La Bilirubina

Around four or five weeks ago, this scribe made the mistake of appealing to the divine for a virus. No simple virus did I crave for. Malaise was I suffering from, and I wanted more, since masochism by mischance, happened to be the word of the moment. I sent an sms declaring that I would be honoured to get Ebola or Marburg viruses, and to bleed restlessly to death, internally.

Somewhere high above or wherever it is that such world changing decisions are made, someone made a clerical mistake. Deliberate or not, I shall never find out, and I started having chills in the morning, at the workplace, on Maundy Thursday. I was half crazed wondering how in the world, can a bottle of beer cause such a bad hangover. It felt like my body was made of glass, and someone was trying to hammer it down to smithereens. Off I went to the wellness room, and slept off, still half dazed for the next 5 hours, which seemed like forever.

The air conditioning did it. I could stand it no more. I was vibrating more than an out of control dildo. Somehow I managed to get outside the office and sit at the ledge near the bus stop, a hot cup of tea in hand, and watching BEST buses swarm past, manoeuvring past gargantuan pot holes flanked by MMRDA’s – Please bear with us for a better tomorrow, poster boards. The mercury was rising, both outside and inside. It must have been around 40 degrees centigrade outside. I didn’t even break a sweat. Heck, I was shivering. Again de Sade’s masochism played spoilsport, and I decided to hang in there till 1820 hours, when the first instalment of the shuttles to Thane would be launched.

After the usual, one hour plus bumpy ride, I reached my destination and headed straight for the doc in a housing colony somewhat near to my pad. She thought that I had typical malaria symptoms, and I was to take a lot of fluids, and take rest and chloroquin or whatever its name was. Good Friday saw Tango and Darth invade Mumbai. Darth had come from Pune to get a new rig from Lamington street, and Tango had dropped by from Bengaluru(I don’t know if the spelling’s right. I feel that the name itself is wrong.) to see Mumbai and me. Little did they expect to see the wreck that I was then.

Another great friend of mine, Abhi, who is incidentally a med student, was on his way on board the Netravathi express, when I called up and said, boss – Mumbai darshan would be hard ‘cos I felt like I was plastered by an Express Train smack in the middle. The resourceful dude jumped trains at Goa and made it to Mangalore through methods I’d rather not delve into. And made it back to Trivandrum in one piece. He is one very unique person.

Easter. The anti malarial course was over. No fever. Accompanied Darth and his BFR(Big F-ing Rig) to Teen Naka or somewhere near that and packed them off into a Shivneri Volvo getting ready to thrash the Mumbai Pune express highway. Back to 601 B, and I was down and out. Tango woke up and surveyed me with apprehension and concern. By the way, Tango started morphing into a teddy bear, from that moment.

He lugged me to a near by hospital in the Hiranandani Estate, and there were no docs there since it was a Sunday..! So they decided to play Dracula and take my blood, so that when I came on Monday, the doc in question would have some info about the enemy at hand. Evening, poor Tango made a solitary trip to Santa Cruz, and had a hell of a week after that. God bless his soul, which is not departed yet. I was lying in cold sweat, generated by the combined efforts of Mahavitaran’s 5 hour long power cut, the soaring temperatures outside, and the fever within, when the call came. It was from that demmed hospital asking me to go back there to give another sample since the first one had clotted. I almost felt like running away to Trivandrum. My health, however, had deteriorated to despicably low levels. There were no seats available on any flight to Trivandrum that night.

The sun rose on Monday, and my roomie Machaan failed to rise with it since he had arrived past midnight on Sunday, from Pune. The chap uses the suburban rail to get to Kurla and from there he has to travel to the BCK(Bandra Kurla Complex) where his client, the National Stock Exchange resides. It was rush hour, and he decided not to go to the office. Fate.

By noon, he could see that I was getting deflated and we decided that its best that I be packed off ASAP. He booked a ticket for me, and he saw me off at Santa Cruz. The train ride to Kurla was the high point of the day. I was seeing everything skewed and kaleidoscopically. The people are normally colourful there. But that day, everything seemed to have been obscenely painted by some mad artist.

Codename GP, came to pick me up from the airport. I was on my last keg of energy, and had the flight been late, ‘picking up’ would have assumed a far more literal meaning. Reached home. Home seemed as alien as the last time I came here. I knew the rooms, and the basic structure. I crashed, having not the energy to ruminate over cruddy things.

Subin. That’s the name of one heck of a guy. I am so indebted to him that I wouldn’t be able to repay him in this world. Brothers in blood. He happened to be around, and he took me to a hospital near by. I went to a random doctor, who albeit being unbearably taciturn, was seated in room number 13. Coming to think of it, I have been telling a lot of people with my association with that mystic number. For the last N movies which I’ve watched, mostly at PVR,Mulund, my seat number would be 13. I guess that happened consistently because they strive to keep people in the middle seats, and I have a penchant for watching movies alone. I am digressing. Let’s get back to the central core of the rant in progress.

Plugged into a ‘drip’ for the first time in my life, they pumped artesunate and saline into the blood stream, taking the assumption that my malady was drug resistant malaria. But no, said the loco taciturn doctor(maybe I will refer to him as Tactor, or Tr. in short)said that I had jaundice, and he had diagnosed it as hep A. I hated those 6 days in the hospital. Being wired up felt bad enough. Being stuck with a doctor who was from the CIA was even worse. He gave out information on a need to know basis.

When I reached home, my med friend Abhi loaned me his laptop and his GPRS enabled phone using which I am blogging this right now. My old computer had conked in a crematory fashion last December, white smoke and bright sparks spewing from its innards. Many of my friends dropped by to see me, and that was the only solace during the house arrest. Three weeks later, the serum bilirubin levels are steadily, maybe even exponentially climbing, and I am starting to wonder if I will start seeing things as yellow, one of these days. Maybe. Went for a second opinion and underwent some more tests in the morning. Hoping to know something concrete tomorrow. And I hope to God that there is a cure for whatever it is. Argh, I am tired of typing. Adios