health check up
did you get your body through those x-ray machines once a year?
At 25, I am told to do a full body check-up is important. I entered the shiny, clean, jasmine smelled diagnostic centre which thank god corporate paid for. The staff was kind - even though they were working on a Saturday morning. How do they do that?
It started with the ECG. For those who haven’t had an ECG for a while, it tells you if your heart is beating 72 heartbeats or not. Would it be rude if I ask if someone can measure my heartbeat when a boy told me that he held my hand because he thought I was lonely. Can it measure when did my heart’s desire became pity? I realised if someone is holding your hand someday, they might be looking out for you through sympathy. I misunderstood love again. I tend to believe others more than myself. I believed that we didn’t need words to express our intimacy and that it was felt. It’s only when the shades and spectrum of love have become so huge that any affection can be amusement. But they don’t measure all of it. Just the beating. Results are awaited.
Next we moved to collection of my blood. The nurse asked me if I’m scared of needles. To be honest, thats literally the last thing to be scared of. I wanted to tell that I’m scared of being financially unstable. I’m scared of losing all the confidence I build in myself of who I’m becoming. She told me that they check if your RBCs & WBC’s count are normal. But why are we not checking the levels of trauma inflicted by our blood relatives? She said that I would also know if my blood pressure is not sky rocketing and that the dessert I ate to calm myself, did not shoot up my sugar levels. It felt really sad that the colour and contents of my blood did not show the number of tears I shed recently. They only counted what you can see under the microscopic lens and not the cornea of my eyes.
Followed by the eye doc who told me that my distance vision is a blur, which I agree because of the number of times I’ve ignored something in my life only to bite me in ass again. To the men who are reading this, sonography test is the weirdest amongst all. They want you to have your bladder full and scan the uterus completely. It’s kinda awkward but lowkey I wanted to inquire the doc about the procedure to remove my uterus. ( alert : its called being a women ). I also wanted to question does my uterus’s health determines worth because I’ve being told that once you get your periods, you’re magically a “woman”?
Finally, a visit with the general physician was scheduled, who passively judged me for being overweight, having dry skin, commenting how at the age of 25 my ideal body should look like the poster she referred to. She ended up selling me some Ayurveda treatment, to purify my entire body. My anxiety levels shot up. Her over the table advice which made me really sick the entire afternoon. The fact that doctors collectively ignore the mental health part from the resulting ailments, diseases and disorders often shocks me making me wonder that we have really progressed in growing ways to make money but not the health of our mind. Few years later we would realise that our lives are what is to be seen outside but mostly what was going on inside. It is very sad that doctors will ask, where is the pain instead of why is the pain?
I hope you ask someone going through a physical injury - why is the pain? It’s good time to ask me that question.
It’s good time to listen to “Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd.
Tell me about it all. Results are awaited.