Tuesdays with Chandra: Culprit intercepted

It would be a lie if I said it was yet another morning, because it was not. This has been my fourth morning in a week and I have been making these trips with an empty stomach to places with a strong stench of phenol. Trust me it is not the most scenic place or appetizing smell on earth. My intestines were already missing the “Cranberry cereal” and it made me a little grumpy and impatient to get done with the procedure.

I was not Kanimozhi going for a trial and didn't have a retinue of minister accompany me to the trial room. Having no family around made all through this journey made it easier because I had to just deal with my emotions and not theirs. It is no fun anxiously waiting outside when a loved one is going through test, trials and tribulations.

I arrived at the lab and it seemed a lot busier than the railway station, does it surprise you? With 1.2 billion people in the country, every place indoors and outdoors is crowded and Bangalore is extra cozier. Awaiting the radiologist’s call, I scanned the waist size of people around me. It was like India map, broadest in the middle. And at the head there was a lot going on like Kashmir. True patriotism, isn’t it? But I must tell one thing about this country amazes me, we are educated, we hold respectable jobs, but we don’t know how to stand in a queue. There was a mob that swarmed the cashier from all sides to pay for their tests. To me it looked like pack of hyenas bullying their prey. A National Geographic moment, but not rare!

There are a few other things that amaze me about the Indian gene. We have no guilt when it comes to littering or defecating in public places and we always look at the easiest way to get things done, even if it means paying bribe. Should we include this in our constitution?

And finally I got my call and before the radiologist let me in the room, he was curious to know if I have been fasting since last night. And he asked me for a copy of my urine test results to ensure that my urea and creatinine levels were normal and my kidneys had the gall to host and eject the spy they were planning to inject into my system.

The CT Angio room looked more or less like a recording studio with the radiologist on the other side of the glass partition starring at the monitor. His objective was to record the anatomy of my heart and scan for anomalies. He explained the procedure, belted me on to the mobile platform and connected the ECG leads to my chest. He belched a few rounds of breathing commands to ensure that I understand and followed the procedure. His voice reminded me of my NCC unit commander in school, strict and Stoic. Very soon intravenous cannula pricked my right wrist and the radio contrast was injected into my body.

While the radio contrast it was doing its round in my body, my mind was making a ticketless travel from Chennai to Bangalore. It had been ten months since I moved to Bangalore and more than 7 years since I lived away from home. When I had to make the decision to move to Bangalore, my mother was finding it difficult to accept my choice, but she cared about my health and happiness and blessed my move. Will the test results make her happy, proud and continue to smile?

The mobile platform soon moved into the annular space and I as the dye travelled through my body, there was no fear or anxiety, and I was going through without a hiss or hesitation. With no family around I realize I was experiencing the unexpected in the new city. A few more lessons were going to be added to the pages of my life today. I had no choice but to accept, and make the experience enjoyable and get through wearing a smile.

Very soon I heard the radiologist talk me over the audio system. This position I was in was very similar to Savasana and he passed on the same instructions my yoga sir would do. With lungs filled with fresh air, dye going around the body, my heart and anatomy around it was pictured. And after every shoot the lungs were let deflate, relax and rest. A warm sensation traveled through my body, but I was not sure if it was from the impinging x-rays or traversing dye or psychological or physiological reaction. I knew the doctors were far from giving up and were in full throttle to carry out exploration mission to nab, nail and noose the eluding culprit hiding my heart.

A few more rounds of inhalation and exhalation and it were all over. Finally the Radiologist walked out of the glass enclosure and walked towards the machine to set me free from action pit. He quickly took my doctor friend into the room and while they scanned through the images on the screen, while I slipped back into my shirt. Except for the cannula prick, the procedure was painless and but will the results be painful?

As I walked out of the CT room, the radiologist exited from the other door. And before I could ask him for the results, he greeted me with his beaming smile and shook hands with me. I couldn’t understand the meaning behind the beaming smile and the handshake. I received his smile and handshake like an award and returned with courtesies without any less respect. He said something that I couldn't hear or understand and towards the end he  threw me a freebie: offered to do an MRI of my heart. My anomaly was celebrated and rewarded! Should I term their celebration as “dutiful and diligent or simply insolent and sickening?

I was not moved by his generosity and at the same time I was not hit by the gravity of the situation. What kept the cardiologists guessing for 10 days was finally solved. As we walked to the MRI room I converesed with my doctor friend on the diagnosis. Was it an arterial septal defect (ASD), or issues with the tricuspid or pulmonary valve or partial anomalous venous return? My throat had gone completely dry by then, but hearing was sharp and I was prepared to hear the bad news. My friend promised to walk me through the results once we get out of the MRI lab.

After a long wait I was invited into the chamber. If the CT Angio lab looked like a recording theatre, this one looked like an execution chamber. I had to again lie down on a moving platform, the process was almost similar except that I was made to go through a claustrophobic cylindrical opening that was more than 6 feet long.

When I first entered the scan cylinder, my heart and lung almost stopped from lack of space and a sense of fear engulfed me for the first time in 10 days. A wollen blanket covered my feet and cold air was blowing over my face. There was just 6 inch space between my nose and the inside of the cylinder. Even if I lifted I could not see my toes or the open space behind my head. I had a headset with a microphone to exchange conversations with the radiologist seated in the glass room. While everyone could see me, I could only see the sheet of fiber 6 inches away of my nose. Starring at the piece of fiber for even a few seconds gave me a headache and I had no option but to close my eyes and inflate, hold and deflated my lungs.

It took 5 minutes for me to get adjusted to the ambience inside and I was hoping the procedure be as brief as CT Angio. I had to divert my mind that was ready to abort the mission and jump out. I felt worse than an airport baggage going through numerous scans. I temporarily fantasized I had escaped earth’s gravity and was floating in the outer space in a NASA aircraft to escape the feeling of claustrophobia. My NASA hallucination soon crashed with my pulse dropping and now the radiologist from the adjacent room reached my ear drums, “sir, breath-in, hold but the exhale command came only after an minute. My like patience my lung capacity to hold air was enormous.

Was the pulse drop due to lack of oxygen, or claustrophobic atmosphere or extended starving? I was not interested in finding answers, but just wanted to break open the machine and walk out like a new born chicken.

After 90 excruciating minutes, I started beating my legs to show my like to get out and pleaded with the radiologist to let me out. I have never done such a thing since my childhood, and to the radilogist i must have looked like a toddler throwing a tantrum. When I came out of the chamber I realized what it is to be trapped in a mine or what is to be born again, but immediately let my lungs swallow all the oxygen in the room. The radiologist applauded my lung power and explained why I was kept longer. I was in no mood to listen to him and I felt like throwing the oversized radiologist into the machine and give him a taste of his extended scanning and his oversized waist.

For the first time I imagined the pangs of staying in my mother womb. I was reminded of Garbha Upanishad.There is so much of love on the outside, yet the chamber inside is filled with fluid, devoid of oxygen and light. If I can stay there for 10 whole months, why is this 90 minutes so treacherous? Not the diagnosis, but just this experience compelled me not to desire another birth cycle.

The search operation was not in the caves of Tora Bora, but in the right chambers of my heart and the culprit was intercepted and caught on camera. But you need to come back next Tuesday to know more on the diagnosis and next steps.