WHEN I HAD THE PLAGUE
Ever since the Ebola outbreak in West Africa earlier this year, someone I know — a serial sneezer — has been at the receiving end of a co-worker’s jibes. Every time he gets a sneeze attack, which usually doesn’t end before three consecutive sneezes, his colleague would scream, “G has Ebola!” A good sport, G takes the joke in his stride. On one occasion when he didn’t hear the accuser’s taunts after delivering his sneezing triplets, he actually stood up to peer over the cubicle wall that separated them to see if his colleague was at her desk.
Could you imagine what G’s mental state would be were he to take his colleague’s words seriously? I can. Because I once contracted a potentially fatal disease — the plague.
In 1994, when a pneumonic plague epidemic broke out in India, I was in the second year of my graduate program. Like every epidemic, the plague came riding on a bullet train — one that dispatched panic and rumour faster than the disease itself or the rats carrying it. Face masks flooded pharmacies; television screens spit out the symptoms day and night — all with the good intention of keeping the public informed.
One evening, on my way back from a theatre rehearsal, I found myself sitting close to a muffler-wrapped man in a public bus. The vehicle’s aisle separated us, but he still bothered me. Well, not him, but his hacking cough did. I was annoyed with myself. What was I doing gallivanting around the city in the middle of an epidemic? Darn, I didn’t even have a mask on.
When I reached home ten minutes later, dinner was warm and ready. That was just as well because I was coughing a bit by now. I recalled the muffler man and shuddered. To my family members, I said nothing. Not yet. I did so a few hours later, though — in the dead of night — when I began experiencing plague-like symptoms. Sure enough, I was short of breath. I also felt a distinct congestion in my chest. And, of course, there was the cough.
My mother, who lay next to me on the bed, woke up alarmed when I voiced my concern to her. In turn, she woke up my brother, groggy and tired after a long day. Mother prevailed on him to bring home a doctor. Where would one find a doctor at that hour, my brother contested, imploring me to wait until morning. But how could I? What if I didn’t survive until then? I hadn’t even crossed my teens; surely, I couldn’t let myself be smuggled out of this world so soon? What would happen to the dreams I had to fulfill (I had no clue what those were)?
Besides, in a Jerome. K. Jerome-sque (Three Men in a Boat) way, I was certain I had the plague.
Clearly outvoted, my brother brought home a physician who lived in the same lane as us. The doctor’s credentials were far more interesting than they were convincing. Within a span of two years, he had morphed dramatically — from a general practitioner to a sexologist and then a sleep specialist. He came wearing a mask, his hands wrapped in sanitizing gloves. After checking me with his stethoscope, he couldn’t conclude if I would test positive for the plague. To err on the side of caution, he prescribed some medicine. Fair enough. He didn’t stop there, though, but instructed my brother to visit the only 24-hour pharmacy — at least two kilometres away — in our locality. That wasn’t all. Once my brother had procured two batches of the medicines, he was to deliver one set to the doctor at his house. After all, he had just called on his first (and likely only) plague patient; he couldn’t be too careful.
All my brother wanted was a good night’s sleep; instead he found himself walking to the said pharmacy as part of his graveyard caregiving shift.
***
Back to G. After enduring his co-worker’s soft bullying for months — in silence and with occasional resigned chuckles — G recently found respite from it. Not because of a sudden ceasing of his sneezes (they continue with the same vigour). But because of what happened to a passenger aboard a US Airways flight from Philadelphia to the Dominican Republic in October this year. After sneezing once, the passenger screamed he had Ebola, a joke that caused a full hazmat-clad crew to arrive and take him away. Luckily for G, his colleague took note of the fact that Ebola jokes are no longer, or never were, funny.
What brought me respite from my hypochondriac state two decades ago was the complete and magical disappearance of the (non-existent) symptoms the morning after. You would think I learned my lesson. Well, I have, nearly. When I caught the flu virus about three weeks ago, I resisted going to the doctor for as long as I could. They’d quarantine me, a voice inside me said, given the current Ebola scare.
You may say I’m a hallucinator/ But I’m not the only one (sorry, John Lennon). I draw inspiration from an illustrious league of hypochondriacs that preceded me, including Charles Darwin, Charlotte Bronte, Andy Warhol and Florence Nightingale. Folks who seemed to have negotiated the journey between the tragicomic domain of their doubting minds and the business of carrying out their vocation just fine.