Samudee's Pages - Blog

Back from the Dead

11/29/2013

I was away from everything for several months... My in-laws were staying with us during the summer for 5 months, which was a very busy period for me. We took them all over the US before they went back to their home country in September.

Then I had to go for a surgery that I had postponed because of my in-laws... I went for the surgery in mid-October. One surgery (a laparotomy) turned out to be two due to complication of the first. I wanted to post what happened so that you might know what to expect, or what symptoms to wach out for, if you ever have to go into such a surgery.

It was going to be a major one as it was an "open surgery" - But of course not a life threatening one - So... surgery went as scheduled on a Thursday- nothing bad- they removed a big fibroid, removed one ovary and all endometrioma tissues which had spread along some parts of the small intestine as well.

I woke up- everything seems to be ok except the pain, of course, and I was to go home on Saturday after having normal bowel movements. But... my stomach and intestines didn't seem to wake up and work as usual, and instead of having bowel movements and passing gas, I began to get bloated. Nurses said this is normal and all what I should do is keep on moving and walking to get things going. I did as they asked me to but I was still getting bloated. So, they didn't let me go home, and by Sunday I was bloated like a balloon with excruciating pain. And, then after a CT scan it was confirmed that I had an obstruction in the small intestine. Either it got kinked during the surgery, or it got twisted because I was asked to eat before the intestines 'woke' up. So I was taken back to surgery Monday morning around 1 am. The only good things was that they used the same incision as before So I don't have two incisions.

Anyway- since my system was shocked twice, the stomach and digestive system didn't wake up until the following Saturday (which was 5 days after the second surgery) - I was given all nutrients through IV, and all my stomach juices and bile that got accumulated during that period was pumped out through a nasal tube, that went down my throat up to the stomach. (Urgh) I had that tube for 7 days. So... I wasn't eating for 10 days - and my appetite was zero - or I should say - minus infinity. I had lost 12 lbs. I came home on 12 days after my first surgery.

If they delayed the second surgery, the intestine would've ruptured and there would have been no chance for me to be alive. When they took me to surgery, I had given up on life- I just wanted the pain to end and I wanted to die. I even said Good Bye to my husband. I was so ready to leave this life.

Anyway.... I think this whole thing was a life altering experience for me.

And... I did experience something very unusual after the second surgery.

That post is for another day.

More Dreams

1/21/2013

It's almost seven months since my Mom passed away, and I have been having a wide variety of dreams about her since then. At the beginning, I would see her in the dress she was in, at the time she exhaled her last breath. She was smiling, her dentures were gone and she as making faces at me, smiling, making me laugh at her funny tactics. I would wake up and feel as if she were near me all the time. This continued for sometime, and then the pattern changed.

Second phase of dreams: Mom has come back from the dead. She said that she is quite all right now, no illnesses, and she feels perfectly healthy. In my dreams, I was wondering how I was going to explain to the others that she's back. I was wondering wheher they'd believe me. These dreams continued for a couple of days, then stopped.

Then... a couple of weeks back, the pattern changed, again. She's dying and the way she die is different in each dream. Onetime, she was inhaling this gas that was supposed keep her alive, and she had found out out that if she inhales more of it, she coud die. And she was telling me that she wants to get done with this dying process, soon. Another time, I see a set of small holes that allows her to breathe, and one by one, these holes close up, indicating that her beathing has slowed down. And then I notice that there's only one hole left open- and if that closes up, that means she's dead. I wake up everytime with a heavy heart and with tears in my eyes. But I can't cry.

The funny thing is, at the time of death, she was not even on any ventilator, breathing device or any kind of saline drip. She had those six weeks before she died, just for two days, after she underwent seizures, but after that, everything was normal for her. During the last six weeks of her life, she was in bed, most of the time, walked a litle bit with my help at the beginning, but never had to be on any mechanical/medical device.

A Birthday without Mom

1/18/2013

My Mom passed away in July, last year. On my birthday, this month, I missed her terribly. The last couple of years, as she couldn't go out shopping, I would buy her all the birthday cards she'd needed for the year- including a card for me :-) It was funny that I had to go buy one for myself, but you know... she didn't see anything weird in that- and I never complained. Oh, Mom! I miss you soooo much.

Removal of a tree stump

10/6/2011

Dan and I cut down a maple tree. It was too close to the house. Then remained the task of removing the tree stump, roots and all. This is how our conversation went.

Me: Don't you think we have to get help from a professional for this?
Dan: Oh, this is very easy. We can do it.
Me: Really? Hmm... Ok!

Two days later we started removing the tree stump. First we cleared the area, then we dug out the soil, used a chain saw (Dan borrowed it from a friend), and cut down some 'roots.'

Me: You sure we should use the chain saw for roots? There could be stones and stuff with soil!
Dan: Don't you worry, honey!

An hour later, Dan looks at the 'very little' soild we managed to remove and the huge roots that are spreading all ways, and says "I think we need help."
"Uh huh!" is all what I said.

Next day at work I get a text message from Dan.
'$100 to remove the tree stump'

Me: 'Great! considering more than $500 for possible broken chain saw replacement, and possible medical bills for injuries that could have happened.'

Dan texts back. 'Not to mention the embarrassment.'

Hee hee... I love Dan!

What are dreams?

4/4/2011

Do you remember your first dream? I don’t!

Cannot even remember when I started to notice ‘dreams’ But with time I guess I, like every other kid, had my own version of dreams and nightmares. I asked my mother what ‘dreams’ really are.. and she replied that some of them are our own thoughts that are buried deep within us.. some are events that took place during the day or days ago… and.. she said.. sometimes they are visions of what’s going to happen in the near future… she then added.. ‘you will have to interpret your own dream- even if two people have the same dream it will mean two different things to them’…

One thing was correct.. If I was working on a math problem or struggling hard to understand a theory, or was studying the whole day … I will always dream the math problem or the study materials in my dreams.. I would be working on my problem over and over again in my dreams and in the morning I felt exhausted and drained out.. However.. there were days that I actually solved the problem in my dreams whether it was a math problem or an experiment that didn’t make sense.. I actually came up with an answer in my sleep… How that worked I have no idea..

After some time I started to write my dreams every morning before I forgot them in my diary together with all events that occurred .. I did this for one year… but nothing seems to jump right at me.. they were just dreams.. and events were.. well.. just events … Then I started to notice some dreams that I had before certain type of events.. I noticed that if I dreamt that my hair had grown long (I always had short hair.. very very short hair) I was going to get some good news… Good results of an exam I had taken or Good news from a friend that I was longing to hear or something good… something happy… and then .. If I see something bad had happened to my teeth.. like mottled teeth or that I am losing some teeth.. I always heard some bad news- very very bad news,.. it was always a death of someone I knew.. So.. were these just coincidences? or did these dreams really mean something? Did some dreams were messages from the future?

Carrot and Raisins salad

3/2/2011

I had not packed a lunch for today. So I decided to get something from the small cafe at my workplace. The 'Carrot and Raisins salad' caught my eye as I had never had that before- It looked good, with carrots and raisins (duh!) ... and white balls which I assumed to be cheese balls. I also got a soup and came back to my office and started on my salad.. and my first bite was one of those 'cheese balls'.. guess what.. they were NOT cheese balls- Do you want to guess what they were? OK- I will give you a chance- so they were small soft white balls... The salad also had dried pineapple.. and NO- I didn't enjoy the salad because each and every item (including those white balls) was sweet! I had only three or mouth fulls and that was it! Ahhh... so any guesses for the sweet small soft white balls?

Desert Rose

2/25/2011

As a firm and strong believer of Buddhist philosophy I also believe in life after death. I believe that we would come back to this world multiple times until the day we overcome our desires and stop being born. So one day I was having this conversation with another friend of mine, who was born into a Buddhist family, and who became a doctor, and stopped believing in after-life. During a conversation on why I do and why he doesn’t believe in after-life he said the following:

“As scientists we learned to draw empirical conclusions based on observations. Only difference is that I have learned to stick to empirical evidence while you continue to go beyond empirical evidence!! The danger of that is human imagination is so rich that anything can be imagined. Try and close your eyes for 2 minutes. Now imagine a rose blooming in the desert. It is possible isn't it? Is it plausible? Imagination makes anything possible but we need to get it to the level of plausible. Religion operates at the level of possible”

His comment about the ‘rose in the desert’ and it’s ‘possibilities’ made me create the following presentation.

A colorful visitor

2/20/2011

Last year I went to the place where I was born. Spent time in the house I grew up. This is an island in the Indian Ocean, a thousands of miles away from the US. One evening I had a visitor - One with three colors- brownish-orange, blackish-grey, and white- Okay five colors- She was such a sweet thing- calling and looking at me through the window - My heart went out to her- It was love at first sight- isn’t it all the time anyway.. She reminded me of Micky- the difference was that Micky had a black spot right underneath her nose- and this girl who visited me didn’t -

So I called her, fed her, and within 30 min she was in my arms, cuddling to me purring and making all those satiated noises, clinging to me, and finally ducked her head under my chin and went to sleep. God she smelled wonderful –

How come one of these things all the time finds me when I come home and stay for a few days- I can remember Kikini who strolled from the garden – who also brought me one little black kitten just the way I asked her to do all the time when she was pregnant – and now this 'Micky-like' thing- I wasn’t sure what I should call her but it looked like she was planning to stick around for a while- The problem was that I wasn't going to stay for that long at 'home'. She went through the house as if she knew every part of it- Jumped out of my window exactly the way Micky would have done-

Later I found out that she was our neighbor's cat. In my little island, cats and dogs roam around all by themselves all the time- garden to garden - house to house- and no one would stop them. Yep! That is freedom!

New kid on the block

2/13/2011

When he first came to me asking whether there will be anything he could work on and help in my research, I had mixed feelings as always. The first few weeks will be teaching and training, which means I will have to spend considerable amount of time, my time that I could spend on working things by myself, on him. But when he can start to work by himself, and IF I trust him to work on experiments, he could come in handy. I have had new students before, some good and some well… not-so-good, who just came in for the money and not to learn something. But I felt something different in this kid. So I thought well, maybe I will give him some work for couple of hours and asked him how much time he has on his hands. He replied ‘I can work full time, all week’ and my mind went “Oh Crap!” I looked at him and couldn’t say NO. Full time was still too much because I already had another student who was working full time. I hope my instincts were right when I agreed to have him as a part-time student worker.

Who am I kidding- I always agreed to take these students not because they will help me but mainly because I knew I am helping them to learn something or earn something.

It has been six months now. I have not regretted my decision.