Apra becoming Doctor, Nurse and Patient

So yesterday, on our little day trip to the hospital, the doctor cut the stitches and gave some more advice for the coming days and weeks. After an intensive and exhausting session with the physiotherapist, I am now sure that I will be quite fit when it will be time to fly to Germany. And Apra will be a trained physiotherapist and doctor until then!

It is great how much fun children have simply by watching their surrounding! Since the first doctor appointment, Apra has been watching my treatment with much attention and of course started imitating the actions of doctors, nurses and also the patient.

After the first night at the hospital and maybe a few days of pain before that, we heard her imitate my sound of pain. I had gone to the toilet, Ramona helping me and when we were both out of the room, Apra was lying on the bed and made moaning ‘aaah’ and ‘oooh’ noises – as if she was in pain. Ramona took a look at her and saw her holding her knee with both hands while grimacing. When she noticed her mother smiling at her, she had to laugh as well.

For the past ten days, her poor doll had to suffer back pain, belly pain, pain all over the body and in all limbs, was bitten by mosquitos, fell down and upset her belly with too many sweets. All of this suffering for one reason: so that Apra could apply healing lotion, give her injections, do open-cut surgery (to take the candy out of her belly), stitch her together again, measure her temperature, give her lots of medicine, apply bandage and massage her.

When I took off the bandage, she was more than curious to see what was underneath – and bitterly disappointed when all she could see was the big band-aid that was covering the surgery wounds. Once she realized however that the roll of bandage was now not needed by me anymore, she was more than compensated for the disappointment! First the doll had to put the whole bandage on and then she asked her mother to wrap up her leg, telling her that she had hurt her knee.

Yes, and that’s how when I took my first walk up to the Ashram gate, Apra followed behind, limping like I did, holding on to her mother’s hand as I was supporting myself on the crutches. She really did lots of effort – limping with a healthy leg is not easy! I asked her what had happened and she explained that she had hurt her leg as well. ‘How?’ I asked. She said ‘Like this:’ and made a big jump into the air. That’s how. After this demonstration, she started limping again. In between, she forgot about it but when we reached the end of the way and I sat down on a folding bed, she lay down next to me, as though her leg was exhausted as well.

Her most endearing action however was when I had very sore muscles one evening from lots of exercise during the day: she sat by my feet, careful not to accidentally hurt me be sitting on me, then took my toes in her hands and gently moved my feet from front to back, as she had seen her mother do when helping me with the physiotherapy. She accompanied this action with a little song for my feet ‘Get well, I am making you better, you won’t hurt anymore!’

All of these moments and especially the last one described just make my heart melt once more for my little girl. And no matter how much my muscles still hurt, when she looked up and asked ‘Are you better?’ I replied ‘Yes, of course, you helped me very much!’