medical tourism!

I was on a vacation...a looong vacation...a long unexpected unplanned vacation.

First it was my birthday and I and my friends went to ooty. I thought that was the end of my vacation and I started making plans for my next mumbai trip. But no, that wasn't how it was gonna happen. I started seeing this black cloudy shape right in the centre of field of vision of my right eye. Scary right? I ignored it for a couple of days thinking it'll go away just how it came. But when it stayed for 3 days, I went to see a doc.

That was the start of my extended vacation. The docs here ran tests after tests after tests including an MRI. At the end of a lot of money and two complete days of waiting for the doc and doing all the tests, I was sent home with "come on thursday or take a second opinion if you like". Not very re-assuring, I must say.

So, I did what every home sick puppy does. I took this as the cue and flew to mumbai and saw a doc at lilavati. Long story short, I was in the hospital for five days and outside for some more which totalled to 2 weeks in mumbai. I can't remember the last time I was there for this long. It felt nice.

Also, I learnt something. I may be a little claustrophobic. I thought I was going to suffocate and die inside the MRI machine. I haven't been this scared for as long as I can remember. I thought they would never take me out and my heart was beating so hard, I swear I could feel it move.



Moving to life outside the MRI machine, what is the one thing that you have to have to have in case you are stuck inside a hospital. Let's see, you have tons of time on your hands, you are mostly immobile because of your IV line and you can watch only so many re-runs. Ofcourse, you need a good book. A good book can make hospital time seem worthwhile. And I was lucky that way. I had this book in mind that I wanted to read for a long time but I was waiting to finish my other books.

In the hospital, after a lot of grovelling and begging, I finally made abs bring "The Emperor of all Maladies" for me. And it quickly became one of the best books I've ever read. There's a lot of biology, history and genetics and there is hell of a lot of information but the close to 500 pages kept me glued. As you read, cancer becomes a character, like someone you wouldn't want to know.

Till I finished the book, I was only thinking about cancer. I still do. But it was really bad when I was reading it. Three days in a row I dreamt about cancer wards or that I had leukemia or I was getting chemotherapy. That's how riveting the book is. When I was not reading the book, I was thinking about the book. I was a tad disappointed because I believed that we had made a lot of headway in our cure for this "distorted version of our normal selves". Turns out, not so much. There is only so much science can do when your own body turns against you.

And on the last note: The time I was in the hospital and was reading the cancer book, I really felt I should have studied to become a doctor. Like, seriously. It's a good thing I can't get stuck in some other places such as the parliament or a plane or a spaceship or another planet! Ha! That would be fun.