One might wonder what has radio-activity got to do with my previous post and this one too! I think it makes for a nice fancy title, considering that I’ve had a CAT scan (Computerised Axial Tomography and not scanning your cat) twice in a span of 4 days. I joked with the doctor asking him if I might become radio-active after two CAT scans in such a short time! So that’s about the radio active waist.
I still have a lot of interesting gossip to share about these seemingly endless hospital trips, which have now taken the trip meter in the car to cross 500 kms. (These are just towards the hospital trips)
But before I get into that, let me call it by its name. It is called tuberculosis of the abdomen.
And I have it. And I’m going to fight it. I’m going to pour down all arsenal I can to kill those bloody bacilli. I don’t know how long they’ve been inside me, but as my doctor says, “not anymore”.
It did take them a month of diagnosis: right from a simple routine blood test and a more detailed blood culture and sensitivity to a malaria antigen to the typhoid test and a urine routine and microscopy to a urine culture
(Mine turned out to be very-well-cultured with e-coli. How cultured is yours?)
Well, a UTI (urinary tract infection and not the unit trust of india) turned out to be an accompaniment of the resident t.b. of the tummy. And no sir and no ma’m it won’t go with oral antibiotics so injections it was and twice a day. And that is how the staff at the billing counter of the OPD, the nurses, the pharmacist, the sample collection people and the parking money collector – all find us familiar now. Most of the nurses are from Kerala. They are usually short and thin and soft-spoken and light-handed. While chooda, bindi, sindoor and bright-lipstick-and-eye-shadow-wearing north-Indian nurse gave me two puncture marks.
Well well…what really drew me the most attention and some sympathy was the size of the t.b. antigen test boil. The lab assistant also assures me that I’m going to be alright. It had swollen to a 28 mm size. (10 mm is considered to be a mark of positive so we were looking Very positive then). Other than making me scratch myself like an ape, the injection proved the CAT scan diagnosis of t.b. in the tummy. And drew some sympathetic and some curious and some very disgusted glances from passers-by.
Right now, I’m going to enjoy a week off from the hospital “trip” and rest and kill the bacteria. And dream.
I’ll dream in my sleep that I am the super-energetic, healthy, glowing diva who plays tennis and does power-yoga and works from 10 to 6 and goes for a movie one day, a play another day, some exhibition the third day, attends a family-do the fourth day, and takes the early weekend and is off to an undisclosed location for a short holiday away from the big city.
(That ladies and gentlemen, is what life looked like barely a couple of months ago. I merely take the liberty of dreaming to be a diva.)
Now, won’t you envy my life?
