It has been said that I oft glamourise being sick. I’d hate to think that I actually take something as mundane and painful as an illness and make fun of it. I believe these things (diseases) should be taken, nay, MUST be taken seriously! Why, you never know what life’s got in store for you. I think of falling sick as ‘beeping’ death. Every so often, death looks at his or her receiver and finds a missed call, thinks, shit and proceeds to try and return your call.

However, death is a cheap bitch and as such, death too will beep you, so you will fall sick, land in a coma or develop some terminal illness. Death will also forward you some junk sms from time to time so you get freaked out, but you can hit the delete option on that things and it will go away. However, if death has it in for you, he will say, ‘screw the phone call, I was on my way anyway’ and pay you a visit.

My back issues have been documented elsewhere. Some spinal spondylosis shite that a doctor diagnosed me with. Which promptly landed me on some hard hospital bed for physiotherapy dealt by some Chinese machine that attempted to distance itself from its local acupuncture brethren by shooting little jolts of electricity into my body. I figure this is not too different from what a phone feels like when you charge it.

So anyway, I sought a second opinion and, wonder of wonders, it was the wrong diagnosis after all. See, it turns out that I am too young to have that stuff, but what I do have is a curved spine where is should be straight and its straight where it should be curved. It makes sense when I use gestures to explain, look for me.

Over the weekend I found myself in a hospital complaining of a pain in my chest and right hand and some region in my back. The doctor, a good natured fellow recommended a routine of exercises, a massage and, depending on the masseuse mood, a shag. Without getting into details, I felt better temporarily, so I sought a second opinion on Monday (no, not regarding the shag. I know a good pick-up line when I see one. “hi there, doctor’s orders) and had an X-Ray taken.

It was a little different from the last time in that I didn’t have to lie down on a metallic slab. I just had to remove my shirt and stand there as the slab hugged my chest. Twice.

As I dressed up I asked the X-ray taker ( I suspect they don’t really have a technical title just yet) whether I had anything to worry about and he looked at me, bored expression on his face and said, “I don’t know yet.” then proceeded to saunter off in his cheap Umoja sandles.

My results would take a while to process so I found a place to rest till I could come and collect.

An hour or two later, I had a massive envelop in my hands with the words, ‘with compliments of”. That had to be a good sign, right. Who delivers bad news with ‘compliments’? That would be some pretty ****ed up stuff, wouldn’t it. I’m afraid you are about to die.CONGRATULATIONS!

I’m a curious person so I figured I’d read the report before I got to my doctor’s office and see whether I could make sense of it.

I couldn’t. So I turned to my all-knowing friend, Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is something of a show off and he went on and on using big words and terms and expressions. There is another trait wikipedia has; its an alarmist.

By the time I was done reading up on my condition I was properly freaked out! Death was dialling my lifeline and there was nothing I could do about it!

I tried to be calm about it. Entered the clinic and asked the lady at the reception whether I could use the loo before seeing the doctor. Having got directions, I left my X-ray with her, coz, you know, it would be weird to go pee with an envelope. I am not ambidextrous that way.

When I got back she asked a couple of patients to let me see the doctor first, setting off warning bells in my head. Had she had a look at the results and figured I needed to get the news ASAP?

It took a while before I got to see the doctor. By my estimate, 30 days, by life’s estimate, 5 minutes. During this time, I dozed a bit and kept waking up thinking, “not yet! I will not succumb just yet!”

The patient that was holding me up left and I walked in, figuring, if I looked calm, whatever this stuff was, it would go away. I handed the doctor the X-Ray and waited.

He pulled it out of the envelope, gave it an expressionless glance and then his phone rang. He looked at the display for a while and decided he would not answer.

At this point I’m thinking, “shit! Is it so bad, he doesn’t even want to be interrupted by a call?”

So he looks it over some more and then tells me that I am taking in too much air.

I was still in full on panic mode so I asked, “is that necessarily a bad thing?” Oh crap, I’m going to have to attend meetings and shit. Hi, I’m Ivan and I have an air addiction!

He looked at me, unfazed, (what’s this Bored-Doctor-Monday?) and said, “it’s not a good thing.”

Next question,”Is it life threatening?”

“No. It isn’t. You have an allergy to something in the air.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Stop breathing” and then a suppressed LOL.

He continued looking at me like he was reading a Philippine Phonebook.

He told me, “you can never know these things.” and proceeded to prescribe some drugs and a helmet.

What he didn’t point out that one of the drugs was to be administered by way of a syringe.

The moment that was handed over, I thought, “Oh crap, they are going to stick that thing in my lungs.or my knee”

I think I should cut down on my intake of medical dramas.or Pulp Fiction.

Anyway, so it was one of your standard, butt-injections, which curiously didn’t hurt.

I’m going to live! If that was a call from death, God delivered a message, loud and clear, “the subscriber is not available at the moment, please try again later”

.but I think Malaria managed to get its message delivered.