Matters of the Heart

How medicine advanced faster than our hospital canteen

My father, the eldest among five brothers and five sisters, passed away suddenly in 1995 at the age of sixty-six, taken by a heart attack. He lived for years with extremely high blood pressure, 220/120 was his usual reading, managed with tablets. Ironically, if it dropped even slightly, he felt uncomfortable. That, in those days, was considered “under control.” 

In the years that followed, heart disease seemed to pursue our family with quiet persistence.

In 1999, my father’s youngest brother, just fifty-five and a banker, underwent bypass surgery at Manipal Hospital under the legendary Dr. Devi Shetty. 

Around the sametime, in a couple of months, just as my uncle was recovering, my father’s third younger brother, an uncle who was a dependent, passed away  due to an enlarged heart. The only treatment suggested was a heart transplant. In the 1990s, this was neither proven nor affordable, and certainly not something families like ours could even imagine pursuing.

In another couple of years, another uncle, my father’s second brother, underwent open-heart surgery in Mumbai at the Hinduja Hospital, for a severe seven-block condition.

The extended family was not spared either. In a few years, my 40 year old brother-in-law was taken in for what was meant to be a routine stent procedure at a well-known heart hospital. A near-total blockage was initially addressed through an attempted stenting, which failed, and we were then informed that open-heart surgery would be required. However, neglect over the following weekend, marked by the absence of specialists at a critical time, led to sepsis, and we lost him there itself. We later learnt that such a near-total blockage warranted open-heart surgery from the outset. Medicine failed him not in skill, but in availability.

A few years later, my father’s immediate brother had a pacemaker implanted when he was around seventy, nearly two decades ago. By then, such procedures were no longer spoken of in hushed voices.

Through most of these episodes, I found myself in hospital corridors, waiting outside operation theatres, watching patients wheeled into CCUs, learning to read faces, beeps, and body language. Without realising it, I was growing up alongside the evolution of cardiac medicine.

In the 1990s, an open-heart surgery was an event. It brought fear, whispered conversations, and long recoveries. By the early 2000s, fear gave way to cautious confidence. By 2005, it became something to be managed rather than mourned in advance.

This shift became obvious around 2022, when my mother’s younger sister’s husband needed open-heart surgery. This time, we researched. We compared hospitals, surgeons, outcomes. We chose calmly. That itself was a sign of how far we had come.

The real marker of change, however, arrived a couple of years ago when my cousin, a super achiever, a well-known figure in finance, an accomplished author, a record holder in lock collection, and my personal hero, informed us, almost casually, that he would be undergoing open-heart surgery. He told us just two days before the operation. He was admitted the very next day and settled into a pleasant room.  When I visited him that evening, I was struck by how normal everything felt. He was relaxed, almost cheerful. The doctor walked in and explained the procedure plainly: ribs would be opened, pain would last about a week, managed with painkillers, and discharge would likely be within forty-eight hours.

What surprised me was not the doctor’s candour, but my cousin’s calm acceptance. Having sat through tense consultations in the 1990s, I asked whether pain from rejoined ribs would really subside so quickly. The doctor smiled and explained that techniques had evolved, wires now ensured stability, recovery was faster, and even coughing posed no risk.

The next morning, I reached the hospital at five to see him off. He was wheeled in at six. We were told we could see him again in two to three hours.

My cousin’s wife and I decided to grab breakfast at the hospital restaurant around seven fifteen. We hoped for the holy trinity, idli, vada, and coffee, but only coffee was available. Idli would take fifteen minutes. Vada, another thirty.

We settled for coffee and returned later after 30 minutes, only to find idli ready. So we had idli and coffee, unhurried, and walked back toward the OT.

Just as we reached, we received a call asking us to come closer. The doctor stepped out and told us the surgery had gone very well. It would take another hour to close and move my cousin to the CCU.

With genuine concern, he added that he had come out early because we would be extremely anxious, and that we should now go and have breakfast peacefully.

My cousin’s wife and I exchanged an embarrassed smile. We had already finished breakfast, quite peacefully, in fact, supported by trust in the doctor and three decades of lived experience that told us how safe open-heart surgery had become.

Still, to honour the doctor’s concern, we decided to return to the restaurant once more, to see if vada had finally made its appearance.

Medical science, after all, has mastered bypasses, stents, pacemakers, and wired ribs.

But the hospital canteen, like Bangalore traffic, government offices, and BSNL landlines, continues to recover at its own pace.

Some things change with science. Some remain stubbornly traditional. And perhaps, in their own way, both keep our hearts beating.

Stories, not instructions. Experiences, not advice—medical or otherwise. Data, only what the internet quietly gathers anyway. Proceed with equal parts curiosity and common sense.