Annual Health Checkup

Today was the dreaded day of annual health checkup - an entire  day spent running from one department to another of the hospital till I began to feel really ill & consoled myself that it is the hospital which was a place one can safely fall ill in. But no, what I felt is one has to be 200% full of energy to undergo one of the health exams in a erect position.  
      When I had enquired the previous day, the lady at the reception had told me to come by 8.30am, so when I reached there after 9.00 am I thought that I must be late. But the reception was quite empty of people, with a sole receptionist. When I enquired about health checkup she firmly told me that there was no such package for my company. Around ten or fifteen years earlier I might have meekly accepted this, but age has given me a certain gumption so that I can argue back with people to a certain extent. I spoke to the receptionist the other day over phone, I told her, and she had assured me that the package was available. The other lady still refused to accept this. "But, I told her, " Madam M, spoke to me, and assured me", I argued plaintively. On hearing the person named, the lady recapitulated and directed me to go to the first floor and speak to the person concerned. Madam M was at her desk, and thankfully she remembered speaking to me over phone. Still it took her an hour to convince her other colleagues that I was eligible for the health package. It was almost 10.00am when, formalities completed, I trooped into the blood sample room to have my blood taken. My number was 22 and it came after half an hour's wait where I stared idly at numerous patients and their   relatives thronging there. The rather young lab assistant girl was smooth and deft, taking blood, labelling the various bottles and mixing the reagents all with swift practiced movements. She reminded me to come for giving a sample again after breakfast.After this I moved to the x-ray and sonography section  which was swarming with patients. Sonography is a procedure which has to be done on a full bladder. So the uniform instruction given is that drink water till one's bladder feels like bursting. I dutifully finished of the 1litre bottle of water which I had bought with me, hoping that I would get called in between, but to no avail. After almost an hour's wait and two reminders to the reception, I was at last called for the sonography test. Loosen your salwar drawstring and lift your bra up, I was instructed, and so I lay there bare and supine on the bed for almost 10mins before the doctor , a lady, came in. She applied the sticky ointment on my stomach and quickly moved the mouse on my stomach. "Your bladder is too full", she said," You need to urinate, and come again", "come fast", she uttered encouragingly. This was what came of following instructions too well. So I went and came back again, and the procedure was completed at last. Next I went to have breakfast at 12.00 noon after two hours of which my next blood sample was to be taken. Cheese Sandwiches with green chutney and a bowl of sewai, a cup of hot tea was the breakfast which I enjoyed as I was extremely hungry by this time. I was then directed by Madam M to go for my ECG, which was done by a rather strict looking lady technician. Next please go to gynae dept, dental and ENT,I was directed. At the dental dept I was advised by a pretty looking young dentist, that I needed to get my teeth cleaned of tartar. Promising to do it at a later date, I then moved to the gynae dept where there were around 3-4 young intern type doctors with an elderly head doctor. They desultorily took down my history and conducted a rather painful examination. After completing the ENT checkup, I went to the cardio section which again was full of patients. After waiting for almost half an hour I was called in for a stress test. This was the first time I was having a stress test, and I was rather curious. The technician asked me to remove all my upper garments, which I rather unwillingly did at last. then she applied 10 electrodes around my heart area, had me cover myself with a hospital gown, and plugged the electrodes into the GE make monitoring  machine. Then she directed me to walk on the treadmill, and my heartbeats, pulse and pressure was monitored as the treadmill started slowly and then gained in speed. After walking for around 10mins , the pulse was 150bpm, stage 3 exercise, I had achieved my target, the lady said. So I got off and put my clothes back on. The pressure of my feet was then taken by another nurse who said that she was a student of MSC nursing and wanted it for some study which she was doing. At nearly 1.30pm, I went down for the eye checkup. Here I was told that it would take at least half an hour as there were several patients before me. So  I gave my name for the queue, and moved to the cubicle of Madam M for consultation. What a talker the lady is! Every time I saw her she was always talking on her mobile with someone. I now asked her about the mammography and she got ready to accompany me downstairs, as another foreigner lady was there as well. So we went down to the test section. The doctor came after 10mins, during which I gave the blood and urine sample at the lab. Mammography was another painful process, where I again had to remove all my upper clothing and stand bare while  my breasts were pressed painfully by the machine during the test. 4 slides were taken. Don't move your head, look there, look here were the curt instructions given by the technician during the process. At last after completing it, the doctor asked me to wait for aquarter of an hour more, to check whether it was all ok. After her green signal, I then moved to the eye section where it took me almost two hours more. Initially a technician checked my eyes, in the second round I explained to the doctor about the floater in my eye. She wanted to check my retina, so I had some drops put in and rechecked my eyes after 45mins. After getting this all done, a mammoth task by any standards, I returned home at around 4.30pm, tired but triumphant.    

Games I Like to play

Some games which I love to play are Jewel quest, Cityville, Criminal Case . I was  such a fan of Cityville that I even kept some snapshots of the city I built. I really looked forward to the next day when I would resume the game after exhausting my energy. I had reached to level 70 in the game. Some pics of my  city are attached here.

Dengue Fever: Harrowing week 14th Sep - 20th Sep 2015

This was the most harrowing week of this year till date. On Sunday (14th Sep) I came to know that Ma's fever had once more relapsed (102-103 deg C). When I asked Baba he said doctor had not advised to do a blood test yet. Ist fever came from 5th Sep and had remission by 10th Sep. On Monday morning when I called Ma her voice sounded so strange and rambling that I decided to go to Kol immediately. So took CL for the week. S was on leave for the week so I had no major concern for Sona. Tuesday I boarded flt and reached Kol. Saw bad luck sparrow at the airport itself. When I reached home Ma , I saw was extremely weak & in pretty bad shape. Baba too was limping after all his running around & strain. There were one or two neighbours around but they left when they saw me. Ma had tested positive for typhoid , so was given antibiotic for typhoid. Dengue test was expected by evening. Meanwhile dada was calling up continuously & demanding to know details of treatment etc. Afternoon ma had some soup of vegetables and fruit juice, We came to know blood test was positive for dengue. Evening sharp at 5pm we went to Dr's chamber & dr came at 5.15pm. He advised admission in hospital and washed his hands off the matter. Ma refused to call an ambulance, so baba caught hold of taxi and all three of us boarded to go to nearby hospital. When we got there, they initially refused admission saying no beds were available, after coaxing and threatening with Kol Pranam membership, they admitted. After deposit of cash etc we got free by 8pm. Baba and I went home, had dinner & slept off. Meanwhile S called up earlier that day to inform that he too had high fever and that he planned to go to doctor the next day. I was taken aback, but hoped that it would be just a viral and subside on its own. Wednesday after breakfast, Baba and I got ready to go to the hospital. I had taken boiled vegetables , fruits etc. But when I went there, we found Ma extremely weak, fever had still not subsided (102-103). Drip was being administered. She said to take back the food as it was not allowed by the hospital. So we took it back. In the evening Sushama mami visited, Ma reported in the evening that the food was so bad that she had been unable to eat much, she was still feverish and weak. We were quite upset. I then called up her doctor couple of times on the phone to know about her, but was unable to get a very satisfactory response. We then kept calling the indoor to know what she had eaten for dinner and asked fluids like horlicks etc be given to her. Thursday I hear that she had been given horlincks for breakfast. Meanwhile I told dada to prepone his visit as ma was not improving at the rate I had expected. He was supposed to come by evening that day. Ma was quite better on thursady morning, no fever although platelet was falling. We spoke to dietician about food. Afternoon food was hot and ma was happy with it. In the evening when I called S to know about his blood test report, he said that he had tested positive for dengue and doctor had advised him to get admitted immediately. He asked me to prepone my travel plan and come on Friday. I was now at my wit's end how all this could be happening all at the same time. Luckily dada had already arrived at kol & before he came home, I had changed my ticket and preponed my flight. When dada came he was most surprised to hear that I had preponed my journey, hough he agreed that I should leave, as he would be there to take care of things. Thursday earlier that day I had gone with Baba to gariahat for insurance claim business and seen all the shops and markets filled with puja shopping items. I had hoped that once dada came on friday I would do some shopping. But alas that was not to be. When I went to visit ma on thursday, I didn't tell her that i would be going away the next day. Friday another incident happened. The airline had told me to come to the airport two hours prior to departure and get my ticket altered. But when I went to the bus depot, I came to know bus would take one and half hours, whereas I had to reach by one hour to meet the airline time. So I decided to go by taxi. No taxi was available when it was badly needed. I trudged pillar to post for 10-15 minutes. Finally I found an ac taxi and went by that. Thankfully he dropped me off well in time. I caught the flight and arrived in P. Barely I had time to discuss two things with Sona and S, it was time to go to hospital to get S's Blood report. When we went there, bplatelet had fallen below normal, and doctor advised him to get admitted. So he got admitted & I then came home thinking when this will all end. Today 20th Sep Ma is discharged , but still very weak. S I expect by tomorrow will be discharged.

BRTS To Start in Pune

At last the BRTS is going to start in Pune. Hope the planning and execution and hard work of the PMC pays off and it is successful so that the traffic congestion, accidents and traffic jams reduces.
Keeping fingers crossed!
Another area Pune can improve is beautification of the Mula Mutha river banks. The river is a beautiful water body which if properly managed can add tremendously to the city's tourist attraction. Just as the Seine river in Paris manages to attract hordes of tourists with its river cruise where tourists can get an idea of the main historic events during the river ride, something on the same lines must be thought about Pune too. Only then it can become a truly modern smart city.

                                   
                                                               Pic : Mula Mutha Now        

Pic  : Cruise on Seine River

PMC :  Can we convert Mula Mutha into Seine river ?

Big Boss8 Poem :23rd Jan 2015

My poem about Big Boss8

Never miss Big Boss at 9!

With the contestants Sonali, Karisma, Pritam and Upen

Sometimes they make u laugh and sometimes cry!

With their quarrels , and jokes and safai!

‘Where’s my makeup?’, shouts Karishma

Losing it leaves the big boss house in a shakeup!

Pritam is a nice and funny guy!

You can feel from far he has constipation!

Dimpy with her dimpled smile

Beware others she will make u cry

Ali Quli is the confused guy

Sometimes his actions are just not right!

Upen was the ideal brother

Till he decided to become the eternal lover!

With Salman the weekends were fun

Till Farah came & now I want to get my gun!

So farewell till the finale

Fifty lacs will be the winner’s kitty

So give it your best shot my pretties!

22nd Jan 2015

Another Saraswati puja day approaches. Yesterday Koni from our complex came to give the card for Saraswati puja and collect the money. I was thinking that maybe this time they were not coming to collect the puja subscription at all .Paranoia attack! All of us like to think that the world revolves around us.
Big Boss8 has become quite boring now with the predictable fights and flare ups between the contestents. Yesterday they were given a task where the contestents were asked to keep a button pressed while standing. The contestent who was able to keep the button pressed for the longest time would be declared the winner and would get 25lakhs as prize money. Pritam won the task in the end as he could keep standing for nearly 36 hours straight without sleep or food. I was wondering if i had been given the task how long could i have kept standing. Maybe only 5 or 6 hours at the most and that too with great difficulty.
It really is a test of endurance more than anything else.
So many things come to my mind and I keep thinking that I should write this down in this diary. But when the time comes to pen the thoughts i forget about it. Yesterday i suddenly wanted to pen a poem. But i forget what the lines were. It went something like this

What a strange story this life of mine is!

When i got what i wanted! Alas! I realised it was not

What i was looking for all along!

Money, a little bit of it, Respect and love

All are things, a bit of which i have sampled

In this life of mine!

What am i looking for then ?

What am i still thirsty for?

Why do i yearn with a hopeless longing

And dream of impossible things!

There can never be true satiety

When i drink from this cup of mortal sins

7th of Jan

 The morning was the most hectic one ever. I had a hard time deciding between office and home priorities. I tried to do both and as it was a super lucky day managed to handle both fronts. Today was already scheduled to be the day when we would demo the final trial of CTC to D. Yesterday there was a call from Jhuma di that Rishikesh wanted to talk to S. R told him that to get the Dom ,S would have to come and submit the school leaving certificate at 10.00am in the morning. D’s demo was also at 10.00. Luckily only S was required to go and not both of us. So morning I left early for the office and reached before 9.00am. Firm (AJ) wanted to know at what time they were supposed to come and immediately after reaching office I contacted Vkp to get the time of demo. It was scheduled for 10.00am, and so I relayed the message to firm to be present by then. The fun started when S called up to tell me that Rishikesh had asked him to get xerox attested copies of the certificates at 10.30. I was in a fix as Vkp had already called me and asked me to come to the site. Still i called S and told him to come to the office gate with the xeroxes, I would try to get the certificates attested. So instead of walking down to the trial site which was 5mins walk from my room I decided to walk to the gate , which was a 10mins walk from my room to collect the papers. Unfortunately I had not bought my scooter but had come in my car , so I had to trudge the entire distance. After waiting for a few mins S came and handed me the papers. It was already 5 mins past ten. He said he would wait till 10.30 and then go if I had still not got the papers attested by then. I then walked to the trial site to see that they had started the trials with load. Nk was there and after seeing that everything was working well he said that he would just get D. Seizing the opportunity , after he went I walked to the group and requested Ak to attest the papers. He said he was busy and would give it to me later, but did it anyway at my insistence. He muttered about people waiting at the gate and I muttered about D and trials. After getting it done and thanking him hurriedly, I walked to the trial site to see whether D had arrived yet. Meanwhile S called on my mobile and said that he would leave by 10.30. It was almost 10.25. I told him I would try. D had not come yet. I looked around to see if there was anyone i could send to the gate with the papers , but there was no likely candidate. Since D was still not on the horizon i decided to take the chance. I walked as fast as possible to the gate andhurriedly handed over the papers to S. I walked back as fast as possible. When I came to the trial site I had almost expected D to be there, but thankfully he had not yet arrived. I had to wait for another 30mins more before he came and the trials were shown successfully to him. What a hectic day! I walked almost 2km too and fro. Now we wil have to work on new  system. Hope S gets the dom too.

2nd Jan 2014

Today was a bit unnerving day for me. I went to office and then I realised that I had got to submit a medical certificate from the doctor to avail of medical leave for 4 days. First in the afternoon after lunchtime I went to doctor A's clinic. She had closed for the day but was still in the clinic so I just popped in to ask her if she would give me the certificate. She refused saying that as I had not taken treatment from her and she kept all records she could not give me the certificate. I was disappointed but left saying Ok.In the office too I kept on mulling on where could I get the certificate from? The whole afternoon was pretty wasted as I tried to read some technical papers for the article I was hoping to write. From beyond the partition I could hear the 2 colleagues talking and chatting away through the afternoon having a technical discussion(?) with others. There were no calls on my phone!
Most times it goes on like this only unless when I have a new project and then it is interesting and absorbing! Anyway then I came by Dr G's clinic while coming back from office and found she was on leave till 3rd (Sat) & I wanted to submit the certificate on Monday. I decided to visit Dr S. So after having tea I set off again for her clinic. I inquired for Dr D's on the way but he too was out till Feb! At Dr S's I was the twelfth patient when I came in and she was only on her 2nd at that point. So I sat down on the narrow bench outside her clinic and began the long wait. Everything seems to take extra time when you are waiting and that too something as distasteful as outside a doctor's clinic. There were six or seven patients besides me in the clinic while some others had cleverly entered their names on the receptionist's  (if I can call her that as she was a chit of a girl not more than 17yrs of age) sheet of white paper. The agonising wait became even more painful when the patient did not materialise even after ten, fifteen and then forty minutes. An elderly lady had gone in accompanied by her son and fat daughterinlaw probably and the three of them just wouldn't come out even after three quarters of an hour. Us patients outside started giving each other nervous and shifty looks and muttering under our breaths. I tried to shcool myself to the stretch by thinking that she must be ill, and it would probably be only five minutes more. Sometime I just felt like walking off! After nearly fifty minutes they came out! In the meantime ten other patients had materialised, all looking sick and anxious. One lady looked in obvious pain - she had a stomach ache and kept making pained faces and pressing her lips together ever so often. After the trio the girl had assured me that after two more patients it would be my turn at last! In the meanwhile a young spectacled man came and started convincing the girl that he wanted a health certificate and so should be let in out of the queue. First the girl let him in and he came out a few moments later and asked the girl for some directions. Later he came with a form in his hand and asked to be let in to the doctor's chamber again to get it filled. This time the doctor herself told the guy to come in queue and when the guy asked the girl to write his name she told him that he would now be last as he had not enrolled his name earlier. I was relieved by this and mentally congratulated myself for not having tried to evade the queue by using the ploy of health certificate. I was feeling guilty too of being well while sick ones were around me. I was let into the chamber at last. The doctor smiled and took my name. She then asked to see the lady with the stomach ache before me and I was relieved that she did. When my turn came I related my symptom of loose motions . She checked my pressure and it came as 90/140. I was shocked as I had never had a pressure of 70/120 and always had low pressure. She checked it twice more on the electronic dial and it too came as 85/135. She prescribed some antibiotics and when I asked for medical certificate she gave it a bit puzzled that I had attended office that day on a upset stomach. I guess she must have caught on! But I was seriously upset! A high pressure which I had never believed possible. I immediately had depressing thoughts of dying and death and spent at least one hour in agony trying to think of the fate of my family after me ! After watching Big Boss - no halfway through I decided to go for a walk and so S and I did. Decided to eat healthy and exercise this new year. Enjoy as much as possible one never knows what horrors lurk around the next corner.

1st Jan 2014

Another year has passed by rapidly - 2014. The past year was a good one for us in many ways. Sona’s imp class 10 result, getting admission in a good place for 11th 12th. My work in the office went well with a new development & S’s office peaceful. 31st Dec we went to Lonavla for the purpose of trekking to Lohagad fort. But we could go only halfway up as theroad was very bad & looked risky to climb by car.
      1st Jan was gloomy and dull. I had taken medical leave from Mon - Thurs (1st), so it was a holiday for us all. Sona was studying chem in the morning - chemical bonding with me and its quite tough & conceptual. S went off cycling and came quite late past lunchtime. Sona wanted lunch and when I asked her to wait for S, she quarreled with me. Afternoon I slept and evening went to Kali mandir for divine blessings, also to ganesh mandir. Evening I made Sona’s favourite manchurian for dinner and mongini cake. The balls were breaking and i had a bit of struggle making it, but the dish turned out ok.After watching big boss we did some more chemistry. Called everyone to wish hny, dada also called in the afternoon. Hope the tenor of 2014 continues this year also with studies and office and specially health. 2nd Jan came to office - same old same old place.