The Somber Side of a Scientific Mind. Christian Tyoder
a long stay in a sanatorium for treatment. Dr. Faisal performed skin tests for TB on all members of the Rasulov family. He came back three days later to do the reading which was “negative” on every member of the household. Within a few more days, Abd’s mother was admitted to the sanatorium in Charikar. The children were told that her disease was very contagious; therefore, they were not allowed to visit her in the hospital until three weekly repeated test cultures of her stomach juice became “negative.” Since the TB germ grows very slowly in artificial lab culture medium, the waiting period for results could be as long as three to four months. It could take even longer for the final lab report, because occasionally the culture had to be sent to London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, or Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, for further examination and confirmation. The sanatorium chief medical doctor anticipated an average stay in isolation and away from home of at least one and a half years if Abd’s mother responded well to treatment with anti-TB medication.
The separation of Abd’s mother from her family was heartbreaking. Zekirullah got permission to come home to give his father a hand in bringing his mother to Charikar Sanatorium. In the early hours of that Wednesday, the pony-drawn wooden cart was parked in front of the Rasulovs’ house. The animal was fed and given drinking water by Zekirullah. Two thick blankets were placed at the bottom of the cart, barely long enough for his mother to lie down on her back.
Abd’s father was inside of the dwelling trying to explain to the children that Mother had to be hospitalized for a “catching” disease that takes several months to recover and that they needed to be protected from acquiring it. He elucidated why they wouldn’t be allowed to see her while she would be on strict isolation at the hospital. The children were asked to say a prayer for their mother several times a day. Bursts of cries were heard by Zekirullah, who was checking one of the carriage’s two wooden wheels. He stopped for a second, wiping off the tear running down his cheeks.
Abd’s father helped his wife to get up from the kitchen table to go to the cart, when suddenly Nabeela cried out loud while pulling on her mother’s khaki burka. “No, no, I want my mother. Don’t take her away from me.”
This was her first separation from her mother. All other siblings joined in, crying for their mother’s leaving home. Walking to the cart, they all sobbed loudly behind their mother, who was leaning on her husband’s right arm. They cried louder when Abd’s father, Zekirullah, and Omira were lifting the sick lady up and placing her recumbent in the wooden box. After the children were told to say goodbye to their mother, the pony, led by Zekirullah on foot, was on its way.
Abd’s father followed behind, having his eyes constantly watching his wife. The crying children kept waving at their departing mother until the pony and its passenger disappeared behind the village’s largest boulder. After a while the children calmed down, except Nabeela, who was still clinging to her sister’s cloak, weeping. She kept crying all day long, refused to eat and to drink, despite Omira’s intense effort to console her. The calamity showed no letup at this stage.
Instead, it continued to intensify. At the dinner table, the nightly prayer often was followed by one of the twin’s sobs. The children were unusually quiet. They all grieved the absence of their mother, who left an empty chair at the south end of the table. Abd’s father’s somber face at the end of a long workday didn’t seem to give the children much reassurance. Every evening, the same questions came up: “When can we see Mom?” or “When is Mom coming home?” and the answer was always the same: “I don’t know, but we can ask Uncle Faisal next week when he is to give us reports on her condition.”
Abd had trouble concentrating in class. He kept thinking that his mother might never return. At night, he tossed and turned in bed. His midyear report card went from “good” to “failed” within a few months. The twin brothers argued incessantly with each other, requiring Omira’s frequent intervention. Nabeela gradually showed developmental regression. Irritable and whiny, this youngest child’s appetite dwindled drastically over the next several months. Bedwetting occurred practically every night. Having to assume all her mother’s functions since she left, Omira was burdened with extra house chores in addition to the care for the three goats during the day. Fortunately, the milking of the animals was done every evening by Abd, the oldest son still at home. Omira’s overwork made her overtired, and this gave her insomnia. Every member of the Rasulov family was profoundly affected by their mother’s stay in Charikar Sanatorium. The most worrisome matter was Nabeela’s weight loss and regression despite Father’s necessary but unconfirmed verbal reassurance that Mother would recover soon. Like his son, Mr. Rasulov had often the grim thought that he might be a widower in a short time.
Once admitted to the sanatorium, Abd’s mother was confined to a six-by-eight-foot room at the end of the corridor. The majority of the patients had acute tuberculosis, and all of them were in “isolation” mode. Patients’ coughs were heard from one end to the other of the hallway of this three-floored old building. In those days, positive air pressure in the corridor was unheard of, let alone hourly air exchange or air recirculation through HEPA filtration to keep the saliva droplets within the patient’s room or escaped through the ducting system. One could imagine how heavily the indoor air of the building would be contaminated with the germ Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Gowning and masking were the only means of minimizing the spread of the disease through caregivers. Children’s visits were inarguably prohibited. Spousal visit was limited to only fifteen minutes once a month, and the contact between spouses was made through speakers installed at the room entrance next to a small glass window. Uncle Faisal, through personal contact with the sanatorium authority, managed to introduce only one item into Abd’s mother’s room: the black-and-white photograph of her family. Sadness continued to reign in the Rasulov family over the next several months.
One Saturday of that fall, Omira revealed to Father that Nabeela, just turned six the week before, had not been eating enough “to sustain the life of a cat” and had been having a low-grade temperature for the last two days. Abd’s father realized that his youngest child indeed had lost quite a bit of weight since his wife left. He became very concerned and decided to get urgently in touch with his cousin Faisal through the mailman, another relative of his. The next day came Dr. Faisal. He checked Nabeela out, examined her urine with his naked eyes, and determined that she had a urinary tract infection.5 Before leaving, he left twenty tablets of sulfa drug for her treatment. While Dr. Faisal was at his home, Abd’s father asked him if he could suggest a way to let his children have a quick look at their mother at the sanatorium. On his next house call to Bamyan, this compassionate man introduced a workable solution that he had worked out with the director of the sanatorium a couple of days earlier. As a matter of fact, Dr. Faisal had gone to see the latter in person and had presented the dire situation going on with the Rasulov family. Moved by the doctor’s plea, the director had agreed to make an exception to the standard isolation procedure. Mrs. Rasulov would be properly gowned and masked and then wheeled to a utility room on the first floor where members of her whole family, also gowned and masked, could see her while being kept a minimum of ten feet from her. To minimize the risk of being exposed to her germs, the visit was limited to a short duration of five minutes. A caretaker would be at the meeting site to be certain that rules governing isolation procedures would not be inadvertently violated.
At the dinner table and on the same day, Abd’s father made the announcement of the prearranged first visit with their mother after eleven months by the day. One should see the sudden joy expressed on the children’s faces. Omira didn’t have to insist on Nabeela’s amount of food intake anymore. The little girl started again to eat and drink adequately.
The day of visit to their mother came. Abd’s father managed to borrow from his second cousin, the mailman, a large pony-drawn cart that could accommodate all children except him.
Zekirullah joined them from Tupchi. The Rasulov family arrived at the sanatorium around midday. Mrs. Rasulov was sitting in a wheelchair, against the back wall of the utility room, waiting to see her family. As the door opened, Nabeela quickly ran toward her mother, crying. The caretaker instantaneously stopped her; otherwise, the visit went well. The children sobbed when they had to leave the room. But they were somewhat relieved when a friendly guard at the gate said to them, “We’ll see you in three months.”
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