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Let me talk about Marathon Sleepers in fact and fiction and history and mythology.
My Father's favorite character in Raamayan was Kumbhakarn, the brother of Raavan.
Apparently he used to sleep for six months and keep awake for the next six months. Must have been a polar bear in his previous birth.
The other sleeper in Raamayan is Urmila. Apparently she too offered to accompany Laxman to the forests. But Laxman loved her so much that he ordered her to stay back in the luxury of the palace. She then killed two birds with one stone by offering to imbibe Laxman's sleep so he could keep awake day and night as a full-time sentry for Raam and Sita for fourteen years at a stretch. The bonus is that she slept away for the whole of 14 years thereby avoiding the pangs of separation from her loved one.
Much like swapping Assignments at IIT KGP during my time there.
Fourteen years may look a whale of a sleep, but Urmila's Guinness Record is broken by Rip van Winkle who slept off for twenty years in the Catskill Mountains...but there the simile ends...Rip was scared of going home late and face the fury of his termagant wife. Poor girl didn't know whom to nag then on and died of a broken heart. Talking of broken hearts I recall an early ad for QuickFix: "Joins everything except broken hearts".
Coming to coma, there are several records for its length going up to 40 odd years.But I know of a very rare case of coma lasting for about four months. My colleague X took his wife to Puri for a holiday while she was five month's pregnant. There she had a fit of vomiting and became unconscious and was promptly shifted to the PG College Hospital in Calcutta. She was kept in ICU and the team of doctors finally decided not to do any surgical intervention due to her pregnancy. And decided to keep her in ICU with tube-feeding and and minimal life support. But they couldn't revive her for four more months till her pregnancy entered her ninth month. Then one fine morning she woke up asking the routine question:
"Ami kothai aachee go?"
And within a couple of days she was shifted to the Ward since her improvement was unparalleled. And within a few days she gave natural birth to a healthy son and breast-fed and cooed over him endlessly. Within a week she was discharged along with her infant son from the hospital and they never looked back.
When my wife was admitted to the hospital the other day she was fully conscious (of her cancer pains). They took eminent care of her and relieved her of her pains. Upon which she gradually sank into irreversible soft-coma. And she passed away there itself peacefully within six days...landing us in semi-coma.
When she was at home her Doctor had prescribed routine painkillers like Voveron injections but without any avail. Finally, morphine tablets were given and when they too didn't work, morphine patches were administered. Before they were all exhausted, she developed complications and passed away.
I recall that many morphine tablets and patches which we bought in bulk were left unused. By the time I returned home and looked for them, my son had already hidden them away out of my sight...loveless tyrant!!!
...Posted by Ishani
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Let me talk about Marathon Sleepers in fact and fiction and history and mythology.
My Father's favorite character in Raamayan was Kumbhakarn, the brother of Raavan.
Apparently he used to sleep for six months and keep awake for the next six months. Must have been a polar bear in his previous birth.
The other sleeper in Raamayan is Urmila. Apparently she too offered to accompany Laxman to the forests. But Laxman loved her so much that he ordered her to stay back in the luxury of the palace. She then killed two birds with one stone by offering to imbibe Laxman's sleep so he could keep awake day and night as a full-time sentry for Raam and Sita for fourteen years at a stretch. The bonus is that she slept away for the whole of 14 years thereby avoiding the pangs of separation from her loved one.
Much like swapping Assignments at IIT KGP during my time there.
Fourteen years may look a whale of a sleep, but Urmila's Guinness Record is broken by Rip van Winkle who slept off for twenty years in the Catskill Mountains...but there the simile ends...Rip was scared of going home late and face the fury of his termagant wife. Poor girl didn't know whom to nag then on and died of a broken heart. Talking of broken hearts I recall an early ad for QuickFix: "Joins everything except broken hearts".
Coming to coma, there are several records for its length going up to 40 odd years.But I know of a very rare case of coma lasting for about four months. My colleague X took his wife to Puri for a holiday while she was five month's pregnant. There she had a fit of vomiting and became unconscious and was promptly shifted to the PG College Hospital in Calcutta. She was kept in ICU and the team of doctors finally decided not to do any surgical intervention due to her pregnancy. And decided to keep her in ICU with tube-feeding and and minimal life support. But they couldn't revive her for four more months till her pregnancy entered her ninth month. Then one fine morning she woke up asking the routine question:
"Ami kothai aachee go?"
And within a couple of days she was shifted to the Ward since her improvement was unparalleled. And within a few days she gave natural birth to a healthy son and breast-fed and cooed over him endlessly. Within a week she was discharged along with her infant son from the hospital and they never looked back.
When my wife was admitted to the hospital the other day she was fully conscious (of her cancer pains). They took eminent care of her and relieved her of her pains. Upon which she gradually sank into irreversible soft-coma. And she passed away there itself peacefully within six days...landing us in semi-coma.
When she was at home her Doctor had prescribed routine painkillers like Voveron injections but without any avail. Finally, morphine tablets were given and when they too didn't work, morphine patches were administered. Before they were all exhausted, she developed complications and passed away.
I recall that many morphine tablets and patches which we bought in bulk were left unused. By the time I returned home and looked for them, my son had already hidden them away out of my sight...loveless tyrant!!!
...Posted by Ishani
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