Lessons I learnt when my child got sick with pneumonia

During our family trip to Jhapa back in December 2020, chora was diagnosed with pneumonia and had to be hospitalised for about 5 nights in a community hospital in Birtamode. I was scared, shocked and more than a year later, I am finally gathering some courage to look back at the whole event and refelct on many life lessons that the whole eposide taught me.

Let's begin with how our day exactly started on the day of his hospitalisation. Chora woke up mulitple times at night but had no fever. I remember at one point telling my husband that he was breathing very fast. He was fussy but otherwise, he had no other alarming symptoms. He had a runny nose the day before and that was that. He woke up in the morning and vomitted all the milk as soon as he finished drinking it. His respiration wasn't normal and we took a tempo and rushed to a local community hospital. The hospital had one pediatrician and around 20 to 30 patients waiting outside. It was crowded, people weren't wearing masks, it was hot and we were tensed. As soon as the doctor checked chora's pulse and chest, he asked us to do the xray, checked his respiration rate and diagnosed him with 'pneumonia in distress'. 

We walked outside the hospital carrying chora not knowing what to do. All private wards in the hospital were occupied and there was one empty bed in the general ward which was already over-crowded with children sick from different diseases. There was one common toilet next to the general ward which was jammed, the hallways and passages were all occupied by the family members and vistors of the patients admitted in the hospital. The white dim tube lights and brightly painted walls gave us an eerie feeling. What made the situation worse was the fact that this community hospital didn't have an ICU and the doctor had clearly said looking at chora's condition that if things got worse, he might need an ICU later. 

For the next few hours after the diagnosis, we explored some more options. We met a medical officer at a private hospital who said that it was just a regular cough and cold and we didn't have to worry. We talked to the doctor again and asked if we could fly back to Kathmandu and he said that chora wasn't 'fit to fly'. We spent some more time exploring the possiblities of driving to Siliguri but becuase this was in the middle of Corona times, crossing borders for medical reasons wasn't easy either. By this time, we had already wasted good few hours with chora's respiration rate getting worse and the heat and hunger worsening our thinking and decison making capacity. We went to meet the doctor again and told him we didn't know what to do. We were helpless and we needed someone to tell us exactly what to do. We finally decided to admit him in the same community hospital with an understanding that there was another private hospital right acrosss the street with an ICU if there was an emergency. For some reason all our families and friends in Jhapa had warned us against this private hospital so we never went inside it.

We stayed in the general ward for the first two nights and moved to a private ward later for which we literally had to fight with the hospital administration staff because they were apparently reserving the room for 'chineko maanche'.

So here's what this whole episode taught me in life. Firstly, you can never make someone else's pain and sufferings into your own, no matter how much you love that person. I birthed my son, carried him inside me for nine months but the pain that he had to go through during those days were his pain. I couldn't make it mine. When the doctor first told us it was pneumonia, my legs were shaking and I was crying and I was making it all about myself, about how scared I was and how I was feeling. It took me sometime to shift the focus from me and concentrate on chora. I kept reminding myself that this wasn't about me. It was only about how my child was suffering and what I could do to comfort him. And that's the lesson I want to carry with me forever, to always remember that we can never make soneone else's loss and pain about us. We can be an observer, comforter and may be fix things for the other person but never make it about ourselves.

Second most important lesson is to always be there for someone when they are sick or in hospital. We may not always be there to celebrate everyone's joy and success in life or help someone financially when they are in need but guess what's most important is to be physically present beside someone when they are sick or in hospital. And if that's not possible, to call and check reguarly on how they are feeling. During those days, we needed extra help and we are forever grateful to our friends and families in Jhapa for being there with us. My mother took the first flight to Jhapa as soon as it was made clear that we weren't flying back to Kathmandu. I was physically and mentally much calmer with my mother beside me. Having friends around also lightened our moods and helped us stay more positive. 

Last but yet another very important lesson in life is someone else is always more in pain and grief than we are in and although knowing that doesn't lessen our pain but it surely does comfort us knowing we are not alone. While in that hospital I met children and families who had traveled from far away districts with diseases and diagnosis I had never heard of before. Sick, ailing children held on tightly to their mothers' chests waiting on their fathers working aborad, only available to comfort via a video call. Family members with nothing but a flimsy plastic bag and a thermos with warm water, lying on the foam mats, finding spots in the hallways to spend the night. The more I observed and interacted with the children and families around me, lesser the pain I felt for the situation we were in. 

We walked out of the hospital on the sixth day, eager to fly back to Kathmandu with chora feeling much better. We are still very grateful to the nurses at the hospital who were all very young, cheerful and on their toes throughout the time with all the beds fully occupied while were there. 

More than a year later, as I look back at myself standing outside that community hospital after the diagnosis, holiding my child while waiting for a tempo, making calls frantically, not knowing what to do and extremely fearful of what was going to happen next, I only see how I have come out stronger from it.