"You're a walking medical disaster waiting to happen." So says my new doctor with whom I spent three hours being poked and pricked. A walking pincushion was more like it, I think.

I do beg to differ with this MD, who is no doubt competent. I prefer to think of it as, "I have dramatic medical episodes."

Yes, that's it. Disasters aren't us. It's just that doctors like to treat disasters and seem to revel in the drama that comes along. Even if there aren't television cameras in the emergency room.

This Diary is a bargain for readers. Not only does it have lessons on handling physicians, but it has a moral. Two, actually. I'll give them to you up front in case you're the squeamish kind.

Moral 1: Know your body so you won't be at the mercy of doctors.
Moral 2: If you don't get to know your body, you deserve everything your doctors do to you.

It all started one day three months ago when I woke up with a scratchy throat. A cold, I thought. No problem. A little sniffling, a lot of sneezing, Actifed, juice, chai, a bit of self-pity and whining and it's gone, right?

Not quite.

Two weeks later I was in my doctor's office. She was examining my lower half but I was suffering up above. By then I was totally congested, ears plugged, nose blocked, gunk in my chest and she didn't seem to notice.

Lesson 1: Doctors can only focus on one body part at a time. Remember this when you catch your next viral -- don't schedule a gyne exam in the same month.

So, looking at her bowed head I meekly asked, as if I didn't already know the answer, "Isn't two weeks a long time for a cold to hang on?"

"Oh, you're new to California. You probably have allergies."

I tried again, now that she was done stretching and swabbing. "But I was fine all these months and this started out like a real cold. I know a cold doesn't last two weeks."

She brushed me aside and said I'd be fine once I got out of town for the weekend.

Oh yeah, just fine, I thought, a few days later in a strange hotel bed, feverish, coughing and drugged up with ineffective cold medications.

Within days my cold had become "more than bronchitis, almost pneumonia."

Lesson 2: When a doctor tells you your cold is an allergy, cough straight into her face. Let her catch the "allergy" and suffer for weeks.

Two different antibiotics and an inhaler later, I was still coughing. Three trips back to another doctor and they were still telling me I was suffering from "allergies". Never mind the fact that trees, weeds, grasses, dust, masala, cats, dogs and perfume do not affect my cough. Forget that sitting in the sun like an invalid actually helps me breathe easier. Just IGNORE me completely... remember me? I'm the one with the hacking cough all day long? Who are they to tell me I have allergies?

Lesson 3: Don't yell at your doctor by email. It only makes you cough more and all he has to do is hit the delete key.

Almost three months later I decided to give in. Okay, you say it is allergy, let's do it. Send me to an allergy clinic and let those weeds and grasses loose on me. You're the experts.

So, this is where I came in above. The walking pincushion, also known as the medical disaster just waiting to happen.

First of all, I was right. What ails me is not allergies. My lungs are "reactive"; poor things have never really recovered from the pneumonia. Had they been full-strength, I could have yelled at these so-called doctors weeks ago. So, now I finally have the drugs I need to get well. So many that I need a chart to keep track what to take when.

But, since my new doctor is an allergist, I went through a battery of skin tests. I think I would have preferred to stay ignorant, what with all the little needles. Ouch! Even though it's summer I'm wearing long sleeves to work to cover up the needle marks running up and down my forearms.

It turns out I am allergic to a "smorgasbord" of things. I love these food analogies. A smorgasbord is like an all-you-can-eat buffet at Indian restaurants here in the US, only this one is made up of weeds and grasses and pet hairs and some foods. I could see for myself that my skin was having a jumpy little time, exposed as it was to such a variety of delicacies.

And that's where the drama comes in. See, as an adult, I seem to have developed some exotic food allergies. So severe and unexpected that I landed up in the ER once. And one summer long ago, had it not been for an emergency supply of Avil I carry at all times, a small banana on a bus between Chandigarh and Delhi would have done me in. Yes, a banana.

Knowing how doctors live for cases like me, today I listed all the dramatic food experiences I've had in recent years. They then gleefully pulled out these little bottles and poked my arms and back. You could say I was literally on pins and needles to see what would happen next.

Daddy, if you're reading this, I AM TOO ALLERGIC TO PEACHES, PEANUTS AND BANANAS! For years he had thought that I imagined my life-threatening allergic reactions. C'mon, think about it. Why would I want to be allergic to sweet desi bananas or Georgia peaches? I mean, for gawd's sake, if I had a say in the matter, I'd pick kaddoo or some other boring vegetable, wouldn't I?

In the end it was an enlightening experience. While I wish they had listened to me when I said my cough had nothing to do with allergies, the testing did prove educational. I have now joined the ranks of those who must carry an Epi-Pen, an injection, in case the next mango or almond or guava causes my airways to close and my skin to burst into glowing red bubbles. Now, doesn't that sound dramatic?

Facetiousness aside, the main reason for sharing my perhaps boring health details with you is wrapped up in the paragraph above. About 10 years ago I was at a movie hall with a friend. We had just finished gobbling down some ice-cream cones when he said he didn't feel well. His throat was hurting and his face was turning red.

At first I thought he was starting to get the flu, but then alarms started ringing in my head. Having had a life-threatening allergic reaction some years earlier, I recognised he was on his way to one then. The hospital was seven miles away and we made it to the ER before his throat closed up completely.

He had sprinkled some nuts on his ice cream that evening. He was allergic to the nuts.

For years I have joked about my strange food experiences and I have taken a good deal of grief from others. Air hostesses give me the look when I ask if they have any other snack besides peanuts, I pick the raisins out of my kheer and friends tell me I'm "delicate" when I say there are some things I can't touch.

People have told me I have imagined it all or that it was just that one banana. But, I know my body -- it's the only one I have. And I ain't putting it through that drama again. Especially not to prove to someone I really did nearly die from a peach one beautiful summer day in college.

I balked when my doctor said today that I was a medical disaster waiting to happen. She was kidding, of course, and I am ever so grateful she took the time to get to the bottom of my three-month-old illness. But the truth is that I have never had a major illness, never been hospitalised, never even sprained a pinkie (touchwood!).

I must be the most healthy medical disaster on record. But, my genetic code is a doozy when it comes to the unpredictable. It keeps me guessing and, every so often, confounds the doctors. I kind of like it that way. I suppose it could make one jumpy or even paranoid, but if you make it a point to know your body, you've got the upper hand. Over the doctors who try and tell you otherwise and people who tell you you're crazy.

I urge you all to get to know yourselves. The next life you save could be your own or that of someone you love or a stranger in a movie hall.