The OT.

Walking down the corridor, I stopped to check the time on my analogue wrist watch,it was not quite clear, so I gave it a little mouth steaming and hand rub. Still I could not make much of anything, the hands of time all seemed to be at equal length. I decided to turn aside for a face wash, and then took another look, it was 4 in the morning. I did not realize I had spent the whole night awake. Perhaps I was unconsciously awake. It had been a long night,for the length of the corridor seemed longer than usual, my feet heavy and the chills of the early morn were starting to be noticed on my goose bumped skin. The silence in the corridor was searingly cold- i could almost hear every breath i took and every squeak on the ground was augmented.

I had just come out of the operating room. All scrubbed up, I had been the assistant during a cesarean section delivery. My first I must add. I was ecstatic. Like a shuttle ready to launch into outer space, we set out with a mission called 'Cesar'. From scalpel to needle driver, screens to lighting-all was set. At T-zero, all was hushed, I could hear no other sound save the voice of my attending obstetrician and the monitors that tentacled from the operating table. I had read thus,"in medicine,failure is fatal" ,I could not afford  to fail, the price was too high-life. I felt a little entitled to a successful operation, my wits told me it was not an unwonted thought, not a bigoted entitlement.  After all, the glory,if any, I would receive would not amount to the joy the new bundle would bring to the family, I presumed. However, medical pedagogy has it that the best doctors or surgeons, as we operated in that case, were not bereft or free from the clutters of failure, perhaps had encountered it more than the quack or the good old MD.

Seconds passed, and in the same train, minutes. We delved in, first the blade then the re-tractor. Incisions were meticulously made across the lower part of the belly, for our presence at site was not to be apparent once all was done. Unlike an artist desirous of a perfect finish we desired no trace of our being.  Every disturbance in the natural frame was to be made with great caution. The first cut was not to be the deepest. It was to be the finest! For a moment, the road was as smooth as it could get, till we encountered the menacing vasculature. The path was no longer as clear as before. Blood oozed from every corner. It was as if we had hit a landmine, or were hit by a blizzard . "Suction,suction!" the call rang out, and I was quick to the task,'' Suctioning, suctioning!''. The way was once again maneuverable. A few spurts of blood remained but nothing a good wash would not do. Soon we had reached the womb. A semblance of great workmanship-a bulwark to keep all marauders out, and inhabitants hemmed in. Yet our arsenals were built for the task, the walls came down as the dissecting tool was laid on, and as if in applause or a stand innovation, a gush of clear fluid pored forth. The little lad was brought out and with a loud cry. A paradoxical cry of freedom. Freedom from a home that was starting to feel a little estranged.  Yet the new world was too different, unknown. It was covered in liquor and clung to its mother with a cord of life till it was severed, withstanding that, the cry had rendered its connection void, needless for further sustenance of life. From that time on, the breath of life was in ts nostrils. The new earthling had made a successful transition. For some, the plot was a different one. The womb was to be  their home and grave too. Nature had tried to relegate it to the same fate as others who failed to make it out in good time, but in a perfect bid, against the odds, it survived. Nature's natural train had been evaded, mother and baby could live to smile another day.

We soon sutured up the evacuation site. And in no time, all was over. A sigh of relief and appreciation of life. All done, we left the OT as was termed. Performed the scribe's ritual of record keeping, for once again in medicine, 'If it was not written, it was not done!'.
We walked out as men of valour. No applause or wreaths awaited us, we had more than enough to make up for it with the joy of seeing the mother and baby off the operating table full of vigor, and perhaps the half a mark or two for the successful procedure in my student's logbook.