It was the most memorable ‘thank you’ of my career

I vaguely remembered the case, a young lady with a fractured femur.

The sister-in-charge was having her lunch and it took me a while to locate the patient.

Maya was on the bed. Her extreme distress was partly due the traction applied on her knee an hour ago. It seemed that the hurried and harried resident had not administered an adequate amount of local anaesthetic. But despite the pain, she greeted me with a smile.

I went through her case history.

A thin, frail woman, she told me that she experienced severe pain in the leg while preparing food and could not walk. The neck of femur had fractured.

Maya had been married early to a person double her age. He was an alcoholic and his sole contribution to the family was their three kids. Maya would work part-time in the neighborhood to support the girls, who were all below 10 years in age.

I suggested some investigations and left.

Two months on, while examining a patient, I was told to attend to a patient on a stretcher. It was Maya. She said she had been discharged without surgery as she was neither fit for the operation, nor had money for the appliances.

The rest of the story was common enough. Her husband had left her for another woman. Bedridden, she was left to fend for herself and the children.

She suffered from osteomalacia, which occurs partly due to inadequate exposure to sunlight and inadequate calcium and vitamin D intake. And her femur had fractured again.

Her youngest daughter was with her. The playful child was completely unaware of the trauma her mother was going through.

Her plight struck a chord and instantly I decided to take up the case as a challenge.

The next two months were spent on her rehabilitation. I narrated her story to my resident doctors and we decided to help her out, both financially and medically.

There was no one else to look after her children and they stayed in the ward. We got them chocolates with our tea funds.

Maya was discharged after two months, barely able to walk. I advised her to live with dignity and educate her children.

She left with tears in her eyes but we kept in touch. She would drop in often and I would help her with medications and ask her about her “three jewels”. As Maya started work again, all of them had resumed school.

But several years on, Maya almost faded from my memory. My unit had changed and we almost lost touch. Very occasionally, she would drift in and I would hand her medicine samples or write out a prescription.

That Saturday was like any other OPD, very busy, with patients clamouring from all sides. From the corner of my eye, I saw her and wrote a prescription immediately so as not to keep her waiting. After two hours, I suddenly noticed that she was still waiting.

Apparently, she wanted to talk to me alone and was waiting for me to finish my work.

The next few moments were as unexpected as they were memorable.

“God gave me a life. But this life is your gift. I would have died long ago, but for your constant encouragement and support,” she said. “Today is a great day for me. My eldest daughter is getting married. She has also secured a job in a school.”

Opening a box of sweets, she placed one in my mouth and wrapped a beautiful sweater around my shoulders. “This I have woven myself,” she said.

I was dumbstruck. It was the most beautiful gift I had got in my 25 years of medical practice.