In the middle of last year, Reagan Gavin Rasquinha, a writer, podcaster, and content curator, was diagnosed with an acute illness that was potentially life-threatening. In this personal essay, he writes about the learnings and the beautiful people he met at the hospital while he was recuperating
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My name is Reagan Gavin Rasquinha. I’m a writer, podcaster, and content curator amongst a few other things, but have always been an avid reader. I have come across the odd self-help book and have a liking for autobiographies, especially when they involve the vicissitudes of life, journeys of all sorts, and emerging all the better for it. Part of what we call the human condition.
Now, it’s all very well to read anecdotes in a book, but it’s another thing altogether to go through it firsthand.
During the middle of last year, I was diagnosed with an acute illness that was potentially life-threatening. Unbeknownst to me, I was given seven days to live. This was something that was only conveyed to me later on by my friends because they did not want to freak me out so to speak.
So, there I was in hospital for a long time, at the receiving end of life-sustaining treatment. While being made quite comfortable, there wasn’t much else to do. So, I turned inwards and noticed many things I wouldn’t have otherwise … many positive things about fellow patients. I sought to learn some lessons that would actually turn out to be valuable life lessons.
For me, being in a hospital for such a long period of time, while also having to confront mortality, was utterly new to me at best, and terrifying at worst. But I realised that everyone in there obviously was dealing with some battle of their own. No one wanted to be there!
Conditions cut across all age groups and economic groups. For one thing, I realised that one could actually talk to anyone, strike up a conversation, and surprisingly, meet with positivity, and hope. It broke down ego barriers and defensiveness.
There was never a feeling of despair amongst anyone; just an almost stoic resilience. Despair was a luxury that only people on the ‘outside’ gave themselves up to.
When you’re actually dealing with it, all those old adages and proverbs come to mind … living for the moment, taking each day as it comes, surmounting difficulties bit by bit, and so on.
Because there really is no other choice.
Another lesson that I learned was the unpredictability and fragility of life. We’ve all heard about stories of people being chain smokers, for example, and living to a ripe old age, while others in the peak of health developing debilitating illnesses at an unnaturally early age. It’s not difficult, therefore, for people, including myself, who have an athletic background to demand answers to questions that essentially have no answers. That of, why me? I realised that it’s all relative. Instead of questioning things, one learns how to deal with things, and when one luckily recovers, it’s all the better for dealing with other obstacles that life presents. It builds resilience, optimism, and resourcefulness.
My illness initially temporarily damaged relationships, and frustration turned me into a person who I wouldn’t normally be and caused me anxiety. Not to mention a waste of money through self-medication. Although I am out of all of that now, I shudder when I recall the biopsy done via the jugular to rule out cancer, endoscopies, abdominal fluid drainage for ascites and heavy medication, tubes, transfusions, and the like.
I stick to my daily regimen, but now that also includes a proper diet, regular exercise, high protein and high-calorie foods, branched chain amino acids and essential amino acids. But perhaps, most importantly, faith in a higher power and peace of mind.
And, without going into unnecessary detail, there were many learnings, which I have touched upon above.
I have had my own share of past anger and resentment, but my four months in two hospitals late last year taught me a lot when I thought I knew it all, but to truly know it all is the realisation that we know nothing at all and that anything can change and I’m not saying for the worst. I’m not a pessimist. I had a very real taste of mortality firsthand. The actual ‘beautiful people’ I’ve had the humble privilege to encounter are/were at that time in hospitals.
Maybe they felt the same way about me; I do not know. But I learned courage and fortitude from them. It was a real eye-opener and very, very different from the high-profile, glamorous job I was used to when on the outside, so to speak.
From the nurses and orderlies, I learned the difficult quality of having patience with people and how to be reasonable.
It was life-changing and helped me to appreciate a certain routine and discipline, and not just an ‘anything goes at any time’ approach. Carpe diem shouldn’t translate to hedonism.
I hope those people I had the privilege to meet are happy and well.
(The writer has over 21 years of experience in the media – writing, and producing content commercially in all formats. But when not doing so, it is the normal, everyday subjects that inspire).
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Also read: “I wrote a series on Facebook titled ‘From Diagnosis to Death’.