Tests (BH:D78)

October 20, 2011

The road that leads to the Lords hospital complex in Anayara from Pettah is so bad that even if you don't have hernia while starting for the hospital, you will have one by the time you get there. Adding to the constant shaking of the autorickshaw was the wait at the railway crossing for couple of trains going in opposite directions. My judgments are perhaps too harsh because I am anxious about my first hospital visit in over a decade. I was dressed in 'mundu' and shirt for easy check up. The hospital waiting area with coffee colored plastic chairs is packed at 10:30am. It takes a while for Amma to get her bearings. She was here 11 years ago. In a few seconds, she locates Dr. Haridas's office. 

In the spacious office, a junior doctor and a nurse sit on either side of the doctor in the classic triumviral idol arrangement common in Hindu temples. The central figure is in his late 60s, a good old FRCS, still appearing like he is pushing 50. Neatly oiled hair combed backwards revealing a high forehead with hints of wrinkly streaks, intelligent sparkle in the eyes behind rimless spectacles and a dyed, trimmed, handle-bar mustache, Dr. Haridas is an oxymoronic jovial authority. We shake hands. Before I begin to speak, he says, "At the outset, I can tell you that you must lose another 10kg." He asks my height and weight. His hunch is right. I am 10kg overweight for my height. He enquires about my life in the USA. While we talk, Amma's uncle telephones him. They have been good friends from our native village. 

We proceed to the examination room. Eyes have never been widened at the drop of my pants or rather mundu before. Unfortunately, in a doctor's office, it cannot be a moment of pride for the juvenile male fantasy of onlooker jaw-dropping to play out. I resist the instinctive wink and smile. The doctor is curious about what my body has managed. He suspects that I have had the problem since birth and allowed it free flow, so to speak, for 33 years. 

We step back into his office. He quickly orders a full regimen of tests. He wants to do this surgery himself, so he flips through his diary and I notice the absence of computers in the room. Amma is anxious about any possible scarring. He searches for a day not packed with surgeries. "Let's fix it for the the 11th...Laparoscopy," he says. 

11-11-11, the special date once in a hundred years. I was reading yesterday how Hollywood, Bollywood and Kollywood were reworking their movie release dates for this special day. I am slotted to have my big release from this nagging problem as well on this memorable date. 

Amma goes back to work while Achan and I move onward to the payments and tests. The door of the sample collection room is crowded by those giving samples and collecting results. Absolutely painless, expert blood extraction. Next urine. I am on my own for this one. No expert assistance. I remember the numerous wonderful waterfalls of Munnar. It works. 

The X-ray and ECG rooms face each other. First, the chest X-ray. Off comes the shirt in front of an apparatus that looks like a death ray machine from a 70s sci-fi flop. The nurse asks me to stand on a platform, press my chest against a board and rest my chin on its top edge. My shadow on the wall in front reminds me of the French nobles during the revolution. "Kayy kootti ketti amarnu nikkane" (Lock your palms and press on the board) instructs the nurse. "Njan parayumbo shwasam valichu akathu vaykane, vidathe" (When I ask you, take a breath and don't exhale) she says as she switches off the lights and goes into an adjoining room. "Swasham pidikoo," (Hold your breath) she shouts after half a minute. It's over in a split second. I was half hoping to see my skeletal structure on the wall in front. 

I move across the waiting area to the ECG room. The same nurse asks me to lie down shirtless and without my wrist watch. A "viroopaksha" (ugly eye) mural type drawing of a dancing Ganesha stares down from the wall. His crooked eye appearing straight from my supine pose

. 

Nurse proceeds to squirt gel on my wrist and ankles before clamping sizeable car battery jumper cable type leads. More gel on the chest before suction cup leads attach with a pop. With all the wires and the leads, I imagine I am under attack, a half-hearted one, from a grey, rubbery, lean tentacled octopus that has been dieting. I ask the nurse if there will be any invasive probing. She politely says no. My alien abduction simulation dreams pop. 

As she gets the machine going, I make conversation. Ambika nurse hails from Alapuzha though her dad is from my Amma's village. I ask her what the gel is made of. She simply says it is ECG gel. I am asked to hold still for a minute. I alternate my gaze between Ganesha and the ceiling fan. The suction leads come off with a slight pinch. I double check my mind: No, nothing sexual about them. Ambika asks me to get the ultra sound scanning done as early as possible because the radiologist might leave by noon.

At the ultra sound scanning room, the nurse asks me to drink some water and come back. I obey and wait for her to call. Couple of young men are also waiting. They speak a strange language. Achan speculates that they might be from Maldives. 

Inside the scanning room, the radiologist asks me to pull up my shirt and pull down my mundu. He squirts the gel generously on the scanner's head. I repeat my query about the gel's composition. "It is gelled water, " he says. I pretend that I understand what that means because he is applying good amount of pressure over my liver. As the scan proceeds downwards, he shouts the conclusions of whatever he sees on the monitor. The nurse on the other side of the curtain types them into the desktop. Looks like my inner organs, liver, spleen, pancreas, prostate, kidneys, testes, are all in working condition. When he is done, I resemble, from chest down with clumps of wet hair and skin, a well-licked calf.

Achan and Amma had fond memories of the hospital canteen. So we decided to have tea before going back home. The canteen has changed much in the last decade. The lady at the counter was having a loud discussion with the one in the kitchen through the hole in the wall. Our order of two teas, one without sugar, is obviously an undesired interruption to the character dissection they were so heartily enjoying. Nevertheless, good tea.

Next to the canteen stands the new building of the Lords School of Nursing. I read this morning that of the 70 member emergency nursing team assembled for India's first Formula 1 grand prix that is scheduled for the 30th, 60 are Malayalees. I think internationally Malayalees can be suspected of monopolising nursing. Achan remarks that Christian families have been encouraging their daughters to take up this profession for nearly one hundred years. 

A rather narrow road through a residential area leads to the hospital and consequently out of it. So it is difficult to get an autorickshaw for hire. After a few minutes, we managed to wave one to stop. He agrees to take us to Pettah junction. The empty cooking gas cylinder lying on its side behind the passenger seats, bumps up and down on the bad road. There is a good poster of the majestic tusker, Pambadi Rajan, on one inner side wall of the rickshaw. 

The district block member cousin, Kala chechi, and her son, my nephew, visit in the evening. She was in the city to attend a one-day seminar on the Right to Information Act. She took the opportunity to bring new spice powders so that Amma can take them to Bangalore day after tomorrow.

News channels and websites are reporting that Col. Gaddafi is dead. Will we ever know? The news of the physical death of belligerent, violent men of action of this world has simply become an indication that they would no longer have a public life.