram. This design is known as Vaira Oosi which means diamonds and needles. The fine jari lines running across the body give it an appearance of diamonds and needles hence the name. My close friend during residency had worn her wedding vaira oosi for the baby shower hosted for her in our apartment. I liked it so much she said she would look for it when she went to Chennai. Sure enough during her next trip she went to the same weaver who had woven her mother’s and her sarees and got this exact replica of her vaira oosi for me. And a bonus brocade material to stitch a blouse. Im wearing that blouse also today. The saree, a timeless masterpiece it is ! 

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