Panic.

My family and circle of friends is full of people who have had to get their knees replaced.  So, when suddenly I started to get a severe pain on the inside of the right knee, I panicked and went ballistic trying to find a diagnosis online.  I finally went over to my GP who examined me and asked me, if I had run into anything recently and I suddenly remembered that I had indeed run into the corner of my bed a few days ago.  He diagnosed the pain as arising out of a blood clot due to that after pointing out a dark bruise on the skin.  He prescribed some pills and an ointment and no sooner I had taken the first pill and applied the ointment, I immediately felt relief.

There’s nothing quite like the behaviour of panicky humans,  My imagining all kinds of dire consequences like going back to a hospital for surgery, the expenses involved etc were totally irrational and also totally unlike my normal behaviour to adversity.

Let me share another story.

Every Sunday morning without fail around 10.30 am a surrogate son to me calls me from Mumbai  to ensure that I am alive and have not changed my will where he expects to find himself in a prominent position. He has been doing this for the past twenty years and so when he did not call me at the usual time last Sunday and after waiting for a couple of hours to give him some time to finish whatever he was doing, I called him at 12.30 pm just as he was entering his home. I asked him if dementia has set in already for him and he simply passed on the phone to his wife to explain to me as to why he did not call me in the morning. It turned out that she  had hustled him our of his bed at an ungodly hour for a Sunday and got him to escort her to a supermarket close by to buy and stock up on groceries for the anticipated shutting down of Mumbai due to the pandemic.

My daughter in love and son however appear to be totally unconcerned as I am too and when this topic was suggested by Sanjana for this week’s 5 on 1 Friday post, I was reminded of this:

On enquiry, I found that without much noise provisions had already been stocked up for emergencies and the only thing about which they were worried was milk without which I don’t have my tea or coffee and which is needed regularly to set yogurt without which I cannot exist. I responded that if shove came to push, I shall indeed be prepared to sacrifice my dietary preferences in the larger interest of the public and that they should not panic.

Here is a video that shows clearly to what extent one can go to hoard things during an emergency like the current one.

What however has puzzled me and many others too is the mad rush to stock up on toilet paper.

I am not one to panic easily. Not that I have become like that, it is just that I am just made that way. It is not deliberate but, just natural for me to face adversities calmly and take such action as necessary within my capability.  The knee incident however exposed me to the reality that I too can panic under some conditions.

There have been a number of occasions in my life when I had to face unexpected adverse situations where I was able to face them and come out relatively unscathed compared to others under similar circumstances. Other friends had panicked under similar circumstances and one even committed suicide. I guess that it is all the negative messages that we are bombarded with by the media and now through the social media that such panic reactions take place as people are unable to foresee a future as comfortable as the present that they are so comfortable with.

We are currently in the midst of the Coronavirus panic and I am sure that after a few weeks and in retrospect we will look back and wonder what the panic was all about. I hope to write a follow up post on that.

And to sign off, here is snoopy being topical again.
This is my take on this week’s Friday 5 On 1 blog post topic. The other four bloggers who write on the same topic every Friday are Sanjana, Padmum and Shackman and Conrad.   Conrad incidentally, is the original founder of the weekly bloggers group formed way back in 2009.  It gives me great pleasure to welcome him back to this venture, thanks to some persistent nagging by Shackman.  This week’s topic was suggested by Sanjana. Please do go over to their respective blogs to see what they have to say on the topic. Thank you.