You probably felt your tummy churn when you read that … but lemme go ahead with what happened today! After a quick trip to Chennai to see off my sister on saturday, a tired sleepless night journey back to Vellore, an admission sunday duty that left me with little sleep, I entered the admission day and OPD running on adrenaline and a steady supply of coffee. Admissions kept coming in regularly. Then things almost collapsed when 2 sick children came in. One was a child with blood cancer who came in with uncontrolled bleeding. She unfortunately died inspite of all of us struggling. Then we had a child who had near-drowning and needed ventilation. Thanx to a colleaugue Nisha who took care (she wasn’t even on duty) we finally thought at 11 PM that we were back in control. Then the call came through… Praveena from our peripheral hospital called up to inform us about an outbreak of cholera in a children’s home. They had 8 children they wanted to send to us… maybe more. A series of phonecalls and after making hurried arrangements we met the onslaught. Help poured in… interns stayed long after they were expected to to help in evertything. Nurses and admins relaxed rules to allow maximal treatment with minimal delay. And boy! I must tell you about our intern Prabhakar… I guess he has a dozen hands and feet and can be at 5 places at the same time…. Eight became nearly twenty but we were never at a loss for IV fluids or beds or people. At 6 AM when I finally went to the ward to see the kids together it was amazing… kids with no parents crying in hunger thirst, hunger and pain…. but alive and getting better. At the end of the day we were almost euphoric…. everyone was alive and better and no longer hungry or thirsty… just a little uncomfortable. They said we organised ourselves well to handle the emergency…. I say we just left it to God’s hand. You decide what’s true!!!!