AMARANTHINE

Act II (iii) : Careful What You Wish For

"In all the wild world, there is no more desperate creature, than a human being on the verge of losing love."

~Atticus~

________________________________________

Aabha was the only one who could see the effort Shaurya needed to maintain that façade of nonchalance, and she was the only one with whom he could let himself go, allowing the barriers to slip just slightly, even though it was but fleeting, and immediately he would be back to the ever-smiling Shaurya. But she was not fooled; she could see those tiny traces of intermittent worry that clouded his eyes, not about what could happen to him, he still did not care, but worry about how she was dealing with the situation. And that gave her all the strength she needed, the conviction that everything would soon be alright again.

When finally Shaurya decided on the preventive course of having the aneurysm removed, after a series of consultations with Dr Bhattacharya, the operation was scheduled on a date one month hence, which would give Shaurya the time he needed to reschedule his entire work. Post operation, Shaurya would require at least three months before he could get back to the routine life he led before the operation.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

Despite the cheerfulness which the family members surrounded themselves with, as the day of the operation grew close, a small worry began to worm itself into their hearts and minds. Dr Bhattacharya was very optimistic, the aneurysm was not a very large one, and though located in the artery leading to the frontal lobe, could be reached with minimal invasion and the aneurysm would be completely obliterated with a tiny metal clip. Following the operation for clip ligation of the aneurysm, Shaurya would spend a night in the intensive care unit and be moved out to a private room the following day.

He informed them that, typically, patients are discharged from the hospital a couple of days after being taken out of the intensive care unit and are able to perform all the activities of daily living and that it generally takes four to six weeks to recover from a craniotomy for an aneurysm. Patients are usually able to care for themselves and could stay alone with gradually increasing activity including walking, household chores and work that does not involve significant physical exertion. After approximately four to six weeks these activities are liberalized and patients are encouraged to resume all of their previous activities without any specific restrictions. It is by increasing activity at this time that patients more quickly resume their strength and endurance.

Shaurya's age and his fit physique were in his favour and he was sure that Shaurya recovery would follow the typical pattern, though the skull bone would heal together over six to twelve months.

However, despite Dr Bhattacharya's optimism, his detailed explanations and his cheerfulness, the rest of the family could not stop worrying.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

Shaurya was cranky, especially after he had to check into the hospital a week prior to the operation, as the doctor wanted to be able to monitor his vitals at all times. The diet of soft bland food, consisting primarily of sweetened paneer and soft runny kichdi did not help his mood. The final straw was when his head was completely shaved off a day before the operation with matters reaching a new low when Aabha greeted his new look with teary giggles. He was not a vainglorious man but was quite proud of the luxurious mane he had sported, so her reaction did not leave him in a happy frame.