Friday, April 25, 2008

Wrecked and Ravaged

Thursday 17th April: -
Day 1 - I started the day sneezing and wheezing. Blame it on the fact that the ac was on the whole night and me being so susceptible to cold, had to contract it. But I put on a brave front, popped a cetrizin and waddled to office. At office I was fine for some time, but then suddenly felt the ac temperature was a bit too low. And at 1400 hours a sneezathon started. Within an hour I was having a numbing pain through my body, and a tingling sensation from the roots of the hair to the tips of the toes. Thats when I realised Oh! Boy!! I was getting a fever.




I wrapped my work ASAP (That was the penultimate day for tax declaration and some more mumbo jumbo one is supposed to do in beginning of the fiscal year. How I hate the beginnings and ending of fiscals years. Grrrrrr) and scurried home. At home I had a warm cup of tea and hit the bed with my best friend (Amrutanjan :) )




That night I had a very high temperature and survived on 2 crocins.




Day 2 - Morning I did not have fever and woke at 8 to bid K goodbye as he was leaving for office. Since I had not slept well the night before I decided to take the day off. And as K was leaving Wham!!!!! I fainted and had a 5 feet 5 inches free fall. I was picked up by K, the maid and my mom in law and conciousness was restored. Then I slumped on the bed and slept off. K took the day off.




Evening, once the outside temperature was a bit bearable, we both went to see a doc.



The doctor was a well reco-ed one so my expectations were all the more from him. We went inside, he took my BP!! Peered into my throat - "Throat is very bad" He croacked. And decreed - "You have viral fever. Dolo 650, Allegra, Becosules and Azethomycin. You will be fine in 4-5 days. If any problem is there you can visit me. But I think there is no other cure but for you to bear it. "



I was so DISGUSTED. He gave scant regard to a person with some 104 degrees temperature!! And what the blooooooody hell of there is no cure and you have to bear. Why did we pay you those 100 bucks?



Anyways we came home and I tried to have some food and retired to sleep early on.






Day 3 - Saturday no let up by the fever. I spent the whole long day sleeping. K and I had plans to go for a movie the weekend :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(



K starts sneezing by the evening.



And....... Night I had terribly high temperature. I shivered a lot. :( :-S






Day 4 - I called up my uncle who is a doc in Apollo Hyderabad and oldhim the symptoms and whats going on. He was like see if this is viral, started on Thursday, its already been 4 days, 2 more days and by Tuesday you should be on the move. But I would suggest you get an MP(Malaria Parasite) Test done. I was like God Blessssssssssssss You!






Day 5 - Its Monday. Poor K takes leave for me. He takes a limping me to the Malaria Centre. They draw blood. And tell the results will b out at 1500 hours. I limp back home with hubby. And fall asleep flat with a temperature that could makes chickens hatch :-S



1500 hours results come. MP Test Negative. I dunno whether to the relieved or be sad.



So we decide to pay a visit to our good old doctor.



And this time he greets us with a smile and says ," Maa listen, this is how it is. You have to be positive. Once you start thinking negative that is when things start turning bad. I dunno why there are so many cases of this fever now a days. May be something to do with our changed lifestyles and polluted environment. Do these tests and come back tomorrow."



All the while I was seething inside listening to his sermons on Art of Living. I wanted to strangle him to death with his own stethoscope. &^%&%^%



Gave a quintal more blood for some more bloody tests. (It was MP Test again and a haemoglobin count test)



That night I wear 2 sweaters, take a thick blanket, switch off the fan :-( All this in the heat of Chennai- Still my teeth clatter. A dread ful night.








Day 6 - Since I am so ravaged with fever, I called uncle again. Uncle this time asked me to take the Typhoid test (At least he makes me take some decent tests not a damn Haemoglobin count test. Btw my haemoglobin count comes as pretty low in the test and Dr Dear asks me to come with my husband and meet him in the evening. I mentally mouth profanities and keep the phone.)



Then uncle states, now a days malaria aint getting detected that easy. So if the fever does not subside by tomorrow and the typhoid test is negative, we will start the dosage of quinine. It has no side effects, but you have to take it on a full stomach else the blood sugar level might drop.






Day 7 -7 days of full blown fever. 0700 hours. Typhoid test - Negative.



I started quinine dosage at night.



And that night I felt as if I was being exorcised. I had such a high temperature that I had a cold towel over my forehead. After one hour, the temperature started coming down. Then I felt my heart beat rate increased enormously. :-S And I was hyper ventilating. I lay on my stomach to stop the pounding of my heart. All this while I was wondering if my stomach was full enough before I took the medicine. And I was thinking may be I should have asked my uncle the symptoms of dripping blood sugar, for God forbid, if this was it :-S I am done for :-S. Then after 20 minutes of absolute agony, I broke into a nice sweat. I sweated as if I was in a sauna. And I sweated and sweated and sweated and finally slept......






Day 8 - Fever was at a manageable 100 degrees. Uncle told, it should be done with by Friday. That is tomorrow. In case not - We have to get you admitted in a Biiiiiiiiig hospital with Biiiiiiiig instruments and Biiiiiiiig Doctors and Biiiiiiiiig tests :-S That is exactly how he said it. And I prayed to God fervently that I better get well sssssssssssssssssssoooonnnnnnn.



But he said, it must have been Malaria cos no other parasite responds to Quinine. So since the fever has gone down due to quinine its proved it was malaria which was not being detected.



Oh! How I adore a logical explanation!!






Day 9 - Hmm feeling much better, I was singing praises of my uncle and cursing that God forsaken Chennai doctor every moment. And one of my friends told me that day was World Malaria Day :






Day 10- I am able to get up and move around :D :D :D :D



I make the masala, K makes the dosa and we eat happily ever after :D :D :D :D






Day 11 - I make food again. And evening we even go out to the beach !!!!!!! We start from home at 1730 hours, spend some time on the beach with K 's uncles family, then we take a walk, have some tit bits @ Barista, do some shopping and come home at 2100 hours!! That was the longest duration I was off a bed and outside after eonssssssssssss.






Day 12 - I am in office. In front of a machine finally typing all this :D ;)


Monday, April 7, 2008

Why do these tears come

I had read it somewhere, "..if everything is fine, then why do these tears come?" Wish I could remember where I had read it. I would love to revisit the book to find why the writer had said so. Because that is how I feel now a days. I should thank God for many things, for so many things he has just like that bestowed on me. I am happy for them but then out of no reason - I get the tears. As I am listening to a song, I get reminded of friends, of old times, of fun with them. When I see K in splits when talking to his friends, I get reminded of how we could laugh as if there was no tomorrow. How the jokes would just keep flowing in a restaurant with the people on other tables staring at a group of raucous girls. We would give two hoots to 'what others might think'.

I am not able to figure it out that what is the real problem.


Is it because I don't have work in office that I am whimsical and cranky?


Or is it because the new life is still rattling me? Is it that I would still prefer coming back from office, enjoy a cup of tea and talk with my friends about their day in office, cool dudes that we happened to meet, pull some ones leg just for the heck of it, make a couple of phone calls and then retire for the day. Rather than having to face the numerous responsibilities that come with making a home. I am not averse to taking responsibilities for sure. I in fact love setting things right. But maybe I want the variety that comes with staying with friends.


Or is it because I have some expectations set from my better half, which I would very well get from my best friend but I am not getting from him? Raaji had rightly said in her blog that Men are not the type to take hints. (http://raajii.blogspot.com/2008/03/men.html) But then I also get tired of saying it out aloud all the time. Some times I prefer if the unsaid is given credence to. Anyways, its the thing about men and women that makes the world go round and round for sure.

And as I am in this turmoil, one thing is for sure. I miss my old life like hell. I miss being at home and being pampered to no end by my mom. I miss cracking those jokes with my sis and pulling my daddy dears legs. I miss being with my own set of friends.

All these combined together end in these tears.

And that too in the weirdest of moments. As I lie on the bed and sleep takes a tad longer to come, I suddenly feel a tear trickle down. Suddenly I am reminded of my very last night at Hyderabad, when I was thinking, how there was going to be an irreversible change from the next day, for me and for some of my friends as well.


As K the baby of the house, comes back home, has his dinner, watches Slam Dunk and retires for the day, without so much as a Question "How was your day? " which my room mate in Hyds would invariably ask, I feel a tinge of tear. I am not sure if I am being a schmalz, maybe I am being one. But I am not able to help it either. I want to be that chirpy, no holds barred girl.I want to be the Cherrie who had the opportunity to crack incessant jokes with family, the Amrita who had hellova lot of fun with her friends.




Thursday, April 3, 2008

Getting used to

The last post had me in a pretty disconcerted state. I am still far from being settled, but I am slowly getting used to this life.

The fact that I am yet to get a machine in office and the broad band connection at home is kaput is keeping me away from the net. I do keep visiting the blogs I used to frequent, but I dont have the sustained access to the sites, so I give posting of comments a miss.

But I remember the comments which were posted by people who read my last blog. And that helped me a lot in ironing out my restlessness.

Here a standard day involves a lot of loitering around. At home I follow my mom in law around. I feel like Marys little lamb ( yea the same lamb from the nursery rhymes).

Commuting to office is a big pain which burns a big crater like hole in my pocket. The killing heat of Chennai completely dissuades me from taking a public means of transport. So I end up taking an auto all the way to office which is very far from home. And in office since I dont have work, I am yet to have a machine of my own. Which means I end up sharing 4 systems with 10 odd new joinees. There is literally a game of musical chairs in and around here.

We have resource managers who are responsible for mapping us into projects. And Murphy s law is at its best, my resource manager is the lousiest one. He s a youngistaani with a scar from his nose through his left cheek. Let me call him ScarFace. Now he comes in at 0815 hours pronto. And then works till God knows what time cos I scurry out at 1600 hrs. And whole day he is attending telecons and phone calls which sound important to me. But till now I have not seen him map a resource into a proper project (#@$^&*#$^@#) I am not sure when he will be able to put me in my due place. It better be soon else I feel the chances are very high that he will get a scar over his other cheek courtesy me (#$^#^@$%@).

I reach home early in the evening, and have a nice cup of tea. If my mom in law gets on with the cooking, I give her moral support by standing next to her in the kitchen. Else if she is daring enough that day to give the task of cooking to me, I don my chefs hat and get on with the work. At 2020 hours, I get the message from K to pick him up from the bus stop. I dont miss the chance to do so, cos thats when I get to drive the scooty, and dont I love it :)

I miss my old office a lot, I miss everything about it. The work culture, the space, the people, the friends I had there. And I miss my friend Sw a lot. I still keep calling her up a lot and shes such an angel that even in office hours when she has work, she spares time for me :) And of course I miss my flat mates and room mate. But I am not clinging to the fact that I am far from them. Hyderabad as of now seems pretty approachable from Chennai.

Here I feel I am slowly reverting to my old self. I am getting used to the life here. The way of living out here. I cannot vouch for the fact that marrying the person you loved makes life any easier. The ups and downs still exist. For me I believe the best part is that I have very supportive in laws. At no point have the forced me to adopt anything. As I have a lot of time in hand now, I feel the urge to get going again. To learn some new sport, nurture some new hobby, study for some exam. I am not sure what exactly I want. May be its just the wish to be gainfully employed for all the 12 waking hours of the day.