So here I am suffering from hypertension, kidney failure, lying waiting for the next session of dialysis in the children's hospital's ward. A network of tubes zigzag their way from my arms, crossing uncrossing, like the path of the Milky Way. Connecting me with various drips and huge machines.
A nurse comes in every now and then to monitor my breathing, pulse, temperature -a small break in another predictably uneventful, dreary day. It's no fun lying here for days and weeks on end, waiting for relief. Even my sister seems bored and to have become more cranky with time. The days stretch away interminable, with nothing to distract me from the discomfort of the pain, of being so chained to and constricted by the machinery and illness.
At times the pain keeps me awake at night. The night seems to roll out endlessly, like the bottom of a dark ocean, with no sight of ever surfacing.
Seconds roll away, as hours, heavy with the sense of a meaningless existence. The minutes weigh heavy on my eyes. How should one break out of this paralyzing sense of helpless despair and boredom? How to look forward to the next day, without dwelling on my illness? Just trying to pass the time, is tiring.
I've watched the shadows so often, as they grow, lengthen shrink and fade away, to kill time. Watched the flies droning, and rising up in clouds. Watched new patients coming in and old ones being discharged. Counted the number of times the girl in the bed next to mine has coughed. How often the boy next to me has moaned with pain. Is there nothing to forget the dreariness of these surroundings? It's hard to keep your spirits up.
Yesterday the doctor suggested that I visit the new school in the ward. It is just for two hours in the evening but at least there was something to do. A new experience, my first of a school. The teachers were so cheerful. I held a pencil for the first time and made tiny squiggles on the paper, called alphabets. It was fascinating. I think there is a school in my village maybe I could convince my father to send me there. But that's for the future. At present, at least it eats up three hours and gives me something to look forward to.