YOUR "KARMA" DECIDES YOUR COMFORT IN THE END.

I had an opportunity to give physiotherapy to 90 year old father of a senior Officer for his old age ailment, Osteoarthritis in both knees. Both knees were semiflexed, stiff, and deformed. He was walking with the help of a walker. The physiotherapy was given for pain as an OP patient. When the pain was reduced I stopped the treatment. Usually, after two months he would come again for another session of treatment when he had pain.

Osteoarthritis, as you all know, is a degenerative old age ailment which is not curable with conservative management. A safe knee replacement was not at all popular those days like today. So doctors did not take that option. Therefore that grand old man was my frequent visitor in P T department and I was like a son for him because he called me," betta".

After two years, he was admitted in Air Force hospital for COPD( chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). No treatment worked on him and in 92 years, those were his terminal days, probably God decided. At last, he died. He was habituated to lie on one side(lateral lying), which was comfortable for him. There was no problem for anybody in this position of his lying and knee bent standing. His officer son once asked me whether, his two decade long, bent knees could be made straight with physiotherapy. Then I politely told him that it would be dangerous. Anyway, when he died, his lying was a problem. Putting a deadbody on side lying wad awkward. But if you put him on back lying his both flexed stiff knees were raising up to form a tent, when he is covered with a white bedsheet. Not only that, the shutter of the coffin box could not be fixed. Many of his affluent, respectable kith and kin from different parts of the world arrived hearing the sad demise of the officer's father. The officer was embarrassed to see his father, s awkward shape by lying on back. His brother in law came to me and whispered in my ear" what should be done"? He might have thought looking at my face, that I might do any cruel thing. I said, " Sir, I will try, and said I would do one thing which I refused when he was alive."

I went inside the ICU where the body preparation was going on by nursing staff and nursing assistants. I told them that I wanted to do a physiotherapy treatment for this patient. They were astonished and sarcastically commented " what ".I just gave a soft press on the elevated knees and with a jerk, the knee became straight by breaking. I was comfortable that I did not do this when he was alive and I could make that grand old loving man decently lying in a noble manner with my last manipulation. The coffin box could be closed very well. When the body was taken out of ICU, the female relatives said, "At last God made his knees straight, as his' karma' was good in this world". !!