A Dreadful Night

By

Winni

“Hmm! Another day, another adventure.” I said to myself as I got out of bed at 6:00am on the morning of 27th October. The diwali vacation was still going on. I spent a blissful morning preparing for a competition, had a sumptuous lunch and an equally delicious dinner in the evening. Then, my sister and I had a great time setting off fireworks.

Finally night set in and I retired to bed. But then I remembered I had to still finish an important essay. So, I sat on my diwan in the hall and started writing it. At around 11:45 pm, I could no longer stay awake. I was too tired to write a word more. So I brought out a bed sheet from my closet and spread it on the floor and lay down to sleep and within no time I was fast asleep.

“Oh! It’s the 28th of oct.” I realized looking up at the clock in my hall. It read 1:05 am. The reason I woke up was that I had a severe burning sensation around the ankle on my left leg. “Oh dear! Why is it always my sleep that gets disturbed?”, I said to the wound on my left leg. Even in a half asleep, half awake state my curiosity got the better of me and so did the pain. But the pain was routine with me. As a three year old child I crashed into the bars of the skating rink and had to be stitched up on my forehead. You still see that scar on my forehead.

I examined the wound. It was blood red and swollen up, about four inches long and an inch wide. It was oval like. I squeezed it and a semi transparent liquid came out from a hole the size of a pin prick. I switched on a brighter light and discovered another pin prick like wound, the distance between the two was a bit small according to my test. So my mind was free from worry. As long as a snake did not bite I was safe.

So I returned to my sleep. But sleep continued to elude me as the pain reached the all time high. I now stitched on the kitchen light, put three to four ice cubes in a napkin and tied it tightly around my wound and tried sleeping again, but I could not. A strange feeling of anxiety swept over me. “It’s nothing.” I assured myself, but this time I woke up mom, who is an expert in home remedies and explained my situation.

Mother immediately bought a clove of garlic and rubbed on my wound because we have confirmed it to be an insect bite. So after a thorough search of the indoor plants which yielded no results, dad finally suggested to go to a doctor. So we locked the door and set off to the doctor.

First we decided to visit our family pediatrician who stayed about eight kilometers away. Dad is an excellent driver and we managed it in ten minutes. Everybody must have been fast asleep, because nobody was answering the door. But in mean time I felt a stiffness creeping up my throat and I was unable to remain steady, as if I was drunk.

Seeing my condition, which was getting worse, my dad could no longer wait. So, he rushed me to Apollo hospital. We sped off at around hundred kmph, my sister later told me. By then, a new complication started. My jaw became stiff and dropped, my tongue was like a rod and senses seem to rebel against me. I fought hard to keep my eyes open, my eyelids closed and my body wanted to sag but willed it otherwise. But the only thing that obeyed me was my heart not once did it skip a beat or race in fact. In fact, it was getting calmer and calmer!

I was rushed into the emergency ward. My conditions and our suspicions were explained and the doctor asked me to lie down. I felt like vomiting, but when I tried to vomit, there was a problem, my throat rebelled. I would not respond as I could not push it out. It would not come out but it went in, into my despairing panicking lungs. I wanted to ask the doctor to turn me upside down and give me a good whack on my back or get a vacuum tube and suck out what was in there. But this time my heart did skip a beat. I lost my voice. I could not communicate, but I guess the nurse understood and she got a vacuum pump and she sucked it all out.

But I knew it was not enough. I felt a hot searing pain in my lungs. Soon the doctors came and took blood for test. But I still could not breathe unless I slept on one side. Soon I blacked out. All I remember was that four people were trying to hold me down.

When I woke up a new fear had begun to take hold of me. I could not see a thing. But I could tell that my eyes were wide open. All I heard were my mom and dad’s voices! I could not breathe but I still was breathing. I blacked out again.

This time when I woke up I could breathe on my own. But the tubes were still in my throat and I was tied to the bed. The first sight was the nurse clad in blue and white who asked me “are you fine?” I conveyed her that I was fine except for the tubes through my throat. I signed her why I was tied up. She explained that I had breathing problem for which the tubes were required and I was tied down because of the rigorous pain in the unconscious state. She promptly untied me after which I asked for a pen and a paper on which I wrote “what day is it?” she told it was 31st Oct. I sighed and went back to sleep.

After another twelve hours when I woke up I was relieved of all those tubes and I was in the ICU. When I was discharged I came to know that I was bitten by a crown cobra, as the tests revealed. This was further confirmed when my father and the neighbors searched our neighborhood in the morning and found the culprit, a three and half foot long cobra. I was in the ICU for three days and 14 hours, I was on a ventilator support and survival was nothing short of a miracle.

But it has happened and four months later I am writing down my experience. With god’s grace, I am on my feet once again. In fact staying alive would have been impossible if not for the sincere prayers of my well wishers and friends. I was on my death bed. I thank god for giving me this new lease on life and I promise to make the most of it.

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