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There was something small and sharp stuck in my throat so after trying everything to take it out we went to an ENT specialist, but...
We had just finished our dinner that day. I had made chhole and as soon as I finished I could sense something pricking in the throat.
Gulping water, gargling, coughing….nothing helped. Something WAS there.
I tried to use all my skills to take it out but in vain. I used a torch and tried to locate the foreign body. Yes..It was there, clinging to my throat, near the tonsils.
It was already 9 in the night, but we asked for the ENT specialist who came to check.
He used all his instruments, skill, and patience…to declare that “There was NOTHING!
On my insistence and even on telling him the exact location, he was adamant and said that it was PSYCHOLOGICAL!
These words are good for those who love dramatics! Not me. I thought, I never even sigh even if in pain, and here he was dismissing me as a psycho case!
He then said he would do an endoscopy on me to confirm, and fixed the procedure for the next day.
The next day I went to another ENT specialist, a lady. I told her my ordeal, told her the location of the pricking culprit as I felt it.
She used her skills and instruments, and declared that YES…she too could see what I had described.
She sprayed a little local anesthetic, and pulled the thing out.
It was a small barb that I could clearly see after it was out.
I was relieved of both: the barb itself, and the barb of the labelling of my actual pain as “psychosomatic”.
Editor’s note: Women regularly face #MedicalMisogyny from health care professionals. For the WHO World Health Day 2023 theme of ‘Health for All’, identifying this misogyny and ensuring #Equity in healthcare is essential. All of April, we will be sharing stories with you on this these, either personal stories or fiction. Find them all here.
Image source: YouTube/ Pocket Films: Kundli
Lalita Vaitheeswaran is a gynecologist having a passion for writing in both Hindi and English. She has authored 6 books of poetry, both in Hindi and English, and a book of short stories in English, read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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