Gratitude, Gratitude!- My Life with Tuberculosis

Sleeping at one corner of my bed as my eyes slightly opened to the sound of the nurse pushing a trolley of medicines and drip sets. It was my 4th week in the hospital and I was afraid I have no spot left on my hands and arms for the next cannula.

Tuberculosis Life

Was I actually feeling better?

That is a question I asked myself several times just with a hope to get a satisfactory answer. I never got one and I am still ambiguous about how I felt those days. My immediate answer to everybody and every nurse was always,

“I am good, I am fine”.

But that wasn’t actually true. The picture shows how Tuberculosis changed me within a span of few months and answers a question that I had in mind.

“How does a Tuberculosis patient look like?”

This picture answers all those questions. Bones and bones is how a Tuberculosis patient looks like. It was a time when I was even afraid to look into the mirror and the front camera had been a torture in itself. The hair that I adored were reduced to one third and I feared I might go bald from this Anti Tuberculosis Chemotherapy. And yeah posing for pictures makes them even more absurd (like this one). As scary as this picture seems to me but at the same time I don’t want to delete it ever. I’ve kept it as a reminder of the days which have passed and how I went through everything.

So, that day a nurse figured it out through my expressions and told me directly,

“You are not always okay when you tell us so”.

I was partially shook and despite that I responded;

“I tell you every time that I am okay just so that I may feel better. And just with a hope that I will be okay one day.”

She responded with a prayer asking for my health and well-being and smiled with empathy. I could never decide whether it was actually empathy or pity but it did bother me a lot after that. I never wanted pity for myself, yeah I wanted care, consideration, empathy, hope, companionship but not pity. I reconsidered my behavior and thought process that day and came to the conclusion that in this pool of misery what I needed the most is “Gratitude“

Gratitude became the new philosophy of my life and disease.

When I got discharged from the hospital for the first time I made a video reminding me how I made through. I never thought I would be sharing it here but I am doing it anyhow. The rest of the story is explained in the video itself.

Six Word Saturday