To Be Or Not To Be... Sick!

Have you ever feared a serious illness… maybe something that is terminal? Have you had someone in your life who has gone through the fear and pain? It is never nice… not a happy place to be at.

Some diseases are ‘glamorous’… they are the celebrities of the health (or lack of it) world! Cardiac issues and some forms of cancer fall in the category.  When I say glamorous… I, of course, don’t mean it in a good way. They have been glamourized in the world of movies… from a Love Story to Anand to a hundred other stories, in a hundred languages.

Then there are these illnesses that are sneaky… they just lie low… and pounce on you when you are least expecting it. It may be that you have been a little too careless about your health, but most of the times these maukatarian illnesses are just that… pouncing on you at the first available chance.

There is this third set of illnesses… the mysterious kind. You can never be sure with them… they could develop symptoms as common as a headache or nausea or a blackout… symptoms that can be caused from the simplest of issues (like not eating on time). In my opinion, these are the most scary ones… like they say, a known enemy is better than an unknown friend.  Your friendly daily headache could turn in to a monstrous cerebral disorder. A simple chest congestion could be an angina or a myocardial infarction. For all you know, these symptoms which you tend to ignore, may just go away on their own. But, there are times when one blackout too many causes the alarm bells to ring. And when that happens, fear creeps in… fear of the unknown future.

Nobody likes to be ill… and if you ask me… I’d prefer to go the easy way without suffering rounds of visits to the hospital, large medical bills, pricks and pokes and all sorts of pills… and the worst part… the period of testing / diagnosis… where all the scary sounding tests in all those machines that look straight out of a sci-fi movie are used on you. You end up holding your breath till the results are out… never sure if it is a lifebuoy or a tug by a whirlpool.

This is not MY happy place… not where I want to be.