Page 167 - Till the Last Breath . . .

Pihu told him about her loss of strength and coordination, about how she

could no longer use the fork or the knife to pierce or cut through food,
about how she felt that she would not be able to walk, even with a crutch,
for long and how sometimes she had trouble breathing. Most ALS patients

die because their diaphragm muscles are too weak to support breathing and
they suffocate to death. She asked Arman if that was the way she would die.

Arman comforted her and told her whatever he knew about the disease—
which was everything there was to know.

All of a sudden, Pihu started to cry a little. Arman put his hands around
her and comforted her and she kept sobbing softly in his arms. The crying

went on for an inordinately long period of time. When she looked at the
clock that hung on the wall just opposite to her bed, she noticed that she had
been crying for the past thirty minutes, twenty-five of which had been in

Arman’s warm embrace. She tried to stop but couldn’t. Thinking of the
horrors that were yet to come, she did not want to live any longer. If she

were to die sleeping, her lungs screaming for a few last breaths, she would
rather die now.

‘Are you okay now?’ Arman inquired as she stopped crying.
She felt embarrassed and said, ‘I am sorry.’

‘You don’t have to be. I thought you knew that heightened emotions are a
symptom of this disease. Patients continue to laugh or cry for longer periods
of time because of the degeneration of brain cells which control these

emotions,’ he clarified.
‘I think I read it somewhere,’ she mumbled. ‘Very nice to know that my

brain is getting smaller. It makes sense though. My brain’s too big for my
cuteness.’

‘I can second that.’
She chuckled and stopped. ‘I am just afraid if I laugh for too long, I

might not be able to stop,’ she said. They both laughed and high-fived and
Pihu wanted to hug him again but thought it would get awkward.
‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘we can schedule the first surgery whenever you

are ready.’
‘I am ready,’ she said.