Doctor!

Yesterday afternoon I found myself in Dr. Norbert Filous`clinic. Just around the corner from where Ariela lives and situated conveniently between two drugstores. Had to finally pay that visit because the night before my thumb was horrendously painful, and both Ariela and I knew that something had to be done about it. (Thomas was away in Munich). So off I went to Filous`clinic with Andrea by my side (who also happens to be a nurse and was visting us on her day off).

We stopped for lunch on the way at a cafe in the pedestrian zone. Actually we had wanted to lunch at the Thai fast food joint which has a sunny sit out but it was overflowing with customers so we moved on to the next eatery which is also quite nice except that their outdoor seating is in the shade and it was a pretty cold day. (By Bombay standards). Fortified myself with a beer and with a pizza which I shared with Andrea before moving on to the clinic.

The doc somehow lools like a fiery evangelist - Billy Graham type - but is actually quite nice, At least he didm`t cause me any pain. The moment he undid the plaster on my thumb and saw what was underneath he gasped - and so did Andrea. As usual in such situations of suspence, I held my breath. The doc then disaappeared for a minute and came back with a small scissor like instrument with which he pierced the skin next to the nail on my thumb to let out a fat trickle of puss. (It didn`t hurt at all.) When the goo was all drained out we all three gasped at the sight of the abcess underneath, a small but impressively deep hole from where the yellow goo came out. The doc showered the spot with antiseptic powders and gels and bandaged it good and proper and then told me that if I had waited just a while longer to get it treated, the infection would have reached the bone and he would have had to cut off a bit of my thumb. Aaaaaaaaaaarggggghhhhh!!!!!

So I had to buy a strip of antibiotic capsules which cost a bomb and which I am still swallowing three times a day. The good news is that I visited old Filous this morning and was told that the wound had healed wonderfully and that he had not expected it to happen so quickly. We both peered at my thumb and there was no hole to be seen. The skin has grown around it once again and there is no more pain. Miracle of nature!