It’s 12.03am on the 3rd of March and, notwithstanding
the fact that last evening I went to bed as early as 8 on the Pm,
sleep has refused to come near me. I am here asking myself deep
questions and I am receiving no concrete answers:
‘Am I going mad?’ ‘I think so...’
These are questions I am asking and answering them myself:
‘Why not see a psychiatrist tomorrow then?’
‘I will see into that...’
That word “psychiatrist” got into my head and rang a bell then I
remembered when, still a student, I one day paid a visit to that
university psychiatrist going by the name Dr. Awiti, or was it
Owiti?. Something like that. This wasn’t any ordinary meeting as I had previously come but had
found him engaged and so we had to set a fresh date. Tuesday, at 11am
we settled.
Tuesday 11am came by and I get into his cubicle office. He welcomes and offers me a seat, then
those normal pleasantries from doctors followed. I stated my purpose
of visit, carefully selecting my words as I knew this was no any random
doctor – a psychiatrist it was. Moreover, I was also scared of the risk of being
treated of something I was not suffering from, which could have meant
irredeemable madness on my side. I feared that ooh.
After telling him everything, he pulls out a pen and a very large
yellow paper. (Hey. That colour, yellow. Doesn’t it have a
psychological or rather a mental torture on a psychiatric guest?) Anyhow, I
hoped for the best. Now, as if to punish me, the patient, he told me
to repeat everything I had said to him and at the same time write them
down on that sheet of paper. ‘All and everything’ were the words he used. 'All and everything'.
I did exactly that and perfectly also. Whether this was some form of
mental examination, I do not know; all I know is that it was a
painful experience to the body, as well as a torturous encounter to the
brain cells. Do you know that feeling you get when you imagine three of your ribs plucked out and given to a slay queen who smokes weed and
massages the huge tummy of a sponsor? That’s how I was feeling.
Like that. Useless!
After this, he writes down some stuff on a piece of paper, hands it to me
and sends me to the lab ‘for further testing’. Again, his own
words, ‘for further testing’. The nurses in the lab said they
needed to draw out a blood sample from my hand, ‘for further
testing’. It happens, however, that I am right-handed and so, logic would
demand that they draw out the blood from my left hand. The nurses not
only demanded but also insisted on my stretching the right hand.
Whatever impact this ‘little shift’ has on the health of a
patient, I leave to those in the medical field. All in all , I gave up
on them.
So they drew blood, from my right hand, ‘for further testing’. A
lot of blood. And if you think a whole syringe-full of blood is not a lot
of blood, wait till you have a date with the nurses at U.o.N, who
have just received a note from a patient, who has just met a
psychiatrist, who has has just made him write down his problems on a
very large yellow paper. The blood draining ended and I was released
having been instructed to come in three days’ time and collect the
results of the ‘further testing’.
Well, straight from the lab, I decided to ease myself from that whole torturous experience by playing some pool in Hall Nine. It happens that I found there playing those red-eyed, weed-smoking, goons for hire...I joined them.
(Oh! Shit! It’s 12.54am and I haven’t even summarised!).
So to cut
the long story short, I need to tell you that after the three days
had lapsed, I never even bothered to go pick up the results of the ‘further
testing’. I was HEALED at that very moment, while shooting pool with
those red-eyed, weed-smoking, goons for hire - who never graduate...They
had the HERB!
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