Dedications

Trust for that matter in any hospital is now fiction like ethics, honest business practices and customer care. Everything is business. No more humanity left. Hospitals too are a corporate business model where the vision and mission is bottom line. Even if it means a patient lowered to the bottom of a grave. Hospitals will try their best to administer treatments which keep their cash registers beeping like the monitors in the wards where patients are connected too. 

Then comes the final adieu one bids to a loved one after death. Imagine Churches having rules where a funeral mass and burial can be only done in the parish of the area they belong. Otherwise they need a no objection certificate from the area parish priest? Did Jesus Christ asking for domicile of people who he healed or a No Objection Certificate when he raised Lazarus from the dead? 

Messaged many priests and thought they will rush when called to say a funeral mass. Many did not even reply. Some had excuses which reminded me of a hymn sung in Church, 'I cannot come to the Banquet'. 

https://youtu.be/tW_vdsU_Bb8?si=dcB-fWK1TenJoAi1

A song based on a parable where A king directs his messengers to invite all common ordinary people to come to the feast. This is because the chosen guests have refused to come. 

Maybe if it was a banquet many of these priests would have attended. Or if it was a rich man's funeral. The altar would have be crowded with the amount of priests that would have congregated to concelebrate the funeral mass of a rich or influential man. How many of these priests would have excused or refused to reply to a message from Vatican to say mass at Pope Francis's recent funeral if they were called.

This blog is to express gratitude to Fr. Jolly SVD who was the only priest who volunteered to say the funeral mass. Though by then other priests were arranged and he was not required. 

The same heart was something that gave away over a decade away and he was honest. It was his corporate rat race. This skeleton bony rat was like any corporate honcho who wanted to command a rancho in the corporate world. Working late hours and smoking away as he was steam engine. Fooling himself that that he would chug fast like a steam engine in the corporate world. Ending with his health going south and landing him on a destination of an emergency operation theatre to get his over stressed heart operated upon. An operation that he definitely would have not made it out alive. Then this bones had bones of steel that ensured a steel resolve and strength to fight destiny.

Destiny definitely lost it's fight to Francis and take him away in fright. On the contrary he frightened destiny. Over the decade post his surgery he kept his fight on and never giving up. Then it was not just the care he took of himself or the regular disciplined medical check. It was his mental make up of wild madness, jokes, humor and the resolve to stay happy, be happy and keep everyone around him happy.

Destiny bring a mysterious and many a times evil, attacked him again. Not realising that this steel of bones also had a steel fist that could punch any adversity on the chin and even below the belt. The fight this time was the hardest, toughest and most difficult. Imagine in a city like Bombay, did not have the infrastructure that could handle a case like his. He had to be flown to south India, where he made history. History of the first patient that made it through a first of a kind surgery in India.

This bloody funny bones taught a chicken heart like me that that when life throws lemons at you don't just make lemonade you can even squeeze it over a drink. As we friends would be planning to gather over drinks to celebrate his recovery, it would not be we cheering for him, it would be him teaching us to say Cheers to Tears.

Some of the media articles on Francis Saldhana's successful surgery 

https://youtube.com/shorts/nSn8WGi4B4k?si=n1uR_iludFJCimMy

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/sims-hospital-performs-indias-first-combined-tavr-and-aortic-graft-surgery-in-a-redo-heart-procedure/article69687127.ece

https://youtu.be/y5ELDVYRQAk?si=UnCfDZyihD6Nxtdw

https://thesouthfirst.com/health/chennai-doctors-stop-patients-heart-for-two-hours-to-perform-indias-first-hybrid-valve-aortic-graft-surgery/