I apologize for a lack of posting yesterday. If you remember in my last blog post, I said I was feeling a bit under the weather. Well yesterday's feelings of being "under the weather" turned into " oh hey, you're under a screaming hurricane of gastrointestinal pain and fever". The last twenty four hours have been a bit rough for me, but hopefully I have survived the hurricane, or at least am safely retreating in the eye of it.
Yesterday I was feeling out of it, and almost didn't go shadow, but I didn't come to India to lie in bed all day so I went. I saw lots more diabetes patients, and a rare case of pilonidal sinus that was very interesting, except in my sickened state I didn't quite appreciate it.
We then saw many drug reps, but I didn't realize until Dr. Ravi pointed out that they were speaking english. All the drug reps talked so fast and incoherently, I just assumed they were speaking Tamil. News for this girl. Even when I tried really hard to listen to any English I recognized, it still sounded like a foreign language. It was very amusing to Dr. Ravi that I thought they were speaking Tamil, as did I. Apparently my lack of comprehension was due to their speech being given very fast, and their lack of pronunciation. I will continue to listen to these drug reps and let you know if I can understand any of them in the future.
I then finished shadowing, and ate a sandwich and took a nap. I thought I was feeling a lot better, so we all attended the Christian wedding I was talking about yesterday! I have pictures from this I need to upload, so I will do another picture post tomorrow or Monday. It was very similar to an American Christian wedding, minus the "you may now kiss the bride bit". This is of course due to the Indian Culture and public affection. I don't even see people holding hands in public here! Regardless it was a beautiful wedding.
We then went home where I proceeded to think I needed to eat three pieces of peanut butter toast (bad idea) and that's when the fever and sickness set in. I spent all night being well...sick. No reason to get graphic here. Long story short kids, if you're traveling abroad, bring antibiotics as a prof a lactic against any weird bacteria you pick up in local food or water, otherwise you are gonna have a bad time GI wise. Danielle over here, did not do this, and so returned to Dr. Ravi's office, this time as a patient, and not a pre-med.
It was an interesting experience, and is really starting to round out my view of the medical profession here in India. Here, no medical history is taken, and you are not asked about possible allergies unless you tell them. This was intriguing to me until I realized that with the lower level of sanitation and higher exposure to bacteria and germs, allergies may not be as common? More research must be done here, but here is a link discussing this topic if you are more interested. I simply told him my symptoms, (all) of my antibiotic allergies, and he gave me a prescription and sent me on my way.
Another fun fact here kids, prescription drugs here can all be obtained over the counter, without a doctor's prescription. So if I was feeling especially apt, I could have picked myself up a cocktail of antibiotics and would have had no legal repercussions (of course I didn't).I found this very interesting.
They also do not have gatorade here. Or diet soda.
On my way home today, Solomon asked if I wanted coconut milk. I assumed, packaged coconut milk, and said "sure I'll try it". 20 minutes later, Solomon arrived with a cleaved coconut, complete with a colorful bendy straw coming out the top. Not what I expected, but I was very grateful for the gesture.
The antibiotics seem to have kicked in, and I was even able to leave the room tonight to eat some rice! Tomorrow I may get crazy and shower for the first time in 24 hours, we'll see though.
That's all for now folks, more pictures tomorrow (hopefully).
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