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HIV Tales from my diary- Tale 5

Friendship of school days surrounded the air which was full of fragrance of happiness. The reason was obvious. We guys left school fifty Golden years ago. The meeting to celebrate same reminded us all of those innocent days. The fun of those days was being relived so minutely. We remembered how we used to give nick names to teachers , played pranks upon each other , bunked school to see movies , learnt choicest abuses in vernacular , experimented with new found sexual macho spirits etc etc. As the evening was becoming adulterated with adulthood , the alcoholic geriatrics started acting sweet sixteen. Those who passed their tenth class five decades ago were behaving drunkard with their success stories of high school. Soon , they were spilling their life time successes in terms of name and fame acquired thereafter all over. After few drinks , boasting becomes a ritual. So was true for this bunch of oldies too. Some one was boasting ones millions , others talked about simplicity during their entire life. Some succeeded in business, some in profession and gossip of life that night ,made the night never ending. 
I could not have been an exception. I was in my own thoughts and was lost in remembering my own story. 

High school to college to medical college to a specialist was a journey full of stories. 

But the greatest satisfactory stories emerged from the human beings coming into my professional life. They became special, when stigmatized and ostracized diseases like leprosy and HIV were brought back into mainstream ,just with dent of successes of modern medicine and its humane practitioner. Being a good human being was always my goal , a goal more than a goal of being a good doctor ( as my father always advised ) and it was this achievement which was filling my cup of achievements, always.

 Swarna’s story was no mean an achievement for me. 

It was a decade and a half ago when I came across ” Swarna”. It was a rainy day , patients were scarce like rain in deserts. The wait ended ,when a couple ,appeared on my clinics skies. The moment, a young beautiful girlish looking lady entered my chamber , I was wonderstruck by her countenances and was almost dumbfounded. It was her husband’s husky voice, loaded with expressions of extreme grief and punctuated by sob soaked sentences ,which broke the silence. 

His narration of his own story , dampened the spirits of doctor in me , the doctor ,who is in the habit of getting wet in patients personal rains and forgets to put on the rain coat of exterior toughness even. Swarna’s husband belonged to sales of medicines and thus was connected someway to medical profession too. Like ,everyone related to medical profession ,in whatever way ( peon to pharmacist to nurse to Medical representatives to dais) he also used to think himself as much a doctor as anyone sailing in his boat . It is like a gold plated ornament thinking itself to be gold. But this time ,his knowledge belittled him in his own eyes. He was baffled with the ailment of his wife. Rather than the ailment , his worries were more about the cause. The cause of transmission of virus ,however ,ceased to bother me any longer. But for epidemiological reasons , the relevance of knowing the cause was like exhuming of a dead body for post mortem of a virgin to know whether she was pregnant or not. Revelations of pregnancy status of a dead virgin can only serve a purpose ” defamation ” and so is to know the cause of HIV transmission through sex with” XYZ” in a “one night “or “multiple night “affairs. Those were the days when contracting a disease like HIV was always linked with ” character”. And character was linked to sexual indulgence out side the temple of marriage , it was not linked much to other ways of transmission of the virus ( like blood and mother to child transmission). The character was more deeply assassinated if one of the partners in marriage was not having the virus. 

The joys of Swarna being pregnant were already drowned in floods of dashed hopes of a son “sea ” and painted her husband’s small world with darkness , by the news of ” twin daughters in her womb”. His radiologist friend had broken the law and ethics to break the news to him. Ever since further tests carried out as a routine ante natal check up, hell broke loose on him. He was like a prisoner locked in a dark room, whose four walls comprised of a daughter here , a daughter there, a virus called HIV here and a virus called HCV there. He had four pronged attack on his happiness. Me , the physician and He, the victim’s life partner ,were moving in opposite directions. My concerns were to prevent the virus from entering into the bodies of twins growing inside Swarna’s womb , as well as ,her partner , but Swarna’s husband was concerned about the mode of entry of virus in her body. His questioning settled with my counseling to great extent but my queries lurched in uncertain future even after providing prophylaxis medicines and putting HCV treatment in place. 

HCV left her body via the exit door comprising of costly injections of interferons but HIV still had to pass through exit doors from her twins bodies. Their birth was hanging with moments of Caesar’ s wife( Pompeia ) who need to be above suspicion. I along with Swarna’s family were worried at the time of birth of her daughters. Both the twins named ,”Khushi” and ” Muskan” would be forced to be ” Pompeia ” every moment of their lives and prove their innocence, if the anti retroviral given to their mother failed to achieve the desired. Fourteen months was like an exile for Hindu God ” Rama”S exile. But then came the celebration day , after 14 long months ( due to inadequacy of testing availabilities of those times ) even the HIV antibodies ,acquired from mother ,exited the bodies of both twins and the twins were declared HIV free. 

Parents started enjoying their childhood through these two lovely girls. 

Time literally grew wings and Swarna’s life was floating in airs of hope ,once again. She started settling in her profession and was touching new heights. Even the female lead of successful Punjabi movie got her dresses designed by her. This fact , became a signature statement of her living with HIV in a meaningful way. I started narrating her success as my success to my new HIV patients ,during counseling sessions. 

More years rolled down and the proverbial seven year itch appeared in Swarna’s marital life. Once again her husband wanted to put her on the cross. 

That morning she came with him with swollen eyes. The cause – her husband was suspecting infidelity. This time my counseling task was tougher task than what I faced for first time in handling this couple’s queries of cause of viral transmission. But as the saying goes ” tough gets going when going gets tough”. I acted tough and softened the hard nut husband ,once again. He got convinced that his wife will not spread the virus to others just out of vengeance ,exploiting her good looks. It was his fault to misunderstand her inner self and strength.The times ironed out the rough weather once again. 

More waters flew in Sutlej and Beas , the two rivers of my state. 

Barely two days before , we planned Golden jubilee celebrations plan meet of our passing out from school came a good news. 

The news of passing out of Khushi and Muskan from their school. 

Leaving school with flying colors can always splash rainbow of good memories at the proverbial drop of hat in anyone’s life. I was thinking that those moments of my own life must be replaying themselves the other day in respective lives of ” Khushi” and ” Muskan” too. After all ,both of them too passed their tenth exam with flying colors. 
Khushi and Muskan ( their names meaning happiness and smiles ,so aptly kept ) are twins of ” Swarna “( meaning Gold) , who turned my clinical life’s success in real Gold and proved to be a “Paras Pathhar”( touch stone) for me. Touching her life rewarded me with a Golden success. 

The third peg of whiskey, actually drowned me in uninhibited mood of happiness. I could not stop sharing my success story to my school time oldies. 

I had many such stories to share with them but they were busy in theirs and night was deepening. 

The Sun was about to shine the same way it shined in the lives of Swarna, her husband and twin daughter’s life, that day. 
Rakesh Bharti