being human
Miss B12, Mr.D, the flow of life, Peru, Science, how to dance until we are dead, Kabaddi, and Pondicherry police.
Hello my dear reader,
Thank you for joining me. I hope the week has started well for you.
Sometimes I feel life isn’t moving ahead. It wriggles, groans, and gasps. No matter how much we work or write or think, we don’t seem to make progress. Irrespective of the many hours we spend taking care of us, those extra kilos, that dull skin, that hemoglobin and Vitamin D and Vitamin B12 deficiencies stare right at us.
My full body tests that came out this Monday highlighted iron, Vitamin D, and Vitamin B12 in bold. It is not that I have always been pumping a lot of iron or Vitamin D overflowed from me before. But Vitamin B12 is bothering me for the first time. The doctor tells me, “after Covid-19 most patients tested low in Vitamin B12. The score is ten out of ten.”
“Doctor, I haven’t had Covid-19 (yet)? Not that I know of, at least?” I blurted out.
The doctor said maybe I was asymptomatic. The other day I was talking to a Vietnamese friend I had met while traveling in her country six years ago. She said she didn’t remember how we had met because after COVID her memory fails her. The statement made me sad but also angry. How much has been taken away from us during the last two years? Will we ever be able to tell?
So maybe I had COVID or maybe my low Vitamin D levels have affected B12’s absorption or the lack of animal-sourced food in my diet had caused the depletion. “Vitamin B12 is mostly found in animal-based food,” the doctor had informed me.
“But I don’t eat anything else apart from that rare fish. How will I get B12?” I asked.
“Supplements,” he replied.
I can either take five injections within three weeks or take a tablet for three months and then Miss B12 might decide to grow up or would, at least, stop crouching so low. “The injections are better because they will keep up the B12 for a year.” I was told. And then? I don’t know. Maybe I will nibble a kitten or gulp down a peacock if that is what it takes.
Well, what else am I supposed to do? Mr. and Miss I-care-for-animals.
I care about them, too, and thinking about the kitten and the peacock I do feel dizzy or that might be the low B12 spinning me around.
But comments on Reddit tell me even vegans have had high levels of Vitamin B12. Those vegans who ate cereals and vegetables fortified with the vitamin. Until today I didn’t know what a fortified cereal means, or that it exists. When I am out grocery shopping, I don’t look in the directions of cereals. I can still understand fortified cereals but what about fortified vegetables? I don’t think that is a thing in India. Or is it and I have missed it because I have been hanging out in the 15th century as usual?
Eight years ago, I had got my full body tests done and the doctor had prescribed me Vitamin D supplements. I had stopped taking the tablets after the suggested two months.
When I had taken that medical test, I had quit my job, gone to a dentist, signed up for driving and swimming classes, almost opened a restaurant, started a food blog, cooked and baked all day, and traveled. Crisp and shiny in those white teeth and high and flying on Vitamin D wings, I had taken up a banking job.
The banking job couldn’t keep me inside the glass building for long and soon I found myself getting all the sun I needed out on the streets. They say between 10-12 in the afternoon fifteen minutes in the sun are enough to make enough Vitamin D. But when I posted a photo of me in the sun, people warned me about the harmful ultraviolet rays.
The upper and the lower sides of my arm contrasts like the squares in the chess but I don’t think enough Vitamin has been absorbed even though I might have absorbed them ultraviolet rays a bit too many. Mister D has not been happy.
But since when? Since when is my hemoglobin low? Since that time in 2014? When I have fed myself and have stayed active for years, when did these deficiencies come in? The last month I felt a bit tired intermittently and I was dizzy 3-4 times but I blamed the weakness on the tropical heat and the concentration with which I have to read and write. Wasn’t that it?
How would I know? I would never know. I should have done those tests every year. But I did not. Who wants to go to the lab or a hospital every year to pee into a bottle, get an injection into your arm, and the medical help laughing at you for cringing at a needle going in your throbbing vein because he has seen people being cut open day and night. And then you are made to go from room to room hoping this time the weighing machine will bless you with a little lesser weight else you will have to hear “you need to reduce some weight, by the way.”
“You reduce weight Miss Ayurvedic doctor asking me 9053 questions before giving me medicine for a rash you couldn’t cure.”
ahem. ahem.
But seriously. Who wants to go into the lab and wait for a doctor with real patients around you squirming in their seats, shaking from fever, and coughing and then see the solemn doctor’s face and hear her tell what all is wrong with you, which vitamins and hormones you missed in the biology class are still missing from your body, and then buy tablets and injections to top up the inadequacies. Who wants to do that? Please raise your hand if you are that person. Now look around. You are alone. Aren’t you?
So I didn’t take the test. And don’t I stay healthy eating all those vegetables and fruits and dry fruits and milk and honey and nuts and mixed grains and pulses and beans? Even a cow would be embarrassed to see how much green fiber I eat. But what is the point of all this because Mr. D hasn’t let me absorb the good things out of the expensive organic whole food products that take me hours to buy and carry and cut and clean and cook and keep?
Oh the mood swings and sometimes the low depressing feeling are also all attributed to the B12 then? Don’t worry, I only have to let them inject me five times.
Now someone may ask why did I do the tests all of a sudden? Well, I have swollen and irritable gums since December last year. First I thought I was imagining the pinkness on my gums. Then I stopped eating spices because every time the food was a little spicy my gums burned as if someone had rubbed chili on them. Then extending from the little patch in the right corner, the whole gums turned a bloody pink.
When I told the dentist my story, he called me twice, charged me enough money for two cleanings and polishing, and told me I have to wait to see if the gums heal. If they don’t, there is some deficiency which would need to be fixed. The gums healed and went back to being raw and red again.
Since then (in March) and now in August I made sure I will do everything but not go to the lab or a hospital to get the tests done. Eventually I called someone home to collect the samples and I peed into a tiny bottle and the guy put an injection and took blood in four syringes, but when I told him “please do softly” he had that look that said, “this is just a needle, ma’am, you know we have soldiers on the front.” I didn’t say anything to him for arriving late because he was to put a needle in my vein.
And look what did the good and humble act of getting the tests done gave me in return? Three deficiencies. And calcium and protein are right there, holding on tightly, fighting and losing, and winning their fight with Mr. D for survival. “Vitamin D will take care of the borderline protein and calcium,” the doctor said.
What more can I eat and do? I exercise, I try to sleep right, I go out in the sun, I walk, I laugh, I spend time with my loved one, I eat all the green stuff they will give me in the market, I even pluck edible wild weeds, I have started drinking milk, I eat beans, dry fruits, honey, cheese, I drink at least four liters of water every day, I fast intermittently, I eat hours before I sleep.
I am a walking poster of the “what to do to stay healthy” propaganda schemes. But is there a thing as staying healthy? Human body is demanding, to put it in the mildest manner.
And the questions make you go wild.
Have I ignored the deficiencies long enough that they have caused permanent nerve damage or bone loss or I don’t know what? Was I tired last month or was it last to last month? Have my eyes been a little dry for a few months or has the irritation been recent (caused by B12 deficiency)? What about iron? Was it after I refused to see Ironman the second time? Alright the last one was poor but so is my mental health right now.
And now I have to go buy these supplements and drive that car I have finally learned (I am still in those beginning days when the narrow exits and the cows on the road make me nervous) and get back to peeling and cutting fruits and vegetables and thinking how much spinach I need to chew upon to get all what I need and would Mr. D finally cooperate and let me absorb some of those essentials that will keep me healthy and active and stable?
Growing up into an adult is illogical, to say the least.
What was I thinking just now? Well, that must have been my concentration going off because of my low hemoglobin levels. Excuse me.
Not growing up. Growing up was just seeing how long my limbs were getting. But growing up while taking care of myself is nothing less than a ludicrous act and something tells me I am not ready yet. But then will we ever be?
Have you also been ignoring your yearly tests because you think something bad might come up in them or because you hate hospitals and labs and clinics and doctors and everything that reminds you that life is fragile? Or have you not gotten yourself tested because you are sure everything is alright?
Whatever maybe the reason, believe me, knowing is better than not knowing. Says the child in the body of an adult who is trying to grow up one step at a time.
Oh, and in between writing this newsletter I drove to the medical store, bought the supplements and the B12 injections, and for me, luckily, I found the weighing machine at the store and discovered I have gained a kilo and a half in the last year, the year in which I had lost more than six kilos after many months of effort.
But I guess such is life. Always feeling stuck, but always moving despite. Even if not in the direction we like. Or in a direction we don’t understand, yet.
Do you think you are healthy?
For this week’s letter,
Some of my writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Past Articles I’ve Just Renewed
Manu National Park, Peru [2022] – Daring the Amazon Rainforest
As a little girl, I used to see the Amazon forest on television. My parents and I watched the National Geographic and Discovery channel every evening for hours. During dinner we switched channels because my mother couldn’t eat while the lions and jackals devoured their dead deers. But as she took her last bite, papa would put the Discovery channel back on. And the dense jungles of Karnataka, ochre shrub lands of Rajasthan, and the most mysterious of them all — the Amazon — would spellbind us.
This is my story of visiting the Amazon jungle in Peru.
Read the travelogue now. Or Pocket for later.
15 Fun Things To Do in Cusco, Peru [For 2022]
During the twenty days I traveled in Cusco, I was never bored. Sometimes I hiked in the uninhabited Andes valleys near Cusco city. On other days I soaked in the sun at the main plaza and drank chicha morada (a purple corn drink). While some evenings I admired the rainbows behind the baroque cathedrals only to end up drinking at a fun bar, on mornings I could be found elbowing the locals in collectivos (shared taxis) on the way to the sacred Incan ruins. Once I bantered with fun Dutch and Argentinian travelers in a minibus that drove us to a town near Machu Picchu. And two days later I packed my backpack to visit el Parque Nacional del Manu in the Amazon rainforest (or the Manu National Park in English) – one of my best things to do in Peru.
Any traveler can find a myriad of things to do in Cuzco and make the city their own.
And my guide would help you all the way.
Get to the guide now. Or Pocket it for later.
Quotes I Love
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.” — Mary Anne Radmacher
“The Buddha resides as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain.” — Robert M. Pirsig
“Science is the most real thing in our world, other than nature.” — Harrison Ford (I’m not sure if Ford said this but the quote is worth sharing anyhow.)
“You are always in process.” — Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past week so I’m putting down the things I found most relevant and worthwhile.
Important reads from the week,
Nature as a cure for the sickness of modern times by the School of Life — why nature is not just the healing balm but the flour, water, air, and fragrance of our lives.
Salman Rushdie’s grave fears for Indian democracy published in PEN anthology: “Salman Rushdie signed a letter expressing “grave concerns about the rapidly worsening situation for human rights in India” and contributed a short piece to a collection about India before he was stabbed on stage at an event in New York. The writer was one of 102 signatories to the PEN America letter to Droupadi Murmu, who has served as India’s president since July. The letter, dated 14 August, was sent to coincide with the 75th anniversary on 15 August of India’s independence from British rule.”
Life in Wyoming, in photos — the Americas, from the past.
Helping My Mom Make Friends — a story about friendships, the meaning of age, and how to dance before we are dead.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
that’s worth mentioning
I have only seen the movie Darlings this week and I enjoyed it because the story was all about setting the wrong right while being silly and standing up for each other and going crazy a little bit each time. Finally I have seen a movie in which we aren’t taught to pity ourselves and I appreciate the message.
And for all my Wanderlusters.
Some pictures from Auroville and Pondicherry.
outside a medical store in Pondicherry on the 75th Independence Day of India
local kabaddi match in a Pondicherry village.
break time.
the audience, in blue
Pondicherry police and the temple
Pondicherry’s old and iconic Goubert Market
Thank you for reading.
I hope you have a healthy week. Take good care of yourselves :)
Let me know what you think about this newsletter. Just press reply.
Yours,
Priyanka
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