Can you see things better?
Hmm, a little blurred, but better.
Can you open your eyes fully?
Yes, I will, I’m trying, it’s hard.
Try slowly, you can see things better.
ok, ok, I can feel better, I can see too.oh my god. It’s better.
For some days, don’t go outside. Definitely not on the sun. Stay indoors. But slowly open and close your eyes, gradually you will feel better.
Hmm. I really thought I can’t see things further. Vaidyar, I owe a lot to you. (other family members looking adoringly at the vaidyar).
That is ok, take proper rest. Make sure, the eyes are properly healed before you go for the next adventure. haha. (a light-hearted remark to loosen the tight situation)
This was a conversation that happened almost 80 years ago with many people whom the on-demand ‘Netra Vaidyar’ who treated his patients traveling across the British Malabar region, staying at their homes, doing high precision risky surgical procedures for eyes using locally grown green produce, with the help of a couple of well trained obedient young men, and at the end of the stay building a deep bond with those families. He even crossed the borders to treat many in ‘Kochi Rajyam’ thereby becoming a brand of his own, something unthinkable to ordinary people in Valluvanad those days. Even when the probability of success was less than 50%, they tried, quite hard. They failed miserably at times, yet many still found hope to be on the luckier side. That vaidyan was my great grandfather. His eye surgery stories were told during my college days by my maternal grandmother with a sort of glowing pride in her eyes.
Later I was reading about Susrutha Samhitha, an ancient Indian text on surgery, to know how Ayurveda veterans did many complicated surgeries with unimaginably fewer resources. We are all standing on the shoulders of millions of people who suffered because of the ‘trial and error’ to advance medical science, be it curious doctors, disruptive pharmaceutical inventions, or willing patients.
Each patient case history becomes a stepping stone to next, for possible better care and healing.
All one at a time.
