Periyanna has fallen… Come fast

Part 1 - 3.00 a.m Disaster

It was the month of February, 2020 at 3:00 a.m. when a sharp, unnatural thud shattered the silence of the night. I bolted upright, heart pounding, a cold sweat forming on my skin. The sound had come from the bathroom. Without thinking, I rushed toward it, dread rising with every step. There, sprawled motionless on the cold, wet tiles, was my father. His limbs were twisted unnaturally, and his tongue hung from his mouth, lifeless. For a second, the world went still — time froze, and all I could hear was the thunderous beating of my own heart. Panic surged through me, but instinct took over. I dragged him from the bathroom floor, yelling his name, shaking him. With trembling hands, I began pounding his chest, desperate to will his heart back to life. Seconds felt like hours. Then — a gasp. A flicker of breath. His eyes fluttered open. And as if nothing had happened, he slowly stood up, glanced at me with vague confusion, and walked back to his room — leaving me shaken, still kneeling on the floor, trying to understand what I had just witnessed. 

While my father drifted back into a deep, almost unsettling sleep, I was left wide awake — haunted. I sat on the edge of my bed, every nerve on edge, replaying the scene in my mind like a horror film stuck on repeat. The thud, the sight of him collapsed, the lifeless look on his face — they looped in my memory, refusing to fade. I kept checking on him, tiptoeing to his door to listen for the sound of his breathing. Each faint rise and fall of his chest brought a flicker of relief, but it vanished just as quickly, swallowed by new waves of doubt. What if it was something serious? What if he doesn’t wake up next time? The night stretched endlessly, its darkness thick and suffocating. Sleep was impossible. I just sat there, eyes wide, ears tuned to every creak in the house, silently pleading for the sun to rise.

All I wanted was daylight — something to anchor me, something to carry us to a hospital, to find answers.

The hours between 3:00 a.m. and sunrise felt like a suspended eternity. As the world outside lay cloaked in darkness, my mind lit up with memories and worries I couldn't quiet. I sat there, beside the dim glow of a night lamp, staring at the silhouette of my father sleeping — peaceful, as if nothing had happened.

But I knew better. In those still, aching hours, I went back in history we both shared — not just as father and child, but as caregiver and patient.

A decade ago, he had survived a bypass surgery — a life-defining event that had changed how I saw him forever: no longer invincible, no longer untouched by time. Slowly, over the years, new shadows crept in. One day, he lost hearing in one ear — just like that, without warning. Then came the spells of giddiness — brief moments where the world around him would tilt and spin, leaving him clutching walls or pausing mid-step.

We chased answers through sterile hospital corridors and high-backed consultation chairs — neurologists, cardiologists, ENT specialists, even brain scans. Tests piled up, bills followed, and yet, nothing. No diagnosis. No clear answers. Just speculation. Just silence.

So he learned to live with the uncertainty. And perhaps we all did. But tonight — this fall — it felt different. Like a message that something deeper was unraveling beneath the surface. And all I could do was wait for morning, helplessly hoping that daylight would bring clarity, or at the very least, a direction. The night felt endless, but what scared me more was the thought that our search for answers might be just as endless too.

He was on a cocktail of medications — pills for his heart, tablets for diabetes, drops for his ear. Over time, they became part of his daily rhythm, almost like clockwork — the quiet clinking of tablets against porcelain, the routine sips of water, the nod of reassurance that everything was “under control.” And so, with age, we began to accept the unexplained. The giddiness. The hearing loss. The momentary blank stares. Just age, they said. A natural decline, nothing unusual. No red flags. No need to panic. That’s how everyone seemed to respond — calmly, dismissively, as though resignation was the only logical path forward.

But I wasn’t at peace with it.

As a student of science, my mind refused to surrender to that silence. I couldn’t ignore the inconsistencies — symptoms that didn’t connect, warning signs that came and went like shadows. We had consulted every specialty we could think of — neurology, cardiology, ENT, internal medicine — and yet, none could join the dots. Multiple tests and numerous data points made available, but still there was a missing link. A dot that didn’t just escape diagnosis — it defied it.

And that mystery gnawed at me. In the quiet hours of that night, with my father's fall still fresh in my memory, I knew one thing for certain: I couldn’t keep treating symptoms while ignoring the system. I needed to go deeper, to think like a scientist but feel like a son — because somewhere in between, I believed the answer lay waiting.

What if the real problem wasn’t just his body failing him — but our understanding failing him too?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xFzjEv6JJ5MWoAkctf6DLEZlLDIMtFr_/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=101905494245507573439&rtpof=true&sd=true