Getting some test done

_{photo by Marcelo Leal}

Sometimes, when I look at how we take care of ourselves health-wise, I wonder how we even get to live long and old because over here, we always think that at least seventy percent of our illnesses has to do with malaria, so whenever we have a fever or we're not feeling too well, we go to the chemist and just ask them to give us malaria medicines.

And unlike some western countries where you have to present some sort of doctor's prescription in other to get certain drugs, you can buy whatever it is you want over here without anyone asking any questions.

I remember one time where someone I knew had gone to this chemist to buy some abortions drugs and the chemist had refused to tell him his name because he was scared that he could get arrested if something went wrong with the drugs. Luckily for the guy, he ended up not giving the drugs to his girlfriend because it turned out she wasn't really pregnant but just had a delayed menstrual flow.

Anyways, you get the point, getting drugs in this country is pretty easy and there's little to no regulations to it.

Well, for the first time in my life, I decided to not behave the African way but to take matters a little bit serious, so I had gathered some money and went to a laboratory for some test.

Recently I've been feeling kinda feverish and usually my personal diagnosis would have been malaria and typhoid, but I decided to do things the professional way today. Rather than self-diagnose, which can be pretty dangerous, I decided to go to a lab to actually get tested and know what's really wrong with me.

Like I said, this was the first time I was visiting a laboratory (because we Africans tend to treat ourselves by ourselves unless it's something serious) and for a minute everything kinda felt strange to me, but I followed the instructions and it all kinda went smoothly.

The only part I probably wasn't a fan of was when she had to take my blood to run some tests. The pain of the needle piercing my skin was something else, and due to the fact that I was trying to be a man and not scream out like a little girl, made it worse. Luckily for me, it only lasted for some few minutes and she was done.

Hopefully when I go for my test results in a few days time, it's nothing serious and I'm good to go.