A Brief Flashback

For the last 3 years, my father had been struggling with a disease called Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) which in essence causes scarring (fibrosis) of the lungs. In August 2021 he received a lung transplant. The lung was accepted by the body, however, the airways kept collapsing or getting infected, because of which he was constantly in the hospital till January 2022. Since it was a very sensitive organ that was transplanted and the fact that it was Covid times, we would rarely be allowed to meet him. But we still got to meet him and I am grateful for that.

On 6th January, after a couple of days of him having high CO2 levels, he had a cardiac arrest. It took the doctors 45 minutes to revive his heart. The whole of 7th we waited for his brain to start functioning to, but due to no oxygen reaching his brain during the cardiac arrest, there was no activity. On 11th evening we got a call. He had flatlined.

Now this is just me trying to make sense of this brand new world which does not have my father. I don’t like it a bit, but I would have to move on. Somehow. So, I’ve decided to write. To keep a day by day record of how I deal with this tragedy because for the very first time, talking to my friends isn’t going to help.