The Disappeared Gift.

When the seminar was over , I came out of the seminar hall . There, I saw,I was being waited upon . The patient and his son were in the walkway. Their faces lit up when they saw me and we exchanged smiles. My patient was a retired post master. His dreams, passion and wealth had made him a good golf player in his late days. He was struck by cancer in 2000 and had to go through the process of surgery, radiation and rehabilitation. After 15 years it had come back, the cause for the hospitalisation.

The operation was over two weeks ago. The surgery had gone pretty well than the previous one. The recovery process was also a good pace. Today, they had come to me for a routine check up. When we were in the dressing room , I started bringing out the positive points of the routine. As a doctor, I have to do this as a part of motivation to suppress the gloominess that possess the body of most patients. The son had followed us in. With him, he brought inside important pens and chocolates , all beautiful and branded and wrapped in a fantastic way. He said to distribute or among all the persons who had made the surgery a successful one. I was overwhelmed. A medical specialist doing a surgery is a thankful job. You can understand that people who have destroyed by trauma and tumours are constructed again. They find themselves as a new version of their own. Till they make themselves comfortable with this new version of their own , they forget the doctors. So it is Rae to find a patient who brings a gift. My day is made by a card or flowers. The things I received today are superlative. I thanked them profusely. The negotiation ended up me having four sets of pen and chocolates as I didn’t know whom to give. I stored them in the seminar hall. I called up my resident to drop by and collect his share. Then I became busy.

“Nobody steals books but your friends.”

Afterward when we went back to collect the gifts, I was shocked. There were only three. I didn’t want to suppress the happiness of the resident by my air of confusion . Did the patient give me only 3 sets? Or did someone steak it?But then why only one? Generally, when l lose a thing, I leave the whole episode immediately. Who am I to stop a person who had a claim on it? Even then I couldn’t help admiring the refinement in the art of stealing. Gee, I couldn’t even be sure I was robbed.