Tuesdays with Chandra: A treasure chest of secrets

Not everybody born on this earth is worthy enough to carry secrets. Is it because they can’t be trusted with secrets? I am not sure! Even some of those who carry the secrets are often unaware till the end. Is it because the secrets they carry are not worthy enough? What about those who get to secrets they carry? Does it mean the secrets are worthy or the agents carrying them are worthy? To find out secrets in my treasured chest and it’s worth you needn’t travel to a land beyond mountains and oceans as described in fairy tales, but just come along with me on these hospital trips. You don't need to be sterile or anesthesized.

I never knew my body was a treasure chest concealing secrets for 35 years. A secret that was elusive to the stethoscope of pediatricians, to the mathematical calculations of astrologers, concealed from my creators (parents) and even today it is still elusive to the cardiologists. Is it really a treasure chest, a ticking time-bomb or both?

I showed up the next morning and this time it was for a TransEsophagealEcho.

The ratio of anxiousness to my usual happy self seemed insignificant. The computer was booted and the doctor ordered the technician to get the meter long probe.

While rest of them in the room respectfully awaited the arrival of the probe, I was asked to slowly swallow a bottle of highly viscous liquid (oral local anesthetic), Lidocaine. The wait for the probe felt like a wait for the noose to adorn my neck, it coming soon for the next few minutes. I knew this was not going to go down my throat so easily and I was not PC Sorcar’s to let the sword down without any struggle.

The oral anesthetic liquid was heavy, odorless, transparent, funny tasting (slightly sweet) and gooey liquid that seemed to defy gravity. I needed extra energy to push the topical anesthetic down my throat. My throat felt funny, heavy and I almost felt like I had an internal goiter. For a second I imagined how Lord Shiva must have felt when he gulped the poison that emerged during the churning of the ocean. That was Neelkant, but what would this be?

I needed no Parvati to keep Lidocaine from going down my throat. The viscosity of Lidocaine was Parvati enough to resist the flow down my gullet and stayed suspended in my throat. Am I Lidokant? And when it lost to gravity my lips, tongue and esophagus turned lazy and sloppy, while my stomach turned heavy and slimy. To give a break to the serious mood in the room, I borrowed a pen from the doctor and scribbled in my palm. “If you had mentioned the thickness of the probe, I could have practiced with a stick of the same size”. The doctor was flummoxed with the secrets in my heart and this unexpected comment only made him chuckle in disgust.

Needles have punctured my epidermis and hungry syringes have intoxicated themselves by lodging into my veins, but never a foreign object gone down my esophageal to picture my internal organs. The Senior doctor took a minute to explain the procedure and finally the meter long probe arrived and skewed the ratio of anxiousness to happiness from insignificant to highly significant. The procedure sounded like a periscope being lowered down my throat while the sonar waves were picturing my heart, veins, valves, etc. The organs didn’t need a screen test, make-up to cover up deficiencies or dialogues to be prompted when the lights and camera were turned on. And when the technician arrived with a long black probe, he almost looked like Yama with the lasso.

I was made to lay down on my left side and the doctor shoved a spacer in my mouth to keep my jaw open and prevent my teeth from clenching the probe during the procedure. I was a little nervous and between the winks of an eye the doctor shoved the probe down my throat. Lidocaine worked, but couldn’t prevent the reflux reaction as the probe lowered down my esophagus. I helplessly watched the monitor in front of me, while the doctors around me were calling out the morphology of my internal organs and as time elapsed they started asking for different views. They were on their journey of discovery.

Everytime they asked for a different view, the probe was turned around I felt a screw driver move in my esophagus. The probe was not hairy, but the motion and movement was similar to cleaning a bottle with a hairy brush. They scanned the walls of the hearts, valves in the heart, crazy veins that routinely couriered blood from my lungs to heart and those wide ones (like outer ring road) that ran from the upper and lower part of the body to the heart directly. Not sure if my heart felt shy and naked, from all the viewing, but it simply refrained from sharing the secrets.

After 15 minutes the effect of Lidocaine started to die down and if they needed to continue their exploration journey I would have needed more anesthetic. With no conclusive evidence the team of doctors finally called off the search operation. The probe was finally pulled out and my esophagus collapsed back to its original size, but my heart resisted to altering its dimension.

Here is the procedure for your viewing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Us9mXXILSk&NR=1

Not sure if the sign of relief from my heart caught on to the doctors, but I found no feeling of disappointment from failing to unlock and unravel the secret in the treasure chest. I realized that day that our bodies are as much secretive as sacred and you need the right keys to unlock the chambers of the heart.

So did the doctors lack search skills or did conclude my heart to be “tight lipped” and give up on search operation? Will they take up the challenge and find new ways to unlock the chambers of my heart? Come back next Tuesday.

Try to include oats, tomato, apple, avocado in your diet. These lower your LDL cholesterol and keep your artery from clogging.