The Mind and the Physical Body
...f her baby not being near but also losing to the pain. The multiples of negative stimuli have begun. Aparna spends a period of time being poked and prodded by the medical staff while they figure out what to do. She periodically hears the congenial claps and hurrahs as other women leave the ward. What was once a festive occasion turns negative in her perception. She feels like the medical staff is giving her a lot of lip service. Though all are perceptions in attitude, Aparna is too angry and upset to see any positive outcome. Even when she is visited by her husband, Umesh, she feels his obligation and touch are more out of pity than of caring. The incidents have poisoned her thinking and her health. Aparna is operated on but still shows no sign of a healthy recovery. The staff is very quiet and mum to her while she is poked and prodded some more. Adding more to the negativity, she overhears a desk nurse telling Umesh that she’s lost the will to live. The nurse advises him to take her son to her, which he does with hope. The baby is squirrelly and she feels slighted as a mother. She has her friend take him, not so much out of rejection but frustration--he is getting stronger while she grows weaker. Her negative experiences with bringing life into the world have twisted her perceptions in her mind and her body dwindles further into oblivion. - Not until the surgeon, Dr. Michaels, tells her about the operation does her recovery actually begin. The doctor gives her detailed information on the procedure, noting that no one wanted to operate on her. He told her of being knocked kneed with fear and how intense the operation was. Dr. Michaels honesty with her in the details of the operation, his own feelings and how he felt she was giving up was music to Aparna’s ears. Aparna finally had the positive stimuli that she had not experienced from the staff or even from her husband. She reaches out to him feeling the warmth of his cheek noting the warmth and life in him; reinforcing the positive stimulus. After the conversation, Aparna felt her doctor was a “Romantic poet in surgical greens.” The wounds of the mind began to heal and so did the body. Now inspired by hope, Aparna begins to look at the world in a different way. Dr, Michaels, ...