A CHARACTER WHO SUCCESSFULLY ESCAPES THEIR FATE.

A CHARACTER WHO SUCCESSFULLY ESCAPES THEIR FATE.

-       Ahsin Nahom

 Content warning for readers who may find medical trauma or emotional distress triggering.

The night fate tried to take him, I thought it was something minor, acid reflux, maybe stress. The world was already crumbling in the peak of the pandemic, and this just felt like another inconvenience.

The moment we walked into the ER, I expected it to be routine. A few tests, some medicine, and we would go home. But I will never forget the way the doctor’s face shifted when he looked at the ECG results. A moment ago, I was worried about whether he was getting enough rest. Now, I was being told that his heart had been on the brink of failure. And then, the words that cracked the ground beneath me: Heart attack.

Panic surged through me. No, this isn’t right. He wasn’t old. He wasn’t sick. He was fine just yesterday. But none of that mattered. The world had already decided to throw us into battle.

Everything after that was pure chaos as then came the next nightmare getting help. The hospital had no cardiac unit equipped for this. They could only stabilize him. The city was in shambles because of COVID, ambulances were scarce, and shifting him to another hospital was another battle in itself. I called people, I begged, I searched, and in that moment, I had never felt more alone. The roads were empty, but my mind was overflowing with worst-case scenarios. Would he make it? Would I ever hear his voice again?

I stood in the middle of a collapsing world, clinging to him, willing him to stay.

I managed to get an ambulance and finally, we got to another hospital. He was rushed in. I wasn’t allowed to stay by his side. I sat outside, gripping my phone, feeling the weight of every second. Hours passed. The updates were clinical, robotic: Angio done.

For a fleeting moment, I hoped that was the end of it, that we had caught it in time.

But the truth was far worse than I could have imagined— He had triple vessel disease. Three major blockages.

His only chance was open-heart surgery.

I remember the cold grip of fear tightening around my chest, suffocating me. I was alone—no family beside me, no reassuring hands to hold mine. Just me, a broken system, and the desperate fight to keep him alive.

I called my sister and my brother-in-law, but what could they do? The pandemic had stolen people away from each other. I felt like I was in an empty universe, where the only thing keeping me grounded was the desperate hope that he would come out of this.

The stent was only a temporary fix—I had just 10 days to find a doctor who could save him.

I sat on a cold steel chair in the hospital corridor, wrapped in silence, feeling like the loneliest person in the world.

And then, after he was discharged, the hospital runs began. He wasn’t supposed to walk or exert himself, so I pushed him everywhere in a wheelchair. I struggled on inclines, my arms aching, my heart heavier.

I cried in hospital bathrooms, muffling my sobs. I cried at night, curled up in exhaustion. I cried while eating, the food tasting like nothing. But never in front of him. In front of him, I was strong. I wore the mask of strength because he needed me to. Because I had no other choice.

Ten days to find the right doctor. Ten days of sitting beside him, pretending to be strong, when inside, I was breaking. What if something goes wrong? I was playing a role, the strong, capable wife who had it all under control. But every night, when I was alone, I fell apart.

It was the 10^th .The surgery day came. Eight hours. Eight hours of pacing, of praying to every god I had ever heard of. Eight hours of imagining every possible outcome. I had never known time could stretch like that, twisting and pulling until it felt endless.

We cuddled the previous night together. I didn’t know what would happen. Those moments were terrifying. For eight hours’ time stood still, where every second was a question mark, where I kept wondering if fate would win.

When they finally let me see him, I barely recognized him. Tubes, wires, machines—so much keeping him alive. His face was pale, his body still. But he was alive.

The relief was short-lived as the pain that followed was unbearable to witness, the kind that makes you question everything.. The first time the anaesthesia wore off, he screamed. A sound so raw, so full of agony, that it tore through me. I stood beside him, held his hand, whispered reassurances, watching, knowing I couldn't take his pain away. What good were words against that kind of pain? I wished I could take it for him. I wished I could do anything but sit there, useless.

I had thought the worst was over. But watching someone you love suffer and not being able to stop it—that is its own kind of hell.

Days passed. He got stronger. He started sitting up, walking, breathing without assistance. The scars were healing, but the memory of those nights, of those eight hours, of those desperate prayers—those will never fade.

We made it. We escaped.

They say fate had a plan, but sometimes, you fight, and you win.

And he is here. And I am here today. And that means everything.

They say fate had a plan that day on the 1^st of the month when he was supposed to die, but we rewrote it. He was supposed to be gone, but he’s here. We got him at the golden hour and he survived.

And so, did I.

But the version of me before that day didn’t.

The woman who walked into that hospital was not the one who walked out. She was left behind in waiting rooms, in the cold corridors, in the sterile smell of antiseptic and fear. She died in the hours of helplessness; in the weight of decisions no one should have to make alone.

He escaped his fate.

I became mine.

Those screams still haunt me.

Sometimes, survival is just another kind of death.