My elderly mother is quite sharp. She retired from the education department more than a decade ago. Having majored in history and sired doctors she brings an incisive perspective to my struggles in COVID-19. She has read about pandemics while training and teaching. Pasteur, Jenner and Fleming were supposed delivered us from the scourge of the bacterial diseases.
Epidemics and pandemics had threatened in the recent past but seemed to be more hype than substance to her. The Ebola seemed distant, the influenza weak and AIDS a pandemic that never was. I did admire her for the clarity of thought on these issues. But Corona has her at a wits end. She is not able to place it in a neat little box that her ordered life demands. And a lot of the confusion stems from me!!!!
In December 2019 when the early news of the corona virus started hitting the papers, she asked me about it. She understood viral diseases in a broad sense but this time she wanted to know about the virus. Not this particular virus but a virus as a broad organism.
I told her that a virus straddles that space between the living and the non-living adding that it does not do much except inject its genes into a cell and orders the cell to do all the work of producing more viruses.
I added that it is as if the cell loses its capacity to think and blindly follows what the viral gene tells it to do. She thought over it for a while then observed gravely that the closest comparison that she could make was with social media.
It also seems, to her, to make the younger generation behave blindly once the ‘posts’ enter their minds. I averted her gaze as ‘viral news’ suddenly seemed to me to suggest more than just the speed of spread.
For a woman who has been very social throughout her life, the social distancing has been quite distressing. She asks with pointed irritability whether the health planners know that several history books start with the statement ‘man is a social animal’.
For her, it is difficult to see how the evil of social distancing can overcome the evil unleashed by the virus.
All historic human responses, she emphasizes, have entailed empathy, togetherness and close discussion. She is clearly against this gross mutilation of basic human behavior. The arbitrary lifting of the restrictions makes her sound prophetic to me.
The infodemic that has accompanied the pandemic has made my interaction with my mother quite interesting. Me and my spouse have to do a bulk of our work in the operation theatres. This is in addition to the corona rounds and duties.
Each time we prepare to leave for duties her hands are always in the air praying for our safety. She is free with her dos and don’ts. I sagely tell her that we might have to go for administrative quarantine, home quarantine, administrative isolation and home isolation. My statements reflect the latest guidelines and interchangeable dictionary gymnastics. When we return in the evening tired and eat together at the table she raises her questioning eyebrows in confusion.
I seem to contradict myself daily these days. It adds to my worries no end that literature and guidelines seem to change every second. There have been U, S, Z and C turns in administrative and medical protocol during the pandemic. If I do not appear coherent, I just cannot blame her.
As a doctor I tend to spend very little time on the internet and am absent from the social media. but that has changed during the pandemic. I have had some time to myself after ages. And, I have an inherently restless mind. Consequently, my nose seems to be perpetually in the laptop. I am trying to write and keep up to pace by attempting to drink from the firehose of the medical infodemic. Her sharp mind takes notice especially in view of my general loathing for the internet and social media. She asks me whether I am appearing for an exam and I vaguely move my head in response. She looks at my greying beard she overcomes the universal weakness of motherhood and calls me out informing me that, as an associate professor, examinations should be far from my mind. I agree wholeheartedly. But I look at the screen and the ever-changing literature. I wonder if this has become an existential crisis. Whether lack of COVID knowledge could mean the end of the world for surgeons. As if reading my thoughts, she shuffles off to the kitchen to bring me that drop of magic. A marvelous cup of tea made with her own hands and filled with love. I protest superficially, asking her to rest and have a bit of sleep. She replies with that tone which makes me feel like a toddler all over again
‘Mothers don’t sleep, they just worry with their eyes closed’.