Rolling Stones

Weirdly enough this is the opening story of my adventures in India. However, I decided to post it now, because it turned out to be the closing chapter as well. And btw, yes,  I am not in India anymore. I left one month earlier than expected. Read and you'll find out why...

June 16th (day 2)

Today was a surprise; an unfortunate one. I woke up at about 10:00-11:00, and I had a minor annoy in the stomach, so I thought directly that this is how  diarrea  that everyone was talking about feels like. Strangely enough though, I had no need to visit the bathroom. Therefore I decided that this was just a signal of my organism saying: “dude I’m hungry”. Very well self, I thought, and I dressed up and took a small walk trying to find a decent place to eat. When I finally ended up in a European/American feel-like cafeteria, the pain in the stomach had already begun to be super annoying. I ordered immediately, and opened up my laptop to see if I could get any network. By the time my Indian sandwich and cappuccino were served, the pain was unbearable and I started to panic. The people around should definitely think that I was some kind of drug addict. I was sweating like a pig, my whole body was shaking and I was breathing heavily. In the meantime the monsoon had arrived. A heavy rain was wiping the cafeteria windows and all the hobos and beggars found shelter under the cafeteria tent.  A woman was changing her baby child soaked clothes right in front of two girls, who were enjoying their cappuccinos. Me, I never touched my coffee or sandwich. The pain was intolerable, so I paid the bill, bought a bottle of water and headed back to the hostel. I laid on the bed hoping that the pain will go away, but in vain. So I called a guy from the office, called Pranav and explained him my situation aking him where is the closest hospital. He told me that he would come and pick me up. Ten minutes later I decided to just go and find the closest clinic myself. Luckily enough there was one down the street just five minutes walking from the hostel. By the moment I laid on the patient bed, I was soaked in sweat and unable to manage the pain. The doctor examined me and told me that there was a chance of having kidney stones. The fans of the “Friends” tv-series could not but realize the irony of this incident.  An Indian doctor saying  his Mediterranean patient: “It’s kidney stones”.  Exactly like the episode where Joey is told that he suffers from kidney stones. At that point Pranav arrived in the clinic, and made all the arrangements with the doctor the bills and everything. From that moment and on Pranav became more or less my unofficial guardian. Later that morning, when the pain went away, he took me to Hinduja Hospital, the place where I hanged out the most while living in Mumbai. After some tests and examinations, the doctor of the emergency also diagnosed kidney stones and suggested I should see a urologist as soon as possible.

In a nutshell, after visiting Hinduja Hospital more than five times, my 6mm kidney stone became much more confident acquiring the respectable size of 9mm by the end of July. That was big enough to bend my will to spend the rest of the one month I had left in Mumbai, and fly back to Athens. I landed back home on July 29th after a short meeting with Indian bureaucracy,  that managed to keep me two more days in Mumbai. However, I am not complaining about this, as I had the chance to use the extra time and go around Collaba and Bandra together with Neha and the rest of the people from the office, and have a great time!

Right... this is another chapter that I ll talk about in another post... Now, let me tell you how the stone story ends. The very next day of my arrival here in Athens I went to see a doctor , who found out that I had not one but two kidney stones (the second one was a coward bastard hiding behind his brother). I had the stones removed the very next day, and just yesterday (Aug 17th) I also had the "pig-tail" (google it to see why it is called like that) they placed during the first operation, removed from my kidney. And that would conclude my rolling stone story. Right now I am doing some tests to see why I had a kidney stone in the first place. On the other hand, for those who think that everything happens for a reason, I am obviously loosing my time...