Sahana

I cant remember the last time I sat and watched 3 back to back episodes on the Cooking Channel!! That too at 4 am!! Thanks to the jet lag, Sahana and I shared some mommy-daughter moments watching some serious cooking shows.
I was unable to update the hoopla on my blog before I left for China. My ticket to China was paid by the Government of India and for it to be approved, seconded and finally booked took about 2-3 weeks.
Sanjeev and Sahana were already booked and were set to travel with all documents intact.
The ticket arrived 2 days before I left for China. The day before I left, Sahana was running a temperature. So I took her to a doctor who said it might be just viral and we were good to travel. Unfortunately, we had to fly separately because my ticket was booked last minute and there were no seats available on their flight.
Sahana was still runnign a temperature when they were checking in.They left on a flight 12 hrs prior to mine. At the airport,I tried to stand-by for their flight and after 3 hrs of waiting and giving us a lot of hope, the airline said I could not travel with them. I was in tears because Sahana was hot with fever and Sanjeev had to take her on the long trip by himself. It was probably the longest few hours of my life and the worst part was that I would be on a plane when they reach China. So it meant 24 hrs of no news about Sahana. That was quite painful. Actually very painful.
Once I boarded the plane, halfway I even tried calling them on the phone in the plane. But for some reason, there was no signal the entire way. When I finally reached Hong Kong, I was so relieved to when I called them and knew all was fine.
She was still running a temperature of 101 and had a cough. But since we were staying outside in a hotel, I felt better that I could be with Sahana when I wasnt on court.
The problem with buying tickets at the Asian Games was another hitch. While the Chinese media and their official website claimed the tickets were all sold out, there were but 10 people on the 1st day in the massive stadium. That was actually a worse situation than CWG. So I had to find a way to get them to come see my matches.
There were no ticket booths set up and the only tickets that were available were to be purchased form some Chinese bank after staying lining up in a queue for hours. That was ridiculous. But thankfully, our physical trainer Anand found someone in the Chinese Federation and somehow sneaked Sanjeev and Sahana in almost everyday. That was a blessing.
I also took Sanjeev and Sahana to tour the Asian Games Town one day. They were neither checked for accreditation or did they go through any security. I was quite surprised at how lax the entire security was.
After 4-5 days, Sahana was still coughing at which point we decided to check her out with a doctor. Call it a mom's intuition, I mentioned to Sanjeev that sahana may have pneumonia. We were taken in a ambulance by the stadium officials to a nearby hospital. A special ward was set up just for the Asian games participants. While we had no idea what was being spoken, a young man who looked quite Asian came and asked us where we were from. When we said India, he was quite delighted and said he was Indian too. We were so relieved as he agreed to play interpreter. We found out that he was doing his internship and was from Manipur in India.
The doctor who examined Sahana said that Sahana indeed had pneumonia and she maybe admitted as an inpatient for a week.Sanjeev and I freaked out. We really did not want to be in a Chinese hospital for a week and would have rather flown home by the next flight. But after an X-Ray, it was found that it a milder case of pneumonia and antibiotics would fix it. We thanked the Indian student who was such a blessing and left for the courts.
As soon as my matches were over, we took the next day's flight back. Even though Sahana was surely better after the antibiotics, we didnt want to take chances. We had originally planned on a trip to Macau after the Games, but decided that, that would be reserved for another day.
Now looking back, I am obviously a bit disappointed that i didnt win a medal. But I also have come to appreciate that mothers who travel on tour like Clijsters, Lindsay lee Waters and Rossana de Los Rios. While Kim has enough help around her, Rossana has been through tough times travelling with her little girl. Kudos to her for grinding it out on tour and being a mom!!!
I am truly happy to have gotten the opportunity to do what I did and though the outcome I longed for was more than what I got, I feel blessed.
Feel free to post your comments here. Would love to know what you think..