Some conflicts herald their arrival with trombones; others stealthily approach, igniting their flames unnoticed. His conflict belonged to the latter category. What initiated as a concealed ember in his muscles had escalated into a blaze engulfing his youthful body from the inside.
He was scarcely thirteen, a lad from Bihar, when destiny pulled him into this struggle. By the time he came to us, fever had shackled him for three unyielding weeks. His pulse was hardly detectable, his body diminished, his breath uneven, as if each inhalation could be his final one. Nevertheless, in his fatigued gaze shimmered a delicate defiance: the resolve to endure.
We sought the foe. Yet there was not merely one; there were numerous. Lurking in his muscles, heart, lungs, and joints, the infection had besieged every nook of his fragile physique. Disseminated sepsis accompanied by pyomyositis, clinical terms that fail to convey the anguish they embody.
Every effort to establish an intravenous line was not merely a needle’s prick; it was our commitment that this battle would not be forsaken. However, the microbes retaliated with the weapon we fear the most: antibiotic resistance.
His father, a destitute farmer, implored us daily. His mother’s eyes brimmed with unvoiced supplications as she cradled the toddler, too young to comprehend the tempest looming over his brother. Sometimes ignorance serves as a mercy. For us, it bore a burden heavier than language.
We drained abscess after abscess, aspiration after aspiration. We relied on science, even on that subject I once regarded as dull during medical school: microbiology. Extended cultures were conducted, secrets disclosed. Then, fortune favored us. The enemy’s vulnerability was unveiled. Until that moment, we had been combatting with rifles. Now, at last, we possessed a weapon formidable enough.
Within three days of enhanced antibiotics, the tide began to shift. His fever subsided. His heart steadied. His breathing relaxed. Soon, he was requesting khichdi prepared by his mother. To our delight, he even walked again.
Two lengthy months in the hospital exhausted the family: of finances, of vitality, of spirit. Yet one splendid morning, the boy was prepared to go home. His mother wept freely, her tears this time interwoven with relief. His father, weary yet thankful, nodded silently. The younger brother frolicked around the ward, blissfully unaware that he had just witnessed a miracle.
We shared nothing but a glance, a fleeting smile, an unvoiced promise. Perhaps someday, he would revisit the clinic with a packet of balushahi, a sweet gesture for a battle endured.
That evening, I returned to one of my favorite films, a masterpiece by Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises. I had seen it numerous times before, yet never had the concluding scene affected me so profoundly. Bruce and Alfred meet in a serene café, no words exchanged, only a smile shared, two spirits linked by battles fought and burdens borne, silently acknowledging that they had weathered the darkest of storms. In that instant, I realized: Some victories require no announcement. A smile suffices.
Not every battle is fated to be lost. Some, against all expectations, are triumphed, together.
Bodhibrata Banerjee is a rheumatology fellow in India.