Tuesdays with Chandra: Revelation 04:04:2011

I woke up early on April4 (Ugadi – New Year) like any other day and I had traded my yoga class for a master health check-up at a nearby laboratory, but not my yoga attire. I was not anxious or afraid and my attire truly represented my attitude: shorts, tee and sandals; cool, calm and casual. I had been fasting since 7 pm the earlier night and at 7.30 am the laboratory was brimming with older people, who had come in empty stomach to give blood samples. I know it is dangerous to be around elderly who’ve not had their morning coffee, and hence I stayed away from picking up conversations with any of them :-).

There is crowd everywhere in India be it railway stations, malls, temples, cinema halls, hill stations, and sadly even in hospitals and jails. The last two categories represented the unhealthy population: physically and mentally who are temporarily locked till they get cured. Sadly even those get visitors :-)! Whether these people feel like criminals or not, while the world looks at that with both sympathy and scare. But I must appreciate that people followed the queue and there was method to madness in Madras. I paid the money for the tests and then moved on the floor above. And there I showed my receipt to the man behind the registration counter. Everything about him was fresh and large: smile, clothes, hair and even the viboothi on his forehead. Looking at this man I was reminded of Lord Ganesha, this man even had a mouse, but just the garland was missing. Aha, wait to see who gets diagnosed with "super-sized" body parts.

He handed over a printed sheet with the list of tests for the package I had subscribed for and the tests were arranged by the hour and room numbers written next to them. Now I had no reason to ask or talk and just walk to the right rooms and give samples, get tested and scanned. The rooms in the laboratory followed an assembly line arrangement and everything was process driven, I just hoped the results were of Six Sigma quality standard.

I know it was Monday morning and 7.30 – 9.00 AM was Rahu kalam, and all I could do was leave home at 7.20 AM. At 8.10am the hungry hypodermic needle punctured my subcutaneous tissue and sucked blood from my vein. After the first sample of blood was drawn I went into the pantry to have glass of glucose (75 gms of glucose dissolved in less than 100 ml of water) and I used the paper napkin in front of me to calculate the normality of the drink.

While I was waiting outside the room to get my abdominal scan (liver, kidney, gall bladder, etc.) the technician asked me to drink a few more glasses of water (inflate my abdominal assets?). While I was waiting for my turn, an elderly gentleman on his mobile was sharing a moment of pride and achievement with his friend. He has forced his son and daughter-in-law visiting from overseas for a master health check-up. Soon I got invited for my stripping and scanning session and I had to miss on the other details he shared with his friend.

The cold gel at the end of the probe gave me goose bumps as the technician went up and down, right and left. He asked me to fill my lungs with air and at times asked me to hold my breath as he scanned my abdomen. And as he scanned my appendix he asked me if I felt any pain and asked me if I carried any appendix to my health, family, lifestyle and eating habits. Finally there was a big smile on his face, probably from a big catch? Before he diagnosed he asked me if I consumed alcohol, I was ready to draw the chemical structure of an alcohol molecule with the bonds and swear that I know nothing about its taste, color, viscosity, and other chemical properties. My answer didn’t deter him from changing his diagnosis! Miranda in Sex and the City around the same age gets diagnosed with “Lazy ovary” and here I am at 35 diagnosed with “Fatty liver”. So 30’s reveals all that is large and lazy, huh?

As I dressed up the technician asked me if I had an “Echo” in my package and if I had scheduled for an appointment. I was not aware and showed him the sheet of paper, but then he asked me to get an echo immediately. His tone sounded ominous. I went to the Ganesha man at the registration counter and asked him if I can include “Echo” in my package. He said my name was already in the list but I had not paid for it. But he was kind enough to let me into the echo room and pay later.

For man whose stayed healthy and lived healthy all through, terms like “Fatty Liver” and getting recommended for an “Echo” didn’t mean a thing. I didn’t know if I should feel proud or let my eyebrows sag in worry. Without much wait I made it into the Echo room. The technician was tall, thin and looked like a kid right out of high school. I stripped and lay down on the table, the monitor was ready showing images from the last scan, the technician put for circular adhesive strips (size of a carom coin) in my left chest and leads were connected. He passed the same instructions: breath-in, breath-out and hold as he moved up and down, left and right to my diaphragm. Having missed my yoga class in the morning this almost was like a pranayama routine. During the echo he asked me about my last check-up and where it was done. Why should questions be one-way? I had to ask and I asked him how long he has been an echo technician and said his looks deceived his experience. And finally what he said suddenly shortened by prana and almost became a “yama” to my prana!

I could see him record a few findings, without any interpretation in the green register and he ended the sheet with a two big question marks (??). I asked him to explain his prognosis, while he was adamant that I meet a cardiologist and recommended for a TransEsophagealEcho (TEE). I peeped into the register the findings he had recorded and I came out of the room and I texted two of my close doctor friends: a pediatric cardiologist and another pediatric intensivist. What does that mean? Am I in for more surprises? In the meantime I received a call from my mother to check if everything was going fine. She said he had just sent the watchman to the Ganesha temple nearby to break a coconut. My Mother's way of bribing Ganesha!

While I waited for my doctor friends to respond or call, I finished giving my second and third blood samples and even got through the X-ray. The last hoop for this healthy dog was a physical exam with a physician. He went through the readily available questionnaire to record my replies, while I interrupted him to explain me the findings from the abdominal scan and Echo. He said he needed to see the results, but placed the Stet scope on my chest and asked me to perform the pranayama routine again. I felt the phone in my pocket vibrate, but I was absorbed in the physician’s examination and didn’t repond. From what his Stet scope could pick-up, he ruled out “murmur” in the heart. I came out of the room with a little smile and a puzzle to solve, and returned my doctor friend’s call.

What was recorded in the Echo? What did my friends, the Pediatric Cardiologist and Pediatric Intensivist  say?  Come back for more surprises and till next Tuesday stay healthy and eat healthy!