The doctor punished me for overdosing on amlodipine: didn’t he understand depression?

[Content Warning: “the doctor punished me for overdosing on amlodipine” contains references to suicide and depression that might be triggering for some readers]

The doctor punished me for overdosing on amlodipine: didn’t he understand depression?

The assiduity of the boy, who you will meet soon enough, inspired (sorry: compelled) me to write this story of overdosing on amlodipine.

An accident. A miscalculation. And a spark of lousy luck. And you land up in the hospital. You get a bed in a ward—acute medication ward, to be precise. You get irritated when people around you say ‘acute’ again and again. But you persist.

A pipe into the nose and an injection in the veins. And a mourning face of some of your relatives. You feel like running from there. But you know – any more mistakes, and you can land up in front of the psychiatrist. So you persist.

Tablets?

No. You have a mouth, and you have a stomach, but nurses hate tablets. They come, talk in a sweet language, and then inject something through the injection and the pipe through the nose. Yes, the pipe. Well, it hurts. Lingering inside the food pipe… making you feel that you have got tonsils. But you can’t do anything. Except for pulling it out? (*wink*) The next time the nurse comes, and she finds the pipe lying on the floor. A very strong and long cough (*innocence dripping down*) was the reason.

Nurses?

The first impression of a nurse is a smallish girl with a full white-bleached skirt and white socks and polished white or black boots, a tending smile, and a peculiar white hat over the bun of hairs. But the actual scene? It is no different. The first time you call a nurse a sister and ask her to remove the itchy bandage around your waist, and she says, smiling–“No son, don’t worry, everything will be OK. Tomorrow when the doctor comes, he will remove it.” She knows that you know that tomorrow never comes. But what can she do?

Read more: Why depression is like drowning

The boy

Oh, yes, the boy. The legen-wait-for-it-dary boy I was talking of. (I know I am overreacting, but an overdose of fluoxetine does the same). The boy is not the patient. His father is. And he is suffering from hydrocephalus.

After the operation, he is lying on the bed next to you. A bandage covering the head, another one over the abdomen, a pipe coming out from the penis attached to pour the liquid out into a plastic bag hung below the bed. I will not ask you how you know so much.

The father

The father is restless. He does not know that he has been operated upon just a few hours earlier. In fact, he thinks that he is as fit as a football player. He nudges his son to make him stand up because he wants to go for the toilet. The boy tells him to piss on the bed itself, but the father persists. (Another case of persistence? SH*T)

The father removes the bandage covering his abdomen in the reaction, which shows, accidentally, the fresh stitches of the operation done only a few hours ago. The boy runs out of the room and brings with him the nurse. The nurse comes and sees the blood bubbling out through the gaps between the boy’s fingers and runs out to find the doctor. The doctor comes and puts a fresh bandage.

The boy. (again?)

Oh yes, you forgot to mention: there is a pipe inside the temple of the father, which the son has to press every half an hour. The father’s hands are cuffed up. The doctor doesn’t want him to play with his bandages once again. The boy stays awake through the night, listening to his father’s moans to let him free and telling him with a toothed smile on his face: “Don’t worry, father, everything will be fine.”

You (Finally? Teeth gritting)

You spot a person lingering in the ward, and you ask instantaneously: “When will I get discharged?”

Person: “Problem?”

You: “The hospitals suck big time.”

Person: “That I know already. I mean your problem.”

You: “FSGS (Focal Segmental Glomerulom Sclerosis) CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease) stage 3. admitted for an operation.”

Person: “Oh. CKD. Interesting. What operation?”

You: “You are the doctor. You should know that.”

Person: “Let me see your papers.”

You:  “Yes.”

(He obviously finds out I tried to commit suicide by overdosing on amlodipine. In fact, I had popped twenty tablets of amlodipine.)

Person: “You see, boss, I can’t do anything about it. The surgeon who operated upon you should sign here, then only you can get out.”

You: “Who are you then?”

You: “Oh, yes, I am a medical student“

Did I mention that the boy was eight years old?