Cynthia’s heart beat faster as they followed him back
to his office. Margret waited in the first office while Mabel and Cynthia
followed Dr. Obinna into the main office. In his office, Dr Obinna asked them
to sit. He sat too and brought up the scan result sheet.
“You got them from the lab by
yourself?” Mabel asked him.
“Yes I went there myself,” he
replied. “I didn’t want them to close without getting the basic results ready. At
least we can have an idea what we are dealing with here.”
“Thank you so much.”
“So what is wrong with me?”
Cynthia asked, still worried.
“It is nothing to panic about,”
Dr Obinna said.
He looked at the
scan very well.
“Everything is fine here,” he
said and kept back the result.
“Thank God,” Mabel said.
“So why am I having the pain?”
Cynthia asked.
He took up the next result.
“I see something from the
urinalysis.”
Cynthia’s heart
skipped.
“What?” she asked.
“Infection. And the signals from your kidney show that it
has found its way there.”
“Oh God!” Mabel exclaimed.
“Is it kidney failure?”
Cynthia asked, teary.
“Very far from that. Remember
you said you experience some itching and so on.”
“Yes from time to time.”
“And you have never taken
antibiotics as a result of it?”
“It has been more than six
months I took one last.”
Dr Obinna shook
his head.
“So what do we do?” Mabel
asked.
“You will have to give another
urine sample so they will culture it for growth of the bacteria doing this.
This is so we can know the drugs it is sensitive to and the ones it is
resistant to.”
“Can we do it now or do we go
and come back tomorrow?” Mabel asked.
“You can do it now before they
close. Let me call them to hold on for few minutes.”
He called the lab
and they said they were already closing. He asked them to hold on for few
minutes. They were reluctant but agreed. He filled a lab form and gave Mabel.
“Please hurry,” He said to
Mabel and Cynthia.
“Ok.”
Mabel and Cynthia
left in a hurry for the lab. Margret saw how briskly they walked and ran after
them.
“What is the problem?” she
asked when she caught up with them.
“He wants her to run another
test,” Mabel told her.
“What is going on?”
“My sister, I don’t know o.”
“What is he saying?”
“We don’t understand what he
is saying yet.”
They got to the
lab and met a lab attendant. He collected the form from Mabel, directed her to
the cashier for payment and gave Cynthia urine bottle. When they were done, they
left the lab. As they walked back to Dr. Obinna’s office, tears flowed down
Cynthia’s cheek.
“Why are you crying?” Mabel
asked her.
“So I now have kidney
problem,” she replied.
“Is that what the doctor
said?” Margret asked.
“It is just an infection,”
Mabel said.
“It is not something serious
then. He will tell you what to do.”
Margret put her
arm round Cynthia’s neck and told her not to worry, that she would be fine.
When they got to the Dr Obinna’s office, Mabel and Cynthia went in.
“Let me wait for you in my
car,” Margret said. “So I don’t lose my tyres.”
“Ok.”
In the office, they
met Dr Obinna talking with his second who was carrying her bag, apparently
about going home. He asked them to sit while he gave the lady instructions for
the next day and she left.
“Did they attend to you at the
lab?” he asked when he was done talking to the lady doctor.
“Yes they did.”
“So is the kidney problem what
is causing the back ache?” Cynthia asked.
“I never said you have kidney
problem o. It is just an infection that can be cured with the right antibiotics.”
“Ok.”
“But can it be the cause of
the pain.”
“It is not enough to cause
such pain.”
“What else again?”
“The pain is most likely a
muscular/nerve originated.”
“O God! Is that another
sickness?”
“No. Do you carry heavy things?”
“Chuka is quite heavy,” Mabel
said, smiling in a bid to ease Cynthia’s tension. “Do you carry him?”
“Mabel please stop,” Cynthia
said. “I just carry the normal things in the house.”
“What is your sitting and
lying posture like?”
“She sits and lies down anyhow
o.” Mabel said. “She does not observe good posture at all.”
“But it is still not enough to
cause such persistent pain,” Dr. Obinna said. “Unless you have carried
something heavy in the past that caused sudden sharp pain.”
“Yes I have,” Cynthia said. “When
I was living in school.”
“I think that is the source of
the pain. Then your bad sitting or lying posture aggravates it.”
“I think it was the bucket I
carried from the second floor to the ground floor of your house that made it
resurface o,” Cynthia told Mabel.
“Oh you are right,” Mabel
said. “So sorry about that.”
“And we wasted time and money
running tests for nothing.”
“It is not for nothing o,” Dr.
Obinna said. “At least we have demystified the pain and also discovered a
silent killer at work.
“So what do we do now?”
Dr Obinna looked
out of the window for a while, in thought.
“We need to know where this
infection is coming from,” he said and turned to Cynthia. “Do you have
unprotected sex?”
“No o,” Cynthia replied.
“What about your boyfriend?”
he asked Cynthia.
“I broke up with him long time
ago. He was cheating on me.”
“Hmmm,”
“What about Chuka?” Mabel
asked. “Is there something going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure you are not
seeing someone else now?” Dr Obinna asked.
“No one. I am in my finals. I
need to concentrate.”
He shook his head
and brought out his prescription paper.
(...to be continued...)
Nedu Isaac
No comments:
Post a Comment