By Evans Aboagye Tawiah
The doctor arrived around 11.00am that
morning. I had waited for more than four hours before he arrived and walked past us into his office. Surprisingly, he was a male. I had expected the department to be an all-women-department but it wasn’t and I felt a little uncomfortable.
Mirabel didn’t come with me to the hospital cos I didn’t want her to know the outcome of my diagnosis even though that wasn’t what I told her. I had told her that she shouldn’t stress herself and that I would be fine and she agreed.
I sat patiently and waited for my turn to come. One after the other, the female patients – pregnant and non-pregnant – filed in to see the doctor. It soon got to my turn and I went in to see the doctor as well. The consulting room was well arranged and air-conditioned. The doctor sat in such a way that he saw the patients walk in.
“Goodmorning doc,” I greeted.
“Goodmorning,” he replied with a captivating smile. “Please sit down.”
The way the doctor welcomed me calmed my fears and subconsciously endeared me to him.
“So what made you come to see us?” The doctor asked after I was comfortably seated.
“I’m having this severe itch in my private
part,” I began and narrated all my symptoms to him as he carefully put them down in my folder. After that, he asked me so many other questions in regard to the symptom. Then the part of the physical examination came.
“I would like to see what’s going on down
there,” the doctor said motioning me to pull off my clothes from waist down and mount the examination couch.
I felt shy and reluctantly did as the doctor directed. The examination didn’t last more than five minutes and I came down and wore back my clothes.
“You have gonorrhoea and genital warts,” he announced as soon as I sat down after
wearing my clothes. “I will write some drugs for you which you are to buy from the pharmacy outside.”
“No problem doctor,” I replied. The doctor wrote the drugs on a prescription paper and handed it to me. “Thank you doctor,” I greeted and left. I bought the drugs on my way out and headed back to my lodge.
“What did the doctor say?” Mirabel asked
when she came to check on me later in the
evening.
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“He said that I have infection,” I replied.
“What type of infection?” She asked narrowing her gaze.
“Toilet infection.”I lied.
“Ok no problem,” she said. “Did he give you any drug?”
“Yes he did o, they are in that polythene
over there.”
“Ok nice,” she commented. “Make sure you
take them at the right time.”
“I will,” I promised. “Thanks for your care and concern.”
“You’re welcome.”
With that she went back to her room. I took the doctor’s drugs consistently as the doctor prescribed but there was no
improvement. Instead, the symptoms increased and the itch grew worse. I also developed foul smelling sores around my genitals as I scratched to no avail. So I decided to see the doctor again.
“Your infection looks like the stubborn type,” the doctor said after I complained about the inefficacy of the drugs he prescribed.
“Really?” I asked looking worried.
“Yes,” the doctor replied. “Hope you took the drugs as prescribed?”
“Yes I did but the symptoms didn’t disappear,” I replied. The doctor cringed his face in thought. If only I could tell him that my problem wasn’t physical but supernatural. I sat back and stared on.The doctor conducted a second pelvic
examination and noticed that the area had grown worse.
“This is unbelievable,” he muttered to himself while I wore back my clothes. This time he gave me an injection and wrote
another set of drugs for me and I thanked him and left. It wasn’t until I came back the third time a week later with more severe symptoms that
he recommended that I go for HIV test.
It must have skipped his memory the first and the second time but not the third time.
Reluctantly, I collected the form for the test and headed for the lab. I didn’t know initially that the form was for HIV test till I got to the lab and some nurses started counselling us. I felt like turning back and postponing the test till a later date. After the counselling, we went in one after the other to have our blood samples collected and tested. My legs trembled as I sat on the bench waiting for the result to come out. I was seated on the bench deep in thought when someone tapped me from behind and I turned and saw Stella, my former roommate, seating behind me and waiting for her own result.
She had so much emaciated and her cheek
and rawlings chain stood out.
“What are you doing here?” I stupidly asked raising my brow.
“The same thing you’re doing here,” she
retorted looking away.The atmosphere was tense and we didn’t know what to discuss.
“Hope everything is fine?” I asked.
“Yes it is,” she replied. “And you?”
“Fine too,” I replied and faced forward
afterwards.Thirty minutes later, the results came out and one of the nurses called me to come inside and collect mine. My heart thumped about recklessly within my chest as I went in to collect the result.
The nurse’s face had this blank expression on it that betrayed no emotion. I was visibly trembling as the nurse handed the white piece of paper to me. It took me 20minutes to gather courage and
look at the result. Many things ran through my mind: my family, my mother, my academics, my unspent cash in the bank, my properties and on and on. How would I explain to my mum that I ended
up HIV positive? My legs wobbled as the
thought ran through my mind. At long last, I peered into the white piece of
paper and behold, I was HIV negative. I went back to the doctor with the result
beaming with smiles and looking relieved.
“It came out negative right?” The doctor asked smiling back at me.
“Yes doc it did,” I replied still smiling. I handed the white sheet of paper to him and he looked at it and nodded happily.
The doctor then wrote a third set of drugs for me and I thanked him and went home…
watchout for episode 26
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