Passing by the "bypass" surgery

We all have our own set of "fears". I too have few. But as a family, recently, we overcame one such fear "fear of bypass surgery". When we randomly visit a doctor for a small checkup and when we end up diagnosing a big one and that too for the head of the family, we feel disheartened, distracted and dejected by God and suddenly our thoughts start wandering from past to present to future. Suddenly our heart starts beating so fast and we become clueless about the unexpected life situation. Recently, In April, I underwent the same emotions as I and my father share a unique bond of not only loving each other but always ending up discussing our set of logic with each other and because of this, we could reach to the doctor and get a signal of dad's bypass surgery. (God has its own way to give signals and keep us on track, we just have to listen and feel those signals carefully, Thank God for one such big signal)

The point is when I (and rest of family) heard the name of "Bypass Surgery", we all went into the state of momentum to find the best doctors, best hospitals, whether to go for it or follow the traditional method of curing, we started finding the reasons that "how can dad be diagnosed with bypass surgery when he is so fit and punctual in his own life and follows a particular lifestyle" and also that we have not done wrong to anyone, how can such big issue come to us"... huh, believe me, the state of mind was completely not under control. Amongst this thought processes, Dad had become our superhero (in terms of showing more care and concern). We were lucky, as dad had no major cardiac symptoms and it was a planned surgery,
however,
the journey of being diagnosed until the evening when bypass actually was performed on dad, was a journey of only ten days. Post operation care and rehabilitation is still on and will continue till three more months, but it was an unimaginable story. When I am looking back then in April, I am finding the episode of dad's bypass surgery as a second epic episode where it was more than handling emotions. Few realisations :

1. The word "bypass surgery" had lots of stigmas attached to it, however, now it is a normal process with a good team of doctors and a good hospital. 
Lesson Learnt: Never believe anyone unless and until you experience the situation, don't be judgmental about anything. Opinions certainly should be part and parcel of our life, but we need to trust our set of doctors who know us and our medical history so well. 

2. Our mind and thoughts need to be controlled, and nothing actually happens the way we keep on thinking.
Lesson Learnt: Keep yourself calm in good and bad situations and opt for any health-related exercise to manage your mind and thoughts. 

3. Keep your faith in God intact during good and tough phases. Don't forget God in good times.
Lesson Learnt: I am happy, that I always remembered God in good and tough phases and didn't change this during this phase. It only changed in terms of frequency of visiting derasars - may be as a sense of gratitude, or maybe just to feel peaceful or maybe just to say hi to God.

4. All family members should be given equal importance and should be with each other. 
Lesson Learnt: During this phase, dad has become our superhero in terms of taking his good care, but we forget the other members to be taken care of. Equally important being with them.

5. Adore the people in your life no matter what. 
Lesson Learnt: Such phases makes us realise that over a period of time the relationships we have nurtured, stands with us no matter what. When your time comes to stand with them, do stand. 

6. Never forget the tough phase.
Lesson Learnt: When we start recovering or we start moving ahead of such phases, we normally forget the tough phase. I am not saying to stay around the sickness, but the rehabilitation and the recovery phase requires attention and we should be grateful to God and our well-wishers and should do all exercises/diet plan/medicines in the utmost same way. We mistake by forgetting the prayers of others during this phase and we tend to behave so normal and we don't try to change our nature, neither we change our attitude. I have learnt this during this phase being an observer that we should take this as last chance from GOD in sending us to Self realisation mode rather than being simply optimistic. 

7. Be positive
Lesson Learnt: This one sentence has played a big role in overcoming this phase. Dad himself was very positive with his own bypass, but then as a family we constantly kept the atmosphere light heartened to make him feel relaxed. (though, this does not apply to me as I was stressed during this phase) 

8. Earn and Save and Pay Premiums for good Insurance cover 
Lessons Learnt: Until now, I always realised that money is important for our fulfilling our happy moments, (and in my case, for travelling) but then uncertainties like this also require good savings. Thankfully as a family, we have good savings over a period of time, it was not an issue for us, but one should have good insurance cover to ease out from such phases.

9. Use your knowledge and skills in and out of home 
Lessons Learnt: We instantly become matured when such phases come. In my case, I had more matured people with me to handle the situation, but I had to use my wisdom and skills to deal with hospital staff, doctors and administration. All things were done for the first time and it was a thrill to do for the first time. Thanks to my family who always kept me in the loop regarding any important document etc which smoothened the process. We generally don't pay attention to our parents and their work folios but we should know important financial things of one other. Keep on observing and learn from observations. 

10. Start your inner journey by whatever means you feel like, but make yourself strong and calm first to handle such situations than only focussing on your career or life goals.
Lesson Learnt: During such phases, we tend to become nervous, stressed, negative, thoughtless and we tend to make others also nervous. However, if you are spiritually sound from within, you will be able to handle the situation in more peaceful and positive way. We generally pay less attention to our inner well-being which includes our mind and hearts. However, this episode has made me more connected with myself. at least the journey has reached to a certain level, where I have started living in the "moment", being mindful of what I am doing and more importantly, paying attention to "people" rather than "things" around.

11. Our problems are tiny problems if compared! 
Lesson Learnt: Continuously for five days sitting outside ICU in a hospital and observing all other relatives and listening to their stories and also going through another relatives trauma of losing their loved one, I realised that our problems are smaller ones than compared with others and we should be grateful to our God in helping us from this phase and should pray for others wellbeing too.

From 20th April till 20th June, we as a family have successfully bypassed the trauma of "bypass surgery" of dad and with God's grace he is improving and coming back to his normal life, but the lessons learnt during this phase will always be with me. Do share your stories if you have learnt from your such phases.