I am sick of being sick

As the wheels of my life rotate, they pretty regularly, for some karmic reason (I suspect) end up getting stuck at “falling ill”. And when I fall ill, it is not usually the standard flu, cough, food poisoning brand of sickness…no that IS NOT what my sickness is about. Well I get sick with perplexing and outlandish diseases of the following ilk:
- Its not a UTI. It has all the symptoms of a UTI. Its not IC (go google it!). It has all the symptoms of IC. The gynecologist, the urologist, everyone is baffled by what it is. Its making my life hell ‘cos I want to pee like “ALL” the time. Then after a year of it raising its queer head, me having popped a gazillion pills and basically having lost all hope in the magic of medical science (isn’t it a cute oxymoron!), it disappears as mysteriously as it had appeared.
- Its not flu, because I am not running any temperature. Its not thyroid, because the tests negate it. It’s the middle of April, and I am having shivering fits! My general physician (who CC thinks, should now start giving me reward points or entitle me to some such scheme considering how often I make a trip to him) gives me a tired smile and tells me to go home as nothing seems to be wrong with me. Then, as is the case with most of my diseases, this one also disappears after 2 months.
- Its not arthritis (even though I have gone ahead and sobbed the story of me having arthritis at such a 'tender' age to anyone who would care to listen!!). But this one most definitely has all the symptoms of it. All my small joints keep hurting and blah blah blah. But this is the seventh month of the mystery and sadly it has not disappeared till now.
- The current cause of my woes is this peculiar headache that I am getting. This is not a disprin-headache, but it is something that makes my head go dizzy, and it is (strangely at times) accompanied by temperature.

So this time my resolve weakened and I came running to Mommy Dearest. Yes I am back home!!
Being sick at home and being sick in Bombay are two totally different experiences. In Bombay, if you fall ill, you are holed up in one corner of your flat feeling sickly and lonely. By the time you battle traffic and reach the hospital, after a crazy 20 minute rickshaw ride, you think it is not possible for you to feel any sicker. But…BUT, nothing on this planet can make you feel sicker than that one moment , when you gingerly look at the amount left in your bank account after paying the doctor’s consultation fee and the bills for the umpteen tests that you are made to take…they take your blood, they take your p@#$$, they take your s!@#$ AND they take your money…they take away everything that you have ever called your own (ok..I will stop the melodrama, but then I am sick right now, so these spurts are discounted.right? right.)
Then the repulsive oil-dripping food your maid will cook, will make you want to puke and the thought of ordering from outside (because of health and financial aspects involved) will make you want to puke some more.
Then you will slowly and steadily become delirious, the lack of money, lack of food, lack of company will make you hallucinate and (mostly when you are alone at home..which you usually are, because everyone else is at work) you will hear sounds of water dripping from the tap in the bathroom and you will “feel” that someone is brushing their teeth in there (don’t laugh..I totally freaked yesterday..and YES it did happen to me). And then all you want to do is run..run as fast as possible and reach the safe havens of your own home, filled with the smells of home-cooked food and inane chattering of your mother.
And what a relief it is! The path-lab guy actually came home to take my blood sample! The doctor was an acquaintance and took time to be nice to me (unlike the Bombay lot of doctors- frigid asses! Except my GP, who is always ready with a smile!) and cracked jokes. I am getting cut-washed-seed-removed-fruits to eat. I don’t have to get up to heat my milk or even get a glass of water, I don’t hear any weird sounds except my mom generally talking away to no-one in particular (don’t be alarmed..that is usual for her)…. I actually cant think of one good reason to go back to manic Bombay and fall sick all over again!