If the rookie doctor had butterflies before the meeting, the former prime minister´s wit and humor soon put the 30-year-old at ease. “He may not give you all the details about his illness. But I will tell you everything,” Dr Rawat remembers Dr Pandey as saying while introducing him to Bhattarai.“While I might tell you just 50% of the details about myself, I will give you 100% details about him,” Dr Rawat recalls Bhattarai as promptly hitting back at Dr Pandey. [break]
Bhattarai soon became a serving premier before becoming an ex again less than a year later, but the dynamics of the doctor-patient relation between him and Rawat continued to flourish. “I recognized him as a cheerful and witty person in the very first meeting,” Dr Rawat said.
Sitting on the terrace of his quarter just a stone´s throw away from the hospital, Dr Rawat -- visibly tired by his dual duty of treating the ailing leader and keeping the country abreast of Bhattarai´s health status -- reflected upon his association with the founding leader of the Nepali Congress.
“I was not sure if he would come to me again for treatment,” the doctor said reminiscing the early days of the 13-year bond. Bhattarai had severe heart and lungs problems due to decades of smoking and drinking habit, and he developed kidney problems a couple of years later.
“While an average man would not have lived another five years with such health complications, he survived for 13 years due to his positive energy and spiritual leaning,” he states. The fact that Bhattarai renounced worldly desires, Dr Rawat opines, may also have contributed to his longevity.
“He never complained about the pains he endured and this often posed a problem in treatment,” he explains.
But the doctors never felt complacent. “He had full faith on us and that inspired us to do our best,” he elaborates.
As Bhattarai´s health eroded with age and became wheel-chair bound due to weakness owing to his heart and lungs problems, the doctors gradually became aware of the inevitable. “He maintained a dignity and I enjoyed being in his room even when I thought I was not able to cure him,” he confides.
But Bhattarai´s humor lifted the gloom even in times of difficulty for the doctors. “Just a couple of weeks ago I had asked him to raise his legs ten times as part of physiotherapy. He would then start the procedure but count straight to seven after completing three and then to 10,” Dr Rawat recalls. “He would then say that he was doing the exercise routine every couple of hours despite obviously not doing so,” he adds.
Dr Rawat remembers how Bhattarai once embarrassed President Dr Ram Baran Yadav when he asked the leader´s needs during a hospital visit a few months back by demanding jeris and dosa. “The president looked at us for reaction. We allowed some jeris to be brought to him as he didn´t have diabetes and I asked my wife Anjali to make dosas,” Dr Rawat reveals how the leader had become part of his family.
Bhattarai had wanted to avoid surgeries in course of his treatment, Dr Rawat says, and he died without undergoing any operation. “As his condition became terminal, the biggest question for us was whether to prolong his life or his death,” Dr Rawat explains the dilemma over dialysis and using ventilator. “We were not in a position give him life, so we decided to not prolong his death,” he reveals.
Dr Rawat is proud that the octogenarian leader died in peace enjoying his life like he had always done.
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