Page 16 - Till the Last Breath . . .

‘Why wouldn’t I be? I am just okay. When can I fucking go now?’ he

asked angrily.
‘I am afraid you might have to stay here for a few days,’ he said and
looked at his chart. ‘We are actually glad you woke up. It had been three

days and we thought you were gone for good,’ the doctor, Arman Kashyap,
said with a smirk.

‘Three days? Are you fucking kidding me? You have the wrong patient,
Doctor. I came here yesterday. Is everyone here an incompetent fool? Get

me out of these things!’
‘Irritation. Forgetfulness. And confusion. Well, these are common

symptoms for hepatic encephalopathy. As far as I see it, it’s good news for
you, boy. You have every symptom in the book. It’s easier to treat that way,’
he explained and smiled.

‘Excuse me? I have what?’
‘Hepatic encephalopathy,’ he said. ‘In other words, your liver has rotted

and is playing games with your brain cells. You have had problems with
urination for the past few days and you didn’t tell anyone because you were

embarrassed about it. And three days back, you had a seizure and passed
out.’

‘But I didn’t. It was just—’
‘I am telling you what happened, not asking you for your confirmation,’
he said, with a heady mix of arrogance and confidence. ‘Now, give me your

parents’ contact numbers so that we can tell them what a bad boy you have
been.’

‘You don’t need to,’ he mumbled, confused. And the confusion was not a
symptom of the hepatic whatever he had, but what the doctor had just said.

‘Hospital rules, Dushyant,’ he explained. ‘No matter how much I hate
dead people, I hate unpaid bills more.’

Dushyant, dazed and caught off guard, wrote down an old, out-of-service
landline number of his house and asked him, ‘You’re going to call them
now?’

‘Not really. Not unless you have to undergo some drastic medical
procedure which requires them to be around. Or you are broke and can’t