Two Hearts

Two Hearts : Unspoken

What were you thinking? Anisha must have asked herself hundred times. But she hadn't been thinking. She only did what she felt. But because of what had happened that night, an unspoken awkwardness developed between them. Overnight, it seemed they became strangers. Anisha realised that a distance was growing between them. The hectic schedules they put in as intern didn't helped either. After the ER posting, they didn't have any more posting together. When she was in Paediatrics, he would be in Surgery. Besides the occasional hi & hellos, there were no small talks, no more coffee breaks. They saw each other less and less frequently. Their internship was nearing completion, when Anisha noticed that she hadn't seen Karan in more than a week's time. She asked around but none seemed to knew where he disappeared. He wasn't answering her calls or replying back her SMS asking his whereabouts.

Because her internship was over, she reluctantly left the hostel and university campus. She had nearly given up on hearing from him when she found an email. The email was short and it sounded more of a farewell than anything else. Because he had cleared his USMLE,United States Medical Licensing Exam, he wrote that he would be doing his residency there. He didn't know when he would return back to India and he wished her the best for life.

Anisha didn't know how to react. Whether to be angry for leaving without saying a goodbye or dismayed because he didn't considered her close enough for even a phone call. Anisha was wrong about them. They were more foes than being friends.

If this was what he wanted, she would do the same too. She resolved not to care and didn't replied back his email. Instead. she channelled her thoughts and energy in preparing for the post graduate medical entrance examination. They started out as competitors and they remained one. If Karan cleared his USMLE, Anisha topped the entrance exam and choose to do her residency in the top medical institute in the country.

***
Anisha realised the residency was going to be demanding. A week into her residency, she was leaving the ward where she was being currently posted to after her first 72 hours straight hospital duty. She felt tired and dirty in her unchanged clothes. Making her way down the stairs through the steady in stream of people climbing up, she suddenly stopped descending because she felt like she saw a familiar face. Wasn't it Karan's mother she saw? She scanned the small crowd, standing around the elevator at the far end of the hall. Anisha was right, spotting her again. There was no mistake. But before she could think of going over, the elevator opened and the group left. She was left standing, wondering what was Karan's mom doing here? Had she come to meet someone admitted here? Maybe Karan's father was unwell?

Anisha studied the floor. The 7th floor of the hospital building housed the Cardio Thoracic center. She felt the need to find out the reason and if Uncle was here, she should at least give a visit despite the fallout between Karan and her. She had met his parents several times before and they were more than cordial to her. She first checked the list of patients in the general ward. Not finding what she looked for, she decided to lastly check the private rooms, before heading out.

Because her mind wasn't looking for it, it took moments to register what her eyes saw. Anisha had been searching for Karan's father on the list of patients but what she found made her drop the paper.

She was out of breath when she reached the private room she found on the list. She won't believe until she saw with her own eyes. Gingerly, she opened the door, her hands trembling with the effort.

The first thing she heard was the continuous beeping of the monitors in the room. Then slowly, her eyes lay on the figure in the bed. Lying propped up on the bed was Karan, a nasal cannula in the nose for oxygen delivery, a pulse oximeter on his finger and other wires running from his body to the monitors beside the bed. Eyes closed, he seem asleep, his chest rising and falling with every breath he took. For several moments, she held her own breath. Because it was not the Karan she remembered. She couldn't yet believed what she was seeing.

She quickly exited the room and rushed back to the nurse station. She somehow kept her emotions in check. She needed answers and she needed them soon. Being a resident, she was able to gain access to the case history. All the medical records were meticulously filed. His case file read Dilated Cardiomyopathy(DCM) with subsequent Congestive heart failure. The diagnosis of DCM was made years ago. Anisha knew it was a condition in which the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump efficiently. It affects the myocardium, the muscles of the heart, most often without obvious cause. It was a progressive condition that had a propensity to worsen quickly. In the case sheet, there were history of medical treatment he had taken till now. In 2005, he even had an experimental VAD implanted in Boston.

Does that mean he had gone for the surgery and not for giving USMLE like he said? The analytical mind stopped working as Anisha returned to the room he was in. While going through his case file, the emotions were at bay. Now they were slowly seeping back with each step she took towards him. She quietly stood near the bed staring at the guy she had willed herself to forget. She pieced everything together, things making sense now. Their conversations came back to her. The time in the library when he spoke about the recent advances in the medical field in treating heart failure, the enthusiasm and the conviction in his voice. He was holding out to the hope that it will help him too. And the incident in the movie hall. He had stopped watching not because of her, but it was because he couldn't bring himself to watch a character who was like him. A pang of guilt gripped her, remembering the harsh things she said. Why hadn't she realised it before? But how could she when Karan had hidden it so well from everyone. Not for once she was able to realise that he was sick. Except, for the night in the ER which he brushed aside as a panic attack. As a doctor, losing a patient and more so as a person suffering with a similiar heart disease, he might have been moved by it. Now she understood the reason for his aloofness and staying away from her. He didn't wanted to reveal his illness especially to her. There was a sudden rush of heaviness in her chest as she lay bare open her feelings. She was staring at the one person who defended her when the world was against, the one who saw a side in her beyond the hardened exterior. Not once did he judged her. Not once did he left her side. A lump formed in her throat, remembering the character Naina from the movie they saw together because she finally understood what the character really felt.
Naina was helpless but she was not. She told herself watching him. And right there standing beside him, at that moment she took an instantaneous decision. She didn't hesitated for a second, didn't think twice. It came to her naturally, like her heartbeat.