BY MEG HARRY
“Tackling emergencies in a foreign land, especially when your kids are involved, makes you count your blessings and navigate your fears.”
As expats in Pune with little kids, it can be hard to find activities to keep them busy. After much searching, we found a group called The Little Gym that was founded in our hometown of Bellevue in Washington, USA. Deciding to give it a try, we found a pop-up on the fourth floor of a local gym. Such fun!
After class, my five-year-old twins wanted to take the stairs instead of the elevator. I always hold my son’s hand. Always. He often hates it and nearly always fights it. That day, I just didn’t. So I could only watch as, 3.5 storeys down the steep granite stairs, he started to fall. It happened so fast, yet in slow motion. I couldn’t reach him. He fell sideways, then down a step, then another. The momentum gathered and it turned to the tumble-fall of nightmares.
He landed with horrible cries and a thud, people rushing towards us, blood everywhere. I saw the open gash on his temple and it was bad. I saw bone. I pressed my palm against it to stop the bleeding and began the frantic search for my car, yelling for people to get my bag, find my phone. But wait, there is no 911 in India. 112 is far too new to rely on just yet. What are the other numbers? 103? 108? What was I going to do? Grace, my daughter, was calm and cool behind us, holding my purse, being beautifully, silently helpful. But honestly, I hardly saw anything beyond the blood and my son.
As people gathered around us, my husband saw the commotion from the car and came dashing over, fear and confusion across his face. The security guard, in broken English, explained where the nearest hospital was and off we sped. For an American, an Indian hospital can be quite a shock, so our experience was brief and upsetting. We approached the main doors, asking for the emergency room, and a man speaking Hindi and dressed in regular clothes wrenched my son out of my arms as I desperately tried to keep my palm pressed to his temple. He rushed us through an overcrowded waiting room, all heads turned, mouths agape as we passed — my small, blonde son covered in blood, with his blonde twin sister behind him. The door to triage opened onto a tiny room, already full. A boy on the triage table moved over and my son was placed there, screaming in panic because so many people were touching him and talking and no one would listen to him. Just as many people were pulling at me and touching him and talking over us, and I couldn’t stop to listen. I just kept saying, “Please help us,” as everyone stared. They said he’d need a plastic surgeon who could be there in three hours, and they’d use general anaesthesia for stitches! Oh no!
I scooped up my son under protest from the doctors and we busted out of there, voices calling at our backs. Our paediatrician’s wife is a general surgeon, so she could do the stitches using local anaesthesia. Dr Mahesh, usually cool as a cucumber (really, he still was, other than this one little giveaway) kept saying, “It’s really deep.” Again and again. If you’re squeamish, skip the next sentence. As he was cleaning the wound, he moved the skin a bit and I saw through the cut into Alex’s sinus cavity. That, I wish I’d never seen.
When the surgeon arrived, we explained to Alex that he’d need to be very brave, and assured him he would be numb before they sewed. But, this only made him more frantic. I suddenly realised what was scaring him and explained that he’d still feel all his emotions — joy, sorrow, fear, frustration — he just wouldn’t feel his skin near the cut for a few hours. This was a huge relief to him, and proved to me how very perceptive my small son is. As our daughter said goodbye to her twin, she kissed him tenderly on his arm, then very gently brushed his cheek with her hand. It was the most stunningly beautiful and painful moment.
Though Alex will have a scar, I’m glad we didn’t stay in the hospital and wait for the plastic surgeon. He got his stitches and was so very brave. And, we are now expat ‘experts’ on medical care in Pune.
That night, as I tucked the twins into bed together in our home in this foreign land, I told Grace how proud I was of her for being so calm and helpful, and that it must have been scary for her, too. She replied, “It was. I almost cried. Alex is my very favorite person.”
In the relative calm after the storm of that day, I could only think how blessed we are, wherever we are.
ExpatEyePune 