Thankful

(This post was written on 25th Sept, 2013. It could not be posted as there was no internet)

As I write this, I’m almost at the fag end of a holiday which we never expected to take. And looking back, I’m thankful.

To start off, after the end of our last vacation in June 2013, we had planned a break during the Puja vacation starting October first week.

Since the last 3 years, we were well aware that the Christian Medical Fellowship, Kerala was celebrating 50 years of it’s being a part of the lives of medical students in Kerala, including ours. We had been silently praying about it. But, the odds were stacked against us being there at the Annual Conference, which routinely falls in the month of September. The reasons were many. The major being that September is usually the busiest month in the hospital.

When I received the invitation of be part of the conference this year, there was one more hurdle in the form of Shalom’s midterm examination.

Then, sometime in the middle of August, we received information that Shalom’s examinations were postponed to the middle of October. And it meant that the chance of our going for a break in October was out of question.

And by now, we very well aware that to not take a break at least once in 3 months was very much detrimental for our spiritual and professional life. Therefore, we had to plan a break.

The best choice was to go off for the CMF Annual Conference.But, there was the major issue of getting tickets all the way to Kerala. I was sure that there would not be any tickets considering into fact that it was Onam during that part of the year. Onam is the major festival of Kerala. And it was only 3 weeks away.

I was playing around with the ticket availability on the internet, when I noticed that there was a handful of seats available in the Delhi Rajadhani for a particular date in September. The tickets in all trains during the same duration were waitlisted. In fact, the tickets for the Trivandrum Rajadhani also were heavily waitlisted on either side of this particular date.

I went ahead and booked the tickets. It was a miracle to get confirmed tickets to Kerala and that too on the Rajadhani just 3 weeks away from Onam. It looked as if the vacant seats were kept just for us.

And to make things easy for us at the hospital, Dr. Nandamani and Dr. Ango had planned to be here during the same time. 

However, we were in for more surprises.

The first surprise being of course was our being there at the CMF Annual Conference at Nicholson School, Tiruvalla.

The second is something personal. We found my mom nursing a bad paronychia (infection of the toe/finger) in her big toe without telling anybody. It turned out that we diagnosed her to be diabetic and got surgery done on the paronychia while we were in Kerala. It was amazing because if we had turned up only in October, we would not have been able to get her the best treatment possible. And maybe, she would have worsened by then. And we would not have been at peace facilitating her treatment over the phone. By God’s grace, the sugars got controlled within the period while we were in Trivandrum.

The third was something really amazing. We had been wishing for a CPAP machine for our acute care unit. It was quite expensive for us (about 1500 USD) and we had more pressing needs.

Dr Manoj who came to Tampanoor bus
stand with the machine

Couple of days before we were to come back, I got a message from Dr. Manoj Job, former medical officer at Premjyothi Hospital which was one of our sister institutions, about a bilevel CPAP machine which someone wanted to donate. And to my greatest joy, I found out that the machine was in Marthandom, about 30 miles from our house in Trivandrum.

I lost no time and in a matter of hours, the machine was with me. And I could bring it to NJH.

And then, we had the home-calling of one of our granduncles during our very short time in Kerala. We were so privileged to be part of the funeral and be able to meet quite a many of our relatives over a short span of time.





And it was also the first time, we journeyed via Delhi. The kids had a whale of a time being with their granduncle and aunty and later visiting the Train Museum and the Delhi Zoo. And the train journey to Kerala from Delhi an eye-soothing experience. 

As I journeyed back, I wondered at how many times in our lives, we make plans and the good Lord just wipes them away and brings plans which turn out to be life-changing.

I’m glad and privileged that the Lord loves us and plans for us much better than us. I wish I could completely put my trust in Him and turn my life hundred percent over to Him.

The bilevel CPAP machine at my home