People say,
"Age is just a number", "You are as young as you think you are!"
But people say all kinds of things! Someone said baby peacocks are born from
tears and that GST was the magic wand our country needed. We live in denial
most of the time. My close friends call me an ageist as I obsess over my age a
lot. Nevertheless, selfies do not lie so I stopped taking those.
Age is a
touchy topic, my view may differ from yours and you may act like the RSS (who
cannot allow differences to exist) and send the vigilante knocking at my door.
A few weeks
ago I had fever and I felt the submandibular gland swell up (that is the
salivary gland on the left jaw line). Thinking it to be mumps, I searched the
net and the symptoms matched.
Mumps mostly
infect children. I felt elated that at least my body still thinks I was a kid
and had invited a childhood infection to breed.
The blood reports were sadly negative. The
doctor now asked for a CT scan and a sonography of the swelling. The pictures
were not pretty. There were four or five of them all in a neat row strung into
my saliva gland like a garland. Everyone who heard this replied with a shocked "What?
Salivary gland stones! I am hearing this for the first time."Well so was I!
Well at least now, I know the cause of my silence
in blogging. I had marbles in my mouth!
Life in these stone ages is rough. I have to
eat sour things 24/7 (sour food cause more saliva secretion). The sales girl
behind the counter stared at my grey hair when I asked her to give me the
sourest lozenges she had.
My double chin looks very "healthy"
now with stones and all. It is painful yes, but I get a good reason to skip my
walks and lay in bed dreaming that the ENT surgeon, who plans to literally slit
my throat, may wake me up from my anaesthesia induced slumber and say, "Here
are your diamonds, Madam".
Here is a spoiler to my diamonds in the sky
dream, Salivary Duct Stones occurs in middle-aged adults only.