Every time I watch those medicine adverts on TV, they shangaza me. You see a handsome chap holding his supuu wife and blissfully walking off into the horizon. Then the big voice advises you to "Ask your doctor if _ _ _ is right for you". Soon after the same voice rushes through the side effects that taking _ _ _ can give you, i.e. Dizziness/Vertigo, Nausea, Constipation, Headache, Somnolence, Vomiting, Pruritus, "CNS Stimulation", Asthenia, Sweating, Dyspepsia, Dry Mouth AND Diarrhea.
Riiiiiiight! I'll be sure to dash out and ask my doctor if we should try to cure my dry mouth with something that could give me dry mouth and "CNS stimulation",(itself a composite of nervousness, anxiety, agitation, tremor, spasticity, euphoria, emotional lability and hallucinations). Makes you wonder about all those "mad" people we see everyday. Maybe they had an itchy throat and asked their doctor about _ _ _. Now see!
I am reminded of my high school days when all we had to ensure we stayed healthy was God, the ancestors and a nurse with a Karura forest masquerading as a chip on her shoulder. It is because of the first two that some of us are still living. Thank God and Hail our forefathers!
It did not matter what was ailing you. If you stood before Ms. Karura (lets call her that) for half an hour giving a concise breakdown of your medical and surgical history, all you got at the end of it was 2 Cosmos tablets and a shove towards the door. Headache, Stomachache, Toothache, fever, sprained leg, Heartburn, cramps, Constipation = Cosmos mbili. Cosmos, in case you don't know, is paracetamol in its most basic form. It came packaged in a juala in a big box. Like 25,000 tembes. Anyway, about 2 months after being admitted in the school you realised self medication was the only way to survive and better be on point with your prayers.
One morning while a gang of us stood in line waiting to receive our token dose of Cosmos....... ebu first I clear something up ... You are probably wondering why we even bothered. I'll tell you why. You see, the time allocated to see the nurse was every morning after assembly. This was the same time when we had our "Guard of Honour". Really a fancy name for 'walk past the line of prefects as they inspect you and should they find fault in your ensemble, step aside and wait to be allocated punishment'. Now, if you had, say, an ink smudge on your skirt, you could avoid the trouble by instead going down to the Dis (dispensary) and making up an ailment. Cramps were a favourite. Who could argue with that one? Anyway, after this exercise the dustbin at the exit of the Dis was usually full of Cosmos. I know I never swallowed those things.
Where was I.........? Ahh yes, this particular morning the nurse was in a foul mood. So rare. Noooot! BORAT FOR PRIME MINISTER!!!!!
Sorry. The nurse had nunad, so one by one we stood before her and she handed out our rations, shingo upande. Then there was a commotion at the door. About four Form 1 girls rushed in carrying their friend. She was gasping for air and looking very frail indeed. We stepped aside. Ms Karura barely flinched. She took one look at the young lady and decided she was faking it. Whatever IT was. She continued dispensing Cosmos. "You theenk your reg is broken, take these ones!" Finally her conscience gnawed on the ice cube located where her heart should be and she put down the box of Cosmos. As she approached the patient, the other girls began to explain. "She can't breath, she has a condition, her medicine is finished, please help her". It was a sad scene really. The nurse completely ignored them and asked the patient, "weh, ati what is this that is mbothering you today?" The girl, gasping for air, mastered enough strength to give her condition a name. "I have heart murmur......"
Now, I will make an attempt to describe the burst of guffaw type laughter Ms. Karura descended into. You know the noise donkeys make when they are on heat? Yah. I have never seen anything laugh like that. That ish should be documented. So now the scene in the Dis looks like this, girl gasping for air, her pals tearing helplessly, an ass, sorry a nurse heavy laden by the gigantic chip on her shoulder braying like a horny ass (aha!) and the rest of us standing aside jaws on the floor wondering who needs treatment more urgently. When she finally composed herself she neatly folded her face into a sneer and ask the crowd, "so, does enembody haf heart papa?"
Idiot!
16 comments:
ROTFL!!!!!!!!!! i have died and gone to heaven, ati does any one have a heart what? damn and i thought my high school days were the only mad ones with crazy nurses at the dis. Si i always have mad stories to tell people, but this one is a killer lol.
this is funny. so what is heart murmur anyway? never heard of the condition. i've heard of heart burn, then some sicko said one day that he had heart beat, holding where the heart burn was supposed to be, then when guys laughed he corrected himself by saying heart fire and our laughter cured his condition. but heart murmur?
@ bomseh, a heart murmur is an extra or unusual sound heard during heartbeat. Most heart murmurs are harmless. Some are signs of heart problems, especially if other signs or symptoms of a heart problem are present. Imagine if you were the nurse. Disaster. Karura was also bila awareness.
@don_q, sometimes I think the reality TV we see here has nothing on what we could show them. If my school had cameras.....
I feel you on those tv ads for drugs! They play some nice music and show kids or a couple outdoors, meanwhile they're describing some horrendous side effects. If the cure can make a person that sick, maybe the illness won't be so bad.
Were we in the same school?
Did you undergo "pregnancy tests" which comprised stomach massages - or better yet pumelling?
Our nurse - we called he Mrs. Lucifer.
U are nuts! I have nasty memories of boarding school but this is hilarious.
thanks for passing by.
Nimecheka mbaya!!! Hihihi!!
Us we had anatha single WIDE mathe as a nurse,I think the att problem is a constant....we called ours a-not-so-civillised name wich I'd rather not disclose....noooooot!"BORAT eh?" her name was K'i'-nyodo....astronomical bust!!...1s she attempted to come into our dorm for spot check..(Mkurupuko wa marathi ya kuendesha)..Our dorm's door is ridiculously narrow....You should have heard the eruption....Cosmos,I totalli relate...si ilikuwa sam pink tembes...Umenishaga vinginevyo....
Umeget I hope??hihi!!
@gnd, those ads really crap me up. Then there are the ones that dont say what they cure. Ati "ask your doctor if _ _ _ is right for you". Kwani now I'll walk in with a list. "Doctor, is this one right for me?" "No Nyeuthi, that one is for erectile disfunction".
@anon, that pregnancy test sounds very familiar. Was that school in a cold place in Kiambu district?
@ak, cheers.
@bantutu, aki woishe your nurse!! Lakini roho safi sijaget. Come again!
Hey!! BTW all the Anons on the previous 3 or 4 were me...
Kushaga ni kubamba msee,U can't go wrong with Kubamba...I think I'll start an accademy...hihi!! ebu axx DQ?? hihi!!
ROTFL. This is why i quit boarding school after one year! And it was a prep school chaps and nyaks for dinner too! I guess am not the communual kind of person. Why are school nurses such hard arses? Nice blog by the way...
Damn that was funny. It is a miracle some of us are alive today with the healthcare that was on offer way back when and still is in some places in Kenya!
Jees!! that woman went to which training institution ???? That's a killer story.
We had a cure-all in the form of some pink anatacids - I forget the name- which was copiously issued to all who were sick. Lakini at least our school nurse could give first aid!
First aid. i would not count on too much from a mama who locked the emergency exit with a gigantic padlock.
ours were cetamol,they didnt even have the decency to put the para on the tablet and yes they also came in handy carton packages of 25,000 or so.we also had a 2 jars with strange looking semi liquid substances. here's the catch one was pretending to be cough syrup while the other was pretending to be liniment or lintment(depending on which of the two cows posing as nurses labeled it)use your discretion to determine which one was which when after half listening to your ailment she pointed you in the general direction of the two bottles.
i almost died of malaria because the idiot thought i was faking it even when i started halucinating and lost nearly 10 of the few 50 kilos i still am todate.your right, God and good genes were our only salvation.sis
Ok, this is funny. I never knew! Glad you emerged victorious.
If the anon with the cetamol and i didn't go to the same school, our nurses did. our nurse would open the dis when she felt the kiosk she owned could spare her...clearly adolescent ailments (which are many) are not a priority.
1st form term one, a classmate, who suffers from the worst allergies i've heard of, goes to the capitalistic wench - our school has ascertained to be our nurse , because her allergies are causing wounds to her eyes! The nurse...being the full kurutu...suggests she washes her eyes with water and salt (which she will sell her at a discount from the kiosk as if the dining hall and its free salt have spontenously combusted!).
1st form second term one desk is empty and its occupant, the girl, is AWOL. With unprecedented wisdom, not to mention a huge dent to her family's bank account, she is now safe and sound in some day private school in Nairobi. Convinently located a short drive to one of Nairobi's top hospitals. No doubt her and her family saved millions on the corrective surgeries that consultations with this nurse would have undoubtedly resulted in.
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