A stitch in time saves nine. We always hear that said and we
do have but a slight idea how the saying works if it was to happen to us. I think what it really means is that procrastination
does nobody any good. Get off your behind flesh and get things done. A kind of
don’t-wait-for-tomorrow deal. It’s costly.
A few weeks ago, I happened to wake up with a rare pain at
the back of my throat. It is an extremely disconcerting experience and you wouldn’t
want to be in my shoes. Being the African that I am, I relaxed. It would go. I would
rest it out, I said to myself. A day later, it was getting worse.
I had had an encounter with a tonsillitis patient before, so
it wasn’t an entirely alien ordeal. On consulting with google, I decided to
assume a bachelor’s degree in medicine. I would be my own doctor. So I got two teaspoonful
of salt and mixed with water and then gurgled away. It looks stupid, this
gurgling thing. You see an adult making those weird baby noises and water splashing
out of the mouth, I tell you it’s not easy.
Flash-forward, its three days later and I have not budged,
the pain is getting more intense and this time I cannot eat. The day a savvy
meal tastes like a punishment is the day you realize that heaven is not in the
solar system. I was beginning to think of lunch with much apprehension. Then
sleep became a problem too. One thing about tonsillitis is that liquids somehow
hurt more than solids, so it is hard enough to swallow even one’s own saliva. I
would keep storing the enzyme in the mouth for about ten minutes till I had
enough, then I would swallow, or spit depending on my location. Swallowing is
funny too, you crane your neck, like a flamingo, then tilt your head at an
acute angle to ease the pain and then push whatever the burden is down the esophagus…
Thursday night was hell on earth. My throat was in so much
pain. I could neither swallow nor breathe without making a fist. It’s annoying
too. You see when you have a facial pimple, you can scratch it or squeeze it
and feel better. This, you cannot squeeze. Any attempts to push your hand any
closer to the throat and you are singing the national anthem. So I had this
huge and excruciatingly painful lump in my throat that I could do nothing
about, except gurgle salt water and skip meals.
I woke up, dark rings around my eyes, obviously because I had
not been making much love to my bed lately. I am haggard, ghostly pale and only
but a shadow of the man from the south west. It’s amazing how much weight one
can lose with a week of starvation. That morning I cried. Like a baby. I don’t mean
this manly red-eyed crying. I mean the painful whimpering of a scalded puppy,
free flowing tears and all. Jesus. That’s when I made the resolution. I was
going to see the doctor. No point in becoming a saint at 22.
See the doctor I did. So I explained my pain. You would
think I was a pregnant woman.
“Doctor the pain is too much. I can’t swallow, I can’t eat. I am a dead man.”
He got the flashlight and commanded me to open my mouth
wide. (I brush quite frequently, so normally I have no difficulties with such
checks). You should have seen the look on his face.
“When did you get this?” He asked.
“Last Saturday,” said I.
“And what have you been doing all along? You are in trouble young
man. If you had seen me last Saturday, antibiotics would have been enough. Now it
is an open wound!”
I almost screamed.
I still had a burning question. But I needed the courage to
ask.
“Doctor, is this disease infectious?” I asked.
“Well if you mean whether it spreads from one person to
another, then yes. If your saliva gets into contact, the other party will
definitely contract it…
Where the hell did I get the malady?
He did what doctors do, you know. Scribbled quite illegible
statements on my examination card and gave me to take to the treatment room. Naturally
I assumed I was going to be given a hoard of tablets and let loose. I was wrong
because as soon as the lady arrived, a mean looking Acholi woman, she told me
to ‘go behind’ and ‘prepare myself’. Now you know what that means. I hadn’t had
a single injection in about a decade and a half. I panicked. I sweated. I contemplated
Scofield moves. I almost fainted.
The worst bit about an injection is not when that needle tears
through your flesh, it’s the sixty seconds or so that you spend lying on the
bed, a cold breeze blowing your bare buttocks, pants down, waiting for the
guillotine. I had quite lost my touch with injections. All I remembered were
the basics. Do not try to harden or ‘tie’ your buttocks, lest the needle gets
broken from inside and that would be a different tale for sore ears. The night
mare was quite not done. I was instructed to pull up my sleeves and prepare for
an intravenous injection. You know like those in American movies with junkies
pushing God-Knows-what up their veins. She did this thing with the syringe and two
drops formed at the needle tip, reminding me of the impending doom and then she
pushed the needle up my vein. It’s not as painful.
A bad day is a bad day. I watched as shade of red poured
into the syringe and I could tell from the look on her face that things were
going south. More complications. How convenient.
“Do you feel any pain?” She asked. Of course I was feeling pain,
even men do. She withdrew the syringe and scavenged my upper arm for a veins
until she found a spot and pushed again. Lord.
You know what the Swahili say, ‘hakuna msiba usio na mwenzao’. Problems usually travel in packs. My
eyes almost fell out looking at the bill. My entire month’s savings all gone in
a trice, because I was a couple of days too late…
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