Hippy's Scanning Journey - To Trinidad By Plane - 22 August 2003
Back on track?
Street Bard
The Emperorís new brain
Getting the verdict
Well Iím back ëtyping fití as it were. At the moment I am sat in Trinidad, after my MRI this afternoon, feeling a bit of a con. OK 2 weeks ago I was quite debilitated, and was forced to go bra-less due to the complexity of putting it on and Fazi was commissioned to do my hair for me. But now, with the major symptoms diminished it all seems a bit OTT (hopefully the insurance company is not reading this) Rightly, I think the Dr. in Guyana wanted to check that it was nothing more serious than as he had diagnosed before we moved on back into Spanish speaking territory.
Itís all been very disjointed for the last few weeks, and to be honest I rather have itchy feet to move on. But it looks like it will be more than a weekís time before we can get going. What with the saga of baggage reclamation, my illness, my medical insurance dithering around etc.etc. We really have achieved very little in the last couple of weeks.
The whole saga of my illness has brought the whole gamut of emotions, from guilt and embarrassment when the original doctor at Suddie Hosptal came to see me in her own time to check I was OK, and meanwhile I was making plans to seek a second opinion in Georgetown; to sadness that if they find something wrong I may have to abort the trip.
Everyone has become an expert and been giving me caring advice to rest; to exercise; to eat more; to blaming the motorcycling. Because the first diagnosis was a back problem, people are unnecessarily blaming dear Bertha, the weight of the helmet, etc. etc. In some ways it may have been easier if my first illness was not surrounded by people friends.
Guyana has been a joy and very strange. We have been given the best of hospitality, which at times has created it own problems. Everyone we see wants to feed us, so we are a few kgs bigger than we came and at times we had simultaneous invitations, which meant one party getting offended. But it has been lovely. Even at the airport waiting for our flight to Trinidad a guy touched me on the arm and said, ëMiss Helen?í. He had been one of my tutor group and is now studying to be a civil engineer. (Silly bugger) Rekindling our friendship with Fazi and Mansoor and getting to know their maturing children has been a joy.
The frustrations of Guyana have been apparent. For instance the agent, Margaret, who has been a star of the first order, from the insurance company in Guyana was waiting for an email to go ahead with organizing the flights etc. to Trinidad and there was blackout for five hours - no power, no emails. We helped Fazi and Mansoor move, only for them to be told that their new apartment at the mosque will not be ready for a week and they are presently camping out in the downstairs of the mosque.
Sometimes we forget the golden moments that we may never have known about had we not been stuck in some of the places where we have holed up. We managed to catch a glimpse of the ìMiss Guyana Larger Ladyî competition (subtitled ìThe Bigger the Betterî) on the telly. Actually not as horrific as it may have been as I guess embarrassment precludes the hugest from entering. Our favourite part was the round up of the awards for the evening which included the ìNicest Smellî category. Wouldnít like to judge that one.
If we hadnít been stuck in Georgetown waiting for medical attention, weíd never have bumped into William Samuel (Billy) Bremner. We tried to dismiss him as just another street beggar who was hassling us on our way home from dinner, but there was something more intriguing about his ëpitchí compared to the usual whinging. We gave him a moment of our time and he filled us in with an extraordinary life story all of which was extremely plausible given the supporting evidence. He has travelled to 26 countries (pretty much unheard of for a Guyanese) and speaks 4 languages (I guess 5 if you count Guyanese as distinct!) which coincides with my own knowledge of idioms and so was testable. After a spell of gold mining in the interior he went down with cerebral malaria which has left him a bit mad. As he considers himself to be mad in his lucid moments, can he be truly considered to be mad? We did not inquire as to the exact nature of mad episode had lead him to serve a stretch in Georgetown prison, but agreed that this is not necessarily the best place for mental health convalescence.
He now lives on a park bench in front of one of the more prestigious hotels in Georgetown and composes poetry. He sells these for cash to eat and use the Internet. (How mad is that? Sambremner@hotmail.com ask him!) We bought one of his poems as I thought his self-help scheme was rather refreshing. It may not be the greatest in the world, but here goes: -
They speak of constitutional rights,
They speak of democratic rights,
They ignore human rights
Do they deserve their rights?
They speak of comradeship,
They speak of fellowship,
They turn their backs on human relationship
And their only interest lies in merchant ships.
They abhor capitalism,
They distrust communism,
But embrace racism
They say, ìblack manî,
They say, ìwhite manî,
They are the ones who harden the land.
Why canít they just say ìmanî?
As for me the Afro is my brother,
The Caucasian is another
And so is any other
So I tell those hypocrites not to bother
For my philosophy is to respect each other.
William Samuel Bremner
The Street Ambassador
The rest of our time in town was, as Helen has said, mostly sitting around waiting for things to happen. Having been given wrong information, we arrived at Fazia and Mansoorís new gaff after all the hard work had been done. Well, the lifting and humping, at least. Helen gave me a bit of a scare as she worked up a good old sweat scrubbing carpets. I imagined a sweating ñ dehydration ñ headache ñ nausea ñ incapacity episode coming up and pleaded with her to give it a rest. Once bitten, twice game.
At last all came together and we headed for the airport bright and early for the flight to Trin. Nothing of note other than the check-in clerk informing us that the flight number was to be 464 instead of whatever it had been. I was rather tickled as there were only two planes on the tarmac and one of them was not likely to be moving for a day or two. Not much chance of getting the wrong flight! The airport has not changed much other than its name. Rather than sticking with the traditional local village name of Timehri it has been tributed to one Mr Cheddi Jagan, the former East Indian premier of this land. Yet another kick in the bollocks for the Amerindian community, then.
Not impressed with these hour-long flights where you only get a glass of juice. Still, weíre not paying so weíll let it go! We had been a bit worried about potential hazards entering Trinidad as they apparently watch arrivals from Guyana like hawks. It was a bit of a long drawn out affair explaining why we were coming for such a short time, but the story was accepted with huge amounts of extra notes being appended to our entry forms.
Unfortunately there was little we could make of our visit to Trinidad 2 days had appointments and the third was the day of the Bolton Wanderers disaster and picking up the scan pictures of my brain and a report. The good news is that I have a brain and in profile it looks remarkably like those diagrams in the textbook. The bad news is that that they have found a couple of anomalies. Now Pat, quite rightly says that he always knew that my brain was a little odd. The report was written in medical jargonese so it meant very little to us and we both took the attitude the since we had no idea what it meant we should not panic and just wait till the neurologist could explain the medical nonsense. We both wondered a little if giving them a rough idea of the problem before the scan may prompt them to emphasise some anomalies and ignore others. It would be better science if they were analysed blind, to prevent any biased analysis. Anyway now it appears that something is not as it should be but have no idea how serious it is.
It was quite fun though looking at pictures of my brain from every conceivable angle. My eyeballs look particularly silly.
At our hotel, there were a couple of well meaning missionaries out on a reccy to see where their services could be most put to use. Pierre, a Swiss guy and his friend Juan from Argentina, had been missionaries in Mozambique and China amongst other places. They didnít seem to be particularly bible bashers but even so within seconds it was clear what their intentions were in Trinidad. Unfortunately neither was a doctor and could make sense of the report so I was still none the wiser.
So, now having proof that my brain is a bit odd and Bolton being hammered by cheating Man U (not sure we can call them cheats on the basis of a 200 word internet report on the match but we were certainly not happy) ñ we needed cheering up! Sod the expense, we went out for a nice meal in a very nice Thai place. It was lovely! The staff were the most highly trained I have ever witnessed ñ it was almost impossible to tell when they stamped on a cockroach, so smooth were their actions. To be fair, though, the cockroaches were unavoidable as they dropped from the trees surrounding the lovely dining area facing onto the Queens Park Savannah ñ goes with the territory.
The flight back was delayed and some of the Guyanese on the plane took the opportunity to try and drink Piarco airport dry. One of the men then to his patiently waiting women and complain of biliousness (see previous entry on Fawltiesque ìbiliousî rant). You see! It is a real problem in Guyana! He planned to see the doctor about it on his return. Regrettably we ended up seated next to one of the drunken, returning ex-patriot Guyanese. I declined his offer of a drink from the stewardessí trolley and felt rather sad about this sub-set of Guyanese society that insists on getting incoherently drunk at any opportunity.
Unable to get through to Esther on the phone, when trying to use up our Trini phone card, we arrived in Guyana still in ignorance about what half of the words meant on the MRI report but we thought they sounded pretty serious. Doctors do like to say things like acute and marked, which makes them sound pretty extreme when really itís just talk. We resorted to the Internet to find out what an infarction and other things were. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing and we were no happier with the definitions provided by the on line medical dictionary.
Iíve always had something of a fondness for the legal system in the Caribbean. We once stayed with some friends in St Vincent and they showed us their collection of newspaper articles that showed the judgements in the local court. There was one rather outspoken judge who berated the sentenced criminals for their stupidity. For example, someone who had stolen a glass from the house of his employer (a rock star on the island of Mustique, by the way) was told that ìYou wouldnít even know how to drink out of a glass, boyî. More credible if it had been in the ìDeep Southî a hundred years ago, perhaps and not spoken by one modern Vincentian to one of his liberated countrymen. All very amusing, Iím sure, but also a little worrying. The judiciary has a serious responsibility for interpreting the law and thus guiding the morals of society. Is humour in the court to the point of abuse acceptable?
What brought that rant on? You may ask. As we left Trinny, I was reading the local rag to see what was happening. Staring at me out of the pages was a familiar looking face with an extremely familiar name underneath. Justice Ramsahoye could be no other than the brother of Doctor Ramsahoye, the neurologist under who Helen has been receiving advice. When we got back to town, I took the chance to confirm that this is the sibling that Iíd guessed at. Getting the doc onto the subject of the law put the consultation back a little, as this is clearly one of his pet subjects. Itís a small world! In fact Ramsahoyeís office is opposite the shop where Mansoor changed his tyre on the day Bertha refused to start, two doors away from the Brazilian bar where we waited for the baggage from Annai that didnít arrive and the radio station where we made our plaintive calls is just round the corner. All a little spooky really.
He was very pleased that the ultimate forum for appeal under Caribbean law is generally to the Privy Council as this had been written into the independence agreements. When I suggested that this was something of a ploy by Britain to retain a bit of power in the region, he was most indignant that there should be no other way. The rewriting of the constitution by a former Guyanese dictator, oops, president means that Guyana is the only one of the Commonwealth without this ultimate legal safety net and has suffered some presidential abuses as a result. His point that with a population of about 5 million in the whole of all the Caribbean Commonwealth countries, there is simply not enough law being practiced and tested to produce judges of the required calibre was well made and I began to see his point. It was hard to tell whether his advocating the use of retired judges from the UK to come and work as overseers of the legal system in the Caribbean was a bit tongue in cheek or not. I guess if they provide a nice beachfront property in the islands and enough brandy there would be quite a few takers.
It seems that the Ramsahoye family, are part of Guyanaís intelligentsia and have chosen to remain loyal to their Caribbean routes and try in their own walks of life to maintain their values and ethics despite the madness that may go on around them. As with anyone who doesnít tow the line in such a small community as the Caribbean countries this can make you unpopular with others. We on the other hand enjoyed a frank discussion with someone who is astute, witty and is unwilling to compromise on his ethics. To my mind Guyana could do with a few more of him. We like to think that he too got some satisfaction from airing his views.
What of the consultation, then? Hippy, it seems, has recovered over 95% of her faculties. Only the tendency of her thumb to raise from horizontal when her eyes are shut and more pronounced reactions on one side of her bod are the remaining physical manifestations of her former incapacity. She feels an odd numbness in her lower cheek, too. The infarcted area of her brain is consistent with the original migraine diagnosis, but the cause seems to have been a shortage of blood owing to the malformed artery rather than a migraine episode as such. Also much of the area should revive being just swollen at the moment leaving only an insignificant spect of a problem. So, is this good news?
I could tell that Dr. Ramsahoye was struggling about what advice to give us about whether to continue travelling or not. In all likelihood I have had a dodgy blood vessel since birth and only after 36 years has it caused a problem. As he says modern high tech. procedures like MRI find problems that previously a person would happily have lived in ignorance of for possibly the whole of their lifetime with no ill effects. Not that ignorance is bliss but more knowledge means that you have more to worry about. It seems that I could go ëtill 100 and not have a recurrence. Most of the countries we intend to travel to are not up to speed on medical matters, and this is what concerns him. In the end he had not had a chance to properly analyse the scans so we arrangements to meet him again the next day.
As the dust settles, it seems that Iíve almost certainly had the artery restriction for ages which explains my predisposition to headaches. The dehydration and surfeit of red blood cells from having been at altitude for a good time meant that my blood got a bit treacly and couldnít get through. Simply keeping away from really high places and being careful with keeping fluids up should prevent any recurrence. It might be worth mentioning that Iíve been on the pill for absolutely yonks and maybe it was time to come of it anyway. He seemed confident enough in the fact that this was just a blip in a normal healthy life to tell me that it was OK to carry on. As far as Iím concerned, Hips should not be using any diuretic substances which means all the more wine for me, then. Top. This will also counter the effects of her raised fertility from coming of the pill. Sorry, guys but you get the story of our lives warts and all.
It was a relief to know that we would not be forced to end the trip. I am sorry that this blip may have got readers overly concerned, I am now feeling fit and healthy and eager to get on with the trip.