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We are shaped by the people we meet. When you are privileged enough to hold the power to be a life-changing catalyst in someone’s story, your own life is carved, bit by bit, by the essence of each of those souls.
I have had the distinct privilege of being a physician—more specifically, a physician whose battleground was the Intensive Care Unit. I have seen and managed the greatest pandemic the world has ever witnessed, and perhaps because of that crucible, I hold a perspective that refuses to divide the world into clinical binaries. Life is not merely black and white, colored or uncolored, happiness or sorrow; it is a profound spectrum of both. I remember watching Inside Out, where Joy says to Sadness, “Without you, I will not exist.” It is a truth that resonates through the halls of the ICU.
Today, as I sit taking my own infusions, my mind rushes back to the hundreds of patients I have treated and how they, in turn, have shaped me.

I remember you—the 37-year-old woman with myositis for whom a simple Influenza B infection proved so fatal that it landed you on a ventilator. I don’t know what you saw in me, but you wanted me around constantly. You would only trust me to perform your bronchoscopy; you reached for my hand as we transitioned you to BIPAP. You had a young daughter whom I never met, but I vividly remember that after intubating you, I turned around to see her water bottle lying by your bedside. You had told me you kept it close just for the comfort of her presence.
I remember breaking down and crying right there in the ICU, overwhelmed by the image of a mother struggling for her life while clinging to her child’s bottle. I did not leave your side, and God was kind. We weaned you off the ventilator, and eventually, you went home. It was during that time that another patient’s attendant asked if I was related to you. I smiled and replied, “I am related to all of you.”

I have not forgotten the patient in the bed directly opposite hers, fighting on Extracorporeal Life Support (ECMO). I had promised him he would be okay. We lost him.
Then there was the young man who survived the initial onslaught of COVID only to succumb to a secondary fungal infection. I remember how he kept pictures of his children by his bedside, a silent gallery of why he needed to live.
I remember Alex and his sister. Alex suffered a severe asthma exacerbation that required ventilation and chest tubes on both sides. After a grueling hospital stay, he made it. Conversely, I remember the pregnant woman with dengue who died in our unit. I was pregnant myself at the time, and I cannot forget her face—a mirror of a life I was currently nurturing while hers slipped away.
I sometimes wonder if the patients we lost hold a grudge against us from heaven. I wonder if the ones we saved ever think of us, because I think of them almost every single day.
For me, the boundaries between the professional and the personal often blur into a single, aching heart. I get emotionally invested.
There was a young woman with breast cancer and pleural effusion. Terminally ill, she would sit in my ICU, gasping and breathless. When she stabilized and went home the first time, I gave her a book. She began to write to me and visit me in the OPD; she had taken up painting to divert her mind. Art is a wonderful therapy; we all look for vents when we are struggling.

I remember writing to her: “It is wonderful how you are handling this so positively.” She wrote back words I will never forget:
“Negativity is boring. Life is too beautiful to be wasted, and my daughter watches and learns far more than I can teach. I tell her, ‘Tum kaha ki maharani ho?’ (Who do you think you are, a queen?). Life will always throw challenges. You can crib, which is boring, or make the best of it, which is what I enjoy.”

In our last meeting, she had been readmitted under the neurology team because the cancer had invaded her spine. Even then, she was looking forward to going home and starting strength training. She never made it home. She was moved to the Oncology ICU, and I visited her just before she was ventilated. She was surrounded by doctors, and I could only catch a fleeting glimpse of her. She had a look on her face that said, “I’m done now, with all of you.”
I couldn’t muster the courage to utter a word. We lost her shortly after. She left her beautiful daughter behind. Her WhatsApp number still appears functional. So many times, I have opened her chat, typing a message to whoever holds her phone now, wanting to ask if her daughter is doing well. I haven’t had the courage to hit send.

I realized the other day that despite all our conversations, I never knew what she did professionally before she fell ill. I don’t know what the woman with myositis did, or what the man on ECMO did for a living. Alex was a student then—what is he now?
It is a somber reality that we often know patients only as their diagnoses: Bed number X with pneumonia; Bed number Y with ARDS. I think there is a reason we are trained to maintain that distance; too much emotional attachment has kept me awake for more nights than I can count.
But I also hope that—God forbid—if I were ever in their position, there would be people around me who would give that extra few percent of effort simply because they were emotionally attached to me.
To the patients I saved: Thank you for the privilege of being a meaningful part of your lives.
To the ones I lost: I am deeply sorry. When we meet in heaven, I want to tell you that I tried my absolute best, and I am still learning to know better.
To the fellow doctors who treat me now: I hope you never forget me, just as I have never forgotten a single soul I have treated.

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