What happened, was I dreaming?
I am sitting here, and in a way I am still in a bit of shock, as I have not yet come to terms with yesterday’s events. Every thing has happened so fast. I woke up this morning in a strange room, in a strange town and there is no one around me that I know. I reached for my phone, just to try and find the crew to help me make sense of this, was it a dream, was I there. Finally a voice I recognised, and the first piece of the puzzle.
I left camp yesterday morning, full of energy after my good recovery from the super bug, Hamish has not been as fortunate, he’s heading back to SA. It was so strange to have to say good bye, all those hours we had spent training together. All the hours running through the mountains of Kashmir, but that’s how the journeys unfold. Roads have forks in them, but eventually they meet up again. Hamish, Thanks buddy, recover well and we will see you later down south.
The journey must go on; I headed off down the track with Nick. Andy and Ramveer had a 8 hour roundtrip to get Hamish to the Airport. Off we plodded down the smokey avenue between the beautifully manicured potato fields of Punjab. Something was not quite right with me; my bladder was not comfortable after about 8 km I stopped for a leak and shit, blood. I shouted out to Nick.
“You won’t believe it, it’s back, the bilharzia”, I knew what I had gone through in Madagascar, so immediately we decided to get medical help. I called Kamil from Cipla India and it was unbelievable what he arranged in a few minutes. A driver was then dispatched to collect me and get me to the best Urologist in the city of Ludhiana. 2 hours later I arrived at this specialist hospital, I had a brief interview with the doctor and then the tests were lined up.
Blood, urine, but after what I had told him he wanted more. Then the doctor said no, he wants a scan as well. Off I went for a scan of my kidneys and bladder. This was ok, but they then found my prostrate to be inflamed. Shit, now what. This is where I got really worried; here I am in the middle of Punjab with what now looks like a serious problem. The next minute I am back to the hospital with Nick, things are not looking good. Nick has a smile on his face, he thinks this is all amusing as he had to go through all of this in Madagascar; all he said was: “It’s payback time buddy.”
We thought this was going to be just another test. No, not this time, the next thing I know is I am being offered theatre clothing to put on, I looked at Nick and he says, “No problem, its just the normal man check-up and laughs”.
Reality really hit when a doctor walks up to me and said “Hi, I am the anaesthetist; I will be looking after you in theatre. Suddenly I started to panic, I said “Doc, are you sure its me you are looking for, I just came in for a check up, you guys are taking this much too seriously”. He just burst out laughing, then walked over to me and said, “You are not leaving until we know what’s wrong and we are happy that we have checked every option, you are in good hands my friend.”
Drip now attached I was plonked into a wheel chair and up to theatre on the fourth floor for my cystoscopy. That was at 5 yesterday afternoon. 8 last night I awake in the recovery ward to the 3 smiley faces of the crew. You can imagine the advice and chirps I was getting.
So what is the result? I am fine to move on and after all the tests there are no malignant cells in any of the smears examined. I have been issued with some pills and a serious set of paperwork from all the tests – What a day.
Once again, India thank you for your kindness and caring that runs deep in the veins of this nation.
