My Little Brother! – And his “Adventures”

Being the youngest in the family, my little brother is loved and pampered by everyone. We love him and he knows. I think this made him extra adventures. He is a thin built boy who just turned 18 last week. Yet he is stronger than he looks and calls himself “Fastest Man Alive“.

This is a brief and now I can start with his Adventures.

Curiosity can be Mother of Accidents!

As we know, humans are supposed to be curious. And my brother is ultra-curious since he was a child.

Well, it was his curiosity that almost made him burn our home. And again it was the curiosity that made him put his finger under the needle of a sewing machine.

These activities are our family moments and we laugh every time we discuss them. Laughing over the topics make them less serious and encouraged my brother’s ventures.

I think somewhere during the journey, my mother also influenced him a little. Whenever my brother was bullied in school, he used to tell my mother. And she being a mother took the matter into her hands and tell on the bully kid to his mother. But his mother’s answers where like “kids are supposed to fight and we cannot do so much”. So, the next logical step according to mother is to preach to my brother “Never bully/hit anybody first. But when a bully hits you, give him your strongest punch“.

This happened when he was barely 9 years old. But he took my mother’s lesson very seriously that helped him keep the bullies away.

Puberty – The Worse Phase!

He was such a nice kid, up until he reached the puberty. Oh God! I hate kids at their puberty and I even hated myself during my adolescence.

He started acting out, joined “Bad Company” and fought with parents on little issues. Well, this is normal for the parents of a teenager.

We tried to stop him to talk to his notorious friends but he was not the person who would listen. He roamed around the blocks and his school performance automatically affected.

But we never had issues with his decreasing grades. He is a bright kid that has his potentials and a bright future. Our concern grew when his health started getting affected.

The Series of Diseases – A Start

It started when he was 15 years old and got the chicken pox. Most of you will think that chicken pox is normal and goes away after a while. We thought that too. He recovered well from the chicken pox and life continued.

But again after a few months, he diagnosed with the Typhoid. It was a shock to all of us. He always seems healthy and fit. How could my little brother get such a serious disease? We started his treatment that was 15 days of painful treatment. He was able to walk and move so we didn’t admit him to the hospital but took him to the clinic twice a day for his medication.

The Typhoid was painful in many ways:

• He got the IV treatment and oral hydration therapy along with heavy medications on daily basis.
• The IV treatment is basically intravenous treatment. That means he was injected with the medications on daily basis and had an intravenous needle is always attached to his hand for 15 days.
• Due to the attached needle, his movements where limited. And during the medication, it hurt him as well.
• Anyhow, the treatment finished and typhoid was cured.

We were happy and though little brother is good to continue.

There is More – Not an End

But it was a few weeks past and he complaint pain in the chest even while breathing. This time we were, over cautious and took him to diagnose.

The physician said, he had an increase in the fluid that is between lungs and diaphragm. And the possible reason could be the side effect of typhoid or TB(Tuberculosis). Then we were suggested to remove that liquid as soon as possible for the lab test to check for any kind of infection.

After the series of tests, the diaphragm liquid was removed by directly puncturing his diaphragm with a syringe. The diaphragm liquid has no infection that gave us relief.

But the TB test came positive. Now TB is a serious chronic decease. We immediately started the medication that was 6-month long treatment.

We concluded, all the problem that happened was due to typhoid. It could be one of the side-effects of medication that increased the level of diaphragm liquid. Or his body became weak and easy caught the TB bacteria.

He recovered fine and life continued again. The year past by and we forget that all these ever happened.

The Battle Continues – It Recurs!

My brother has a passion for running. So he joined a sports academy and started getting the professional training to become an athlete.

He was started getting good at the sport. But, all of his joy came to an end when one day he encountered a severe stomach ache. He was taken to the physician and provided with medication to minimize the pain. But those were not working for him. So, we went for a blood test and ultrasound of his entire belly.

Both tests came with shocking results. He had a high level of bilirubin in his blood that causes jaundice. And the ultrasound report suggested he had gallbladder stones. The entire picture cleared up, the pain was due to the gallbladder stones. And the high level of bilirubin was due to malfunctioning of the gallbladder and liver performance as a unit.

It is the worst thing happened to me and my family. We were unable to react and work for a while. And by every day passing, his pain worsened. The surgery was the only option to offer him the relief.

We went for 2 more sessions of ultrasound in the hope that he has less number of stones and medication can help us avoid the surgery. Because according to the initial report, he had 20-30 gallbladder stones. But the later results were no different.

We had no option but to go for the surgery.

We were unable to process the thought but that little kid was brave and said yes, “I will go for surgery and have my gallbladder removed“. His brave nature gave us strength too and we took him to the hospital.

He had his surgery and gallbladder removed. There are still some complications after but he is recovering fine.