Sincerity & Faith Do Wonders…!

When Science Stood Still and Faith Took Over

-A Veterinarian’s True Story

: By Dr Sunil S Rana

I had seen death before.

Many times.

As a veterinarian, you don’t get the luxury of illusions. You see life at its rawest-unfiltered, voiceless, helpless. You learn early that animals don’t exaggerate pain. When they collapse, they mean it. When they stop fighting, it is because they truly cannot go on.

That afternoon, when the Great Dane was carried into my clinic, something in me went cold.

His name was Denny.

Six years old.

Male.

Magnificent-yet broken.

A dog of that size is supposed to command space. Denny didn’t. His abdomen was grotesquely distended, tight like a drum. His breathing was shallow, panicked. His eyes-those gentle, intelligent eyes-kept searching, as if asking a question no one was answering.

The X-rays and ultrasound confirmed what my instincts already knew.

Gastric-Dilatation-Volvulus (GDV)

The stomach was twisted. Blood supply compromised. Time bleeding away.

I have spent decades inside animal bodies. I know anatomy like scripture. But staring at those films, I didn’t feel like a surgeon.

I felt small.

The owner sat across my desk. I explained everything-calmly, clearly, honestly. The procedure. The risks. The cost. The urgency. I told him bluntly: delay means death.

He nodded. Too calmly.

“Keep him under observation,” he said. “Prepare for surgery. I’ll just go to the bank and come back.”

He never returned.

Hours passed. My receptionist kept calling. The phone rang unanswered, then unreachable. Evening turned into night. The clinic quietened, but Denny’s condition worsened.

By now, the truth was unavoidable.

Denny had been abandoned…!

Animals understand more than we allow ourselves to believe. Somewhere between pain and fading consciousness, Denny knew something was wrong. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t struggling. He was just… enduring. Silently. Like someone who has already accepted betrayal.

I am not a young man.

I am not reckless.

I am not foolish.

I am a 50-year-old veterinarian, deeply trained, deeply emotional, and deeply aware of limits-medical and human.

And that night, science had reached its edge.

I am from South Delhi. I have always believed in Lord Shiva-not loudly, not performatively, but quietly. My mother once gave me a small laminated picture of Him. “Keep it with you,” she said. “Not for miracles-but for courage.”

That picture lives in my pocket.

That night, before scrubbing in, I went to Denny.

He was unconscious now.

I sat beside him. Not as a doctor-but as a fellow living being. I placed my hand gently on his massive chest and spoke-not clinically, not mechanically-but from somewhere much deeper.

“Denny,” I said softly, “I know you can hear me.”

People think animals don’t understand words. They are wrong.

Animals understand intent.

“I don’t know why your humans left,” I continued, my voice steady though my chest felt tight. “I don’t know what kind of world does that. But listen to me… I am here.”

The monitors beeped faintly.

“This surgery is dangerous,” I told him honestly. “You might not wake up. And if you do… it will hurt. But if we don’t try, there is no tomorrow for you.”

I paused. My hand rested over his heart.

“I will do my part,” I whispered. “But my hands are limited. Tonight, I need help.”

I reached into my pocket and held the small laminated image of Lord Shiva.

“Hey Mahadev,” I said quietly, without ritual, without drama.

“I’m trained. I’m prepared. But this one… this one is beyond me.”

I looked at Denny and prayed to Mahadev…

“If You’re listening,” I said, “scrub in with me.

I’ll lend You my hands.

You bring the wisdom.”

The operating theatre was cold.

The staff knew the odds. No one spoke much. Anaesthesia was induced. The incision was made.

And then we saw it.

The stomach was twisted far worse than imaging had shown. Tissue was darkening. The spleen was compromised. One wrong movement-one tremor; and catastrophic bleeding would follow.

This was the moment where most surgeons hesitate.

And then… something changed.

Not noise.

Not light.

Stillness.

The beeping monitors faded into the background-not stopped, just… distant. A warmth settled over my shoulders, down my arms, into my fingers.

This was not adrenaline.

I know adrenaline.

This was clarity.

My hands began to move.

I was not thinking.

I was not planning.

I was watching.

Movements flowed-precise, confident, impossibly calm. I untwisted tissue millimetres from disaster. I controlled vessels that should have bled. I placed sutures where vision alone shouldn’t have guided me.

Time lost meaning.

“Vitals are stable,” someone from the Paravet staff whispered.

I didn’t reply.

It felt as if someone stood just behind me-not touching, not commanding-guiding.

And then… it was done.

The stomach was corrected. The abdomen closed. Bleeding minimal. The impossible… completed.

When I stepped away from the table, I realised something strange.

I wasn’t exhausted.

I wasn’t shaking.

I wasn’t drenched in sweat.

I was… calm.

Days passed…

Denny woke up. Slowly. Carefully. Painfully-but alive…!

One evening, as I checked on him, he lifted his head. His eyes met mine. Not like an animal. Like a soul recognising another.

“You stayed,” his eyes seemed to say.

I smiled.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I did.”

There was no owner to thank me. No applause. No celebration.

But I didn’t need one.

I slipped the picture of Lord Shiva back into my pocket.

Science explains the how.

Blood flow. Sutures. Physiology.

But science cannot explain the why.

Why hands steady when fear should rule.

Why life returns when statistics say it shouldn’t.

Sometimes, you are not the healer.

You are only the instrument.

And that night, in my operation theatre, when a voiceless soul was abandoned by the world-

The Great Physician was on call.

Om Namah Shivaya…!