A Case Of Bronchitis
Sunday, December 16, 2007
A Case Of Bronchitis
"So lately, I've been having these coughing fits. They have been driving me crazy, and I can't breathe properly, please help." That is what I said to the doctor the moment I sat down in his chair with the black cushion under my ass. The reason why I was having that attitude was because two of the three clinics in my neighborhood were closed when I visited them this afternoon, and the pouring rain was not helping with the fact that I had to make my way to the furtherest possible clinic from my house on foot. It was probably the most ironic sight, with the fluorescent tubes at the back of the sign turned on, but not a living soul in the clinic at all. On the sign it read "Shenton Family Clinic", and next to it another set of words that said "Opens until 11pm". The last time I checked my watch, it was about six hours till eleven in the evening, which meant that the place should have been opened when I arrived. I cursed under my breath, and then I thought about half the population of Serangoon dying from various diseases because the clinics in the neighborhood aren't operating as they should be. I missed the curb while crossing the road and stepped right into the middle of a puddle. I cursed some more, and moved on.
"So lately, I've been having these coughing fits. They have been driving me crazy, and I can't breathe properly, please help." That is what I said to the doctor the moment I sat down in his chair with the black cushion under my ass. The reason why I was having that attitude was because two of the three clinics in my neighborhood were closed when I visited them this afternoon, and the pouring rain was not helping with the fact that I had to make my way to the furtherest possible clinic from my house on foot. It was probably the most ironic sight, with the fluorescent tubes at the back of the sign turned on, but not a living soul in the clinic at all. On the sign it read "Shenton Family Clinic", and next to it another set of words that said "Opens until 11pm". The last time I checked my watch, it was about six hours till eleven in the evening, which meant that the place should have been opened when I arrived. I cursed under my breath, and then I thought about half the population of Serangoon dying from various diseases because the clinics in the neighborhood aren't operating as they should be. I missed the curb while crossing the road and stepped right into the middle of a puddle. I cursed some more, and moved on.
Here's the thing, I've been having these coughing fits ever since a few weeks ago. It started the day when Kevin was here, and I felt a lump of whatever-it-was in my throat, and it felt like a fur ball - though I have not a clue what a fur ball should feel or taste like in a throat. Then it started to become really nasty over the week, and there was one morning when I completely lost my voice. I blamed it on the pack of Strepsils I ate the day before, which was probably why my voice sounded like a rusty nail being forced into a rusty hole while a deer mates in the background with a moose. My mother called home that morning, I remember, and she thought she dialed the wrong number. That was how bad my voice sounded on the phone, if the word 'voice' still describes what came out from my mouth. I could hardly recognize even myself, and the coughing fits have been happening ever since.
It happened one more when my parents weren't at home, probably some time in the middle of the study week. I woke up that morning, gasping for air as if somebody filled the house with water, and I was drowning in it. Try to imagine yourself being drugged, and a bunch of people dressed in black carries you to the nearest river and dumps your body into it. You wake up all of a sudden, surrounded by the darkness of the raging river and breathing in nothing but water that is choking the life out of you. That was how my dreams were rudely interrupted that morning, it felt like a sudden punch to the guts and I was thrown back to reality with the coughing that wouldn't stop. I dashed to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, and managed to run my head into the door while I was trying to open it. I burst through the doors, still gasping for air. With every cough, more air escaped my lungs, but the burning sensation kicked in soon after my body's defense mechanisms realized the oxygen level running on low inside the body.
I started gagging over the sink, pounding my fist on my chest to make the coughing stop, but it wouldn't. Whenever I tried to breathe in, the horrible sound came through my throat. The most horrible sound, the sound that I hear only from the movies when somebody is drowning or being hanged. I thought to myself, that was probably how those poor souls felt like moments before they died on the rope in the past, but that thought was soon interrupted by more coughing and gagging that wouldn't stop. You know that feeling when you gag so hard that your stomach starts to hurl upwards, and you get that feeling that something is going to come out from your insides, but nothing is? That was how I felt like, because my gag reflexes kicked in the moment the gagging went over the scale, but nothing came out of my stomach - which would have been a welcoming sight, considering how the phlegm would have followed suit. But nothing came, just a lot of soundless coughing at this point in time and a lot of other bodily fluids regurgitated into the sink. The running water washed everything away, but not that horrible taste in my mouth and the tears streaming down my cheeks from all the gagging. It was horrible, the stroll on the edge of death. Just horrible.
For the next couple of weeks, the coughing reduced dramatically. But every time I coughed, I would end up at the sink puking bodily fluid, gasping for air all over again. It happens usually in the morning or in the middle of the night, interrupting my sleep and jerking me awake with the lack of air in my lungs. It was scary, to imagine a pair of invisible hands around my throat and trying to murder me in the middle of the night, which was exactly how it felt like. I never told my parents about it, but when it grew worse and worse I had to break the news to them. After all, waking up at four in the morning to collapse onto the ground because you are suffocating isn't really my idea of a sweet dream. I found myself on the cold brown tiles in the middle of the night with a puddle of puke next to my face, breathing deeply as if I was breathing through my nose for the very first time. Tears formed at the brink of my eyes, and my face was pumped up with blood. I looked like a person right off the ropes, and I felt around my neck for some time, fearing to feel the markings of a pair of hands, or rope around my neck. But everything felt the same, and the house was quiet all over again.
My mother seldom looks to western medicines for aid, I suppose it is due to how she was brought up as a child. My mother is an avid fan of plants, and she believes more in the healing effect of nature, religion, and faith more than anything else - though she isn't exactly a religious person. She is the kind of devotee that I admire, the kind that takes religion into her own strides, always taking her time to accepting a certain belief and never forcing it down anybody's throats. I've been with her for more than twenty years, and my mother has never forced me to do anything that I refused, at least not in the religious arena of course. When it comes to medicine, she strongly believes in the healing effects of Chinese medicine, simply because of the lack of side effects. She believes that accumulated side effects would cause a long term one in the future, which is true to a certain degree. I always believe that a disease that takes a long time to form, takes a long time to treat. I guess she must have been traumatized with the whole cancer episode with my grandmother, which is why she'd usually look towards traditional medicine for the family's illnesses. They usually work, but not this time around. Not this time.
She brought home a strange solution that didn't exactly work, and they tasted like tree roots and barks to be honest. I've never tasted tree roots and barks, but I am sure that is how they would taste like one day if I am trapped out in a certain jungle without a source of food. Then she came home armed with a bottle of black pills that looked like hardened rabbit droppings, and I had to eat them after each meal. They didn't taste like anything at all, which was why I ate them without questioning much. But those pills didn't work very well either, and I still found myself waking up in the middle of the night choking my brain out. So when my parents left for Taiwan and leaving me home alone, they asked me to pay a visit to the doctor some time soon - though it was already three weeks since I started this dreadful coughing. Still, I made an effort to go down to the doctor yesterday, only to find that it was closed - like today. What are doctors and clinics for when they can't help the sick?
It was raining when I made my way out of the house today, and to see that the clinics were closed again made me even more pissed off. I jumped across puddles and stepped into some only to meet face to face with a plastic tag hanging on the glass door that said "Closed", and that pissed me off to no end. But it was a good reason to walk in the rain, and that was exactly what I did until I got to the furtherest clinic from my home, and I did everything on foot. I was alone in the clinic when I entered, and the lady before me was just about to go out. Even that, I had to wait ten minutes before the doctor was able to see me, which made me wonder what the hell the nurse did with the doctor in that short span of ten minutes while I waited out in the waiting room watching Smallville on the television. Clarke Kent never falls sick, but he is allergic to strange little asteroid rocks. A stupid allergy, but at least he never gets sick. And, he gets the girl. Something is grossly unfair here.
The doctor invited me into the constricted room of his, and he was tapping on the monitor with a pen when I entered. Sitting down, I said the very first line you read in this entry, and he began his 'proper' examination of me. By 'proper', it merely involved putting an ice-cream stick into my mouth and shining a torch into it, followed by putting a stethoscope on my back and breathing a dozen times over. That was the end of the examination, and he concluded that I have - Bronchitis. It is a disease that is alien to me, something which I never imagined myself to contract - like AIDS. But there I was, sitting in that little chair of his, hearing the news that I have Bronchitis. I pictured an army of black germs, holding signs that read "Bronchitis" wind-surfing down my windpipe. It was a disturbing sight, and I demanded an anti-inflammation medicine and other antibiotics.
So the medicine I got: SYR Leftose, Ventolin and DMP Tabs. They are supposed to have longer names, but I am sure the stickers they have been printed on aren't big enough. One of them will cause drowsiness, and the other will cause my hand to tremble - which sounds scary. 'Palpitation' is the technical term, and whatever words that I do not understand now are either bad news or very good food. 'Palpitation' is surely not an Italian or a French cuisine I have ever heard of. Nonetheless, I do hope that these drugs are going to help get rid of those wind surfing junkies in my throat, and get me ready for the big trip overseas to Taiwan - my secret getaway. Before that, I'd have to battle with the drowsiness on a daily basis, hoping that I am not going to miss a bus stop while going to Deuel's tomorrow. I think it is hitting me all over again, it is better than I succumb to it, at least for now. It is getting late anyway, and I should get going. Oh by the way, I thought I heard "Bronk Tits" when the doctor told it to me. Bronk Tits, doesn't sound like a disease I want to have, no sir.
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