At about 7 am the driver turned up and after he got over his shock at my face, we drove to the hospital. We were told this was the best hospital in the province and so we expected a reasonable place that would be able to assist directly. But when we arrived I almost grabbed my tongue and turned the car around to go home. It was an old, run-down looking building of stained concrete with a messy, dirty car park that joined the main building. People had been there, apparently camping all night, waiting for service or waiting for news of friends and relatives being cared for. There were people everywhere. Inside, the dark corridors had few lights working and people were asleep on the floor throughout the hospital. Some were sitting in the corridors sniffing, coughing, moaning and spitting. It was a real mess. At the reception desk two young nurses looked at us with startled faces. Judy told them what had happened and that I needed to see a doctor now. The poor senior nurse saw Jude’s obvious urgency and asked us to fill in a bunch of forms. Jude grabbed them all and said authoritatively, “Where is the doctor?” With this, the nurse got up and beckoned Jude and I to follow her. As we walked along following this neatly dressed nurse, we passed four dead bodies lying in a recess area along the corridor and I felt like I’d come to a very wrong place.
The nurse then took us into a large medical room that had a number of stainless steel benches, a large sink, huge neon lights and an operating table. It wasn’t a real operating room but had quite obviously been turned into a temporary, ad hoc one. The green sheet over the operating table was heavily stained with what appeared to be blood and other human fluids. The outer packets of needles and bandage wrappings lay across the floor and the large bench had several old needles and empty medicine bottles upon it. This really was a house of ill repute, I thought, and here I was, suffering from some unknown medical complaint when in fact I might be infected with something far worse by just being here. The nurse took my personal details including my army regimental number because I couldn’t remember the number of my new ‘official passport’ and my UN Laissez Passer had not yet been produced. I wrote most of this onto the forms she gave me and noticed she was staring at my swollen and disfigured face. It was then, in this place of ruin and disgust, I realised I must of looked like a frightening monster with my eyes bloated, my nose three times its normal size and my tongue lolling awkwardly outside the range of my lips. I was really in a terrible circumstance and not helped by what I could see, smell and hear around me.
Eventually a doctor came to see me. He spoke good English and seemed very professional, calm and sympathetic. He looked at my face, put on a clean pair of surgical gloves and inspected my tongue, ears and nose. I think he was quite taken aback by my affliction but perhaps a little relieved to get away from the death cases that had apparently been going on through the night. The doctor asked many questions about any former allergies, of which I had none, previous incidents of swellings and unusual insect bites or strange food in the last 48 hours of which I knew of none. He really didn’t get much help from me as I had no idea why I was sitting here looking like Joseph Merrick, the Elephant man. Finally he determined that the swelling and bashed up look was all of the same doing. He surprisingly said it was caused by a severe and unusual reaction to stress. I almost choked and said, “But, I don’t understand. I’ve been through far greater stress in my army life and nothing has done this to me before.” The doctor was mildly interested in my response and just said that this is what he believed was the case and with a couple of anti-inflammatory injections and some form of settling medicine, I would be free to leave and the swelling would disappear in a day or two. I admit I was a bit disappointed with his diagnoses, but what could I do? He told the nurses, as now a second nurse had joined us, some instructions in Urdu whilst he continued to take my blood pressure and stick his fingers into my mouth, nose and ears. The nurses left then returned a few minutes later with two syringe needles and a couple of small bottles. I was a bit pessimistic and it must have shown as the doctor said, “These are new needles and they are still in date as are these two bottles of ‘something and something else’ so please do not worry.” He smiled and indeed I did relax and allowed him to inject the two medicines into my arm. Thanking the doctor and the two pretty nurses, we walked outside again, down the wretched corridors and past the diseased and agonising people waiting for medical attention, or death, and left the Hospital. I felt more relaxed on the way home and perhaps it was the medicines already taking effect or the calming comments from the doctor.
We got home and I went straight to bed and slept for another eight hours. It was well into the late afternoon when I did wake up, and, although I felt lousy, my face and tongue seemed to have reduced in size. I ran to the bathroom to check the mirror and the swelling had definitely reduced and my tongue was far smaller. Feeling happy, I stayed up for some time but again hit the rack and slept till the early morning. The swelling took three days to completely disappear and it was a frightening experience though one that has never repeated itself. It quite possibly could have been a nervous reaction to the stress of those first three weeks in the country, but to be honest, I have had much worse periods in my life since then and nothing like this has taken place. I still believe I may have eaten something, or had been bitten by something, or perhaps a combination of all three options took place in those strange and concerning first few days there in Peshawar.
ooOoo
Not so long after all this madness was over, Jude and I were in Islamabad as I was required to attend a briefing and we were told we should buy some great Pakistani made furniture. Some other internationals we had met, told us that the shops in Islamabad could make any timber furnishing in any design we wished. To be honest, until now, Jude and I had lived on a basic Army officer’s salary and had been used to buying second-hand furniture at second grade fairs. But, here we were in Pakistan where everything was made cheap, but to high standards and we were cashed up! A very good shop that had reasonable pricing was described to us and off we went in a hurry, to look. This shop had beds and chairs and rockers and coat stands and clothing stands and tables and wardrobes, in fact, any type of furniture you could think of. We looked all over the display area of the shop and really wanted to buy some. But, we didn’t have to buy what we saw, we could have our own designs made for us and all that was needed was a drawing or photograph. Although I was aware that prices in Pakistan were cheap, this was too much and really I had trouble digesting what we could buy for the amount of money we were being charged. I asked the gentleman showing us around whether it was possible to add this, delete that or perhaps change this design for that. In response, he said politely, though with a certain knowledge and authority, “Sir, in Pakistan, anything is possible.” I could never forget this saying and smiled widely as he said it.
We selected