Doctor Not-so-Feelgood

I’m a fundamentally healthy person, except for my bad back, and that I sometimes wake up in the morning dearly regretting what I had for dinner the night before. And, since many members of my clan are doctors of one sort or the other, hospital visits and the like are things that happen to other people. For me, proper medical advice is but a phone call away (or has been until now at any rate – who knows what’ll happen when I move to Bombay?). My ailments are sorted out over the phone, or the kindly uncle/aunt/cousin drops by for a visit.

I’ve now done roughly ten years of unhealthy (and sometimes semi-cooked) food from roadside stalls, pizza outlets, and the pots and pans of assorted roommates and single friends, who think they can cook. I’ve done many nights of cheap and not-so-cheap alcohol, and far too many nights of secondhand smoke. I’ve done too many 5-meal-a-day days, and have gone hungry for 2, sometimes 3 days in a row. Exercise has been limited to walking from hostel to the classroom block/library, and the odd game of volleyball (in lawschool) and walking from my office to court and back (now).

Not a particularly healthy lifestyle, as you can see. But y’know what? However ill I may have been in all these years, there’s nothing that couldn’t be solved by the 3 As – analgesics, antacids, and antihistamines. Ergo, there was never any need for me to look up what problems my body may have been going through, or was at risk of going through.

But hang out with women on a regular basis, and it’s a whole new world of pharmacopeia. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been duly instructed on the following:

- Pap smears;

- Rhinitis – allergic and otherwise;

- Deep vein thrombosis;

- Cellulitis;

- Vitamin B-12 deficiency;

- Ectopic pregnancies (!!); and

- Assorted allergies and antibodies.

All of this with detailed verbal ‘memos’ on symptoms, cures, tests etc. Informative, I’m sure, but I’m still trying to figure out where a lot of the above fits into my (i.e. the male) health chart.

Oh well, information can’t really hurt, can it?

Also, I do not take kindly to people calling me up at odd hours and demanding from me names of morning-after pills. I don’t run a frikkin pharmacy, capisce!!!!?