Henna!!!

Namaste!!!

Today is my last day in Dehradun and am just waiting for my train at 11:30pm tonight so I can head to Delhi and then to London and then back to Boston and HOME!!!! (I'll be back Monday night) So I had a ton of time to kill today because I am the last student in Dehradun so I went and got henna this morning!!!! If you don't know what that is, its a semi permanent body art, which means it last for about 10 days and is very traditional of India for women to get before ceremonies like weddings. As for me, getting it is a celebration of my journey home, which I can't wait to be! (I have included a picture of it, not mind however)

The place I got henna at, the family was extremely nice and we mainly talked about the differences between the US and India while my Henna dried (it was raining... go figure... monsoon). The whole family was into the gold jewelry business and was to be taken over by the two sons I met who were 17 and 19 years old. Although they were both in school for other things besides what their family business entailed, the father wanted them to get an education, which pleasantly surprised me. After and exchange of e-mails, facebook, and addresses I said goodbye and was in for a very boring afternoon while I kept the henna plastered to my skin.... now it looks AWESOME!!!

Hopefully while I'm in London or the airport I will be able to post another blog entry, there are just somethings I feel need to be summarized about India that people should know about my journey through this country.

Until then...

Namaste

Mussoorie, Queen of the Hills

Namaste!

Well last week we were in Mussoorie, which is also known as queen of the hills, which I wish I could say I really got to see hills, but due to the MONSOON season, I didn't get any good views except of clouds, which we were in mostly.

Anyways, my group was pretty burnt out from clinicals this week so we didn't exactly involve ourselves like we did in the past three weeks. I think this is partly due to the trip recovery to Agra and getting homesick, oh and maybe just a little too much of India.

Katie and I did however on the first day in Mussoorie mention that we hadn't seen a birth yet and we really wanted to and the doctor we were with said, "Oh well there is a woman about to give birth in about 45 minutes if you would like to watch." We were pumped!!!!!!!!! She had been in labor since 6 pm the night before and it was about 11am when we started watching. She was in a lot of pain and nothing seemed to be happening and then the nurses were all of a sudden scrambling around and we moved to prime birth watching positions and saw that she was crowning!!!! Very exciting, and they had to tell her not to push in order to get ready to CATCH! The baby popped out like it was nothing and we watched the whole process of cleaning him up. (it was a boy so good thing, I didn't want to have to think about her throwing it into the river). We were so pleased with checking this off the list of things to see that we stopped clincals for the day and went into town where we... shopped, ate, and of course got ice cream... which we did for the next 3 days :) Goodness I miss home.

The next day at clinicals Katie and I shadowed the ultrasound doctor, Dr. Samuals, who told us that there were no surgeries for the day and that there weren't going to be anymore patients. So what did Katie and I do? We showed up for surgery :) And guess what we watched three!!!! (performed by Dr.Samuals... wonderful) The scrubs were much different from back home, well the men wore practically the same thing at home that surgery buffs do, but as for the girls... we wore skirt scrubs and dress scrubs over it... We looked ridiculous! I don't think wearing a skirt and a dress in an OR in the US would ever ever fly... but we did it in India! The great thing about the OR rooms in Landour Community Hospital was that there were huge windows that over looked the awesome view... if I could have seen it! The three surgeries we observed were a partial abortion, tubectomy, and an ovary biopsy. The crazy thing about the tubectomy was that they walked the patient right into the room, scared and all, and had her lay down on the betadine soaked table that the last patient had been on, with some blood and betadine splattered in places over the floor!!!!! I guess I was just glad to see the surgeons change gloves.

Besides buying tons of Kashmir goods and eating out a lot and ending with ice cream every night, not much else happened in Mussoorie. Did I mention we stayed in the hospital itself and in the "premium wing" which means we got a flat screen tv! whooo!!! But it was still a little creepy...

Ideal India

Namaste

I Survived the Sleeper Bus to Agra and Back!

Namaste!

Again, I am trying to get caught up on my blog... and am writing about our little trip to Agra last weekend (July 23-25).

After our little taxi ride to Dharamsala (aka massive hours) Katie and I decided to try a different form of transportation, and the sleeper bus was recommended by some and totally discouraged by others with people telling us that we would get robbed or drugged, fantastic. But the other group members decided the taxi was okay and it could only fit six people, Katie and I would be the seventh and eighth members to this trip thus it was not economical for us to jump on in another taxi because it would have cost everyone wayyyyyy too much. This left us with some options, take our own taxi and have it cost over $200 (20,000 Rps.) per person to go to Agra and back, or we could take the sleeper bus (with AC) and have it cost about 1000 Rps. which is more like $20 in the US. Well guess what we picked... the sleeper bus.

On Friday morning we reserved our spots on the sleeper bus and arrived at I.S.B.T. (the bus station) at around 7:30 pm to swoop onto the sleeper. When we received our spots we were so pumped, Katie and I had our own double bed! And there was AC! This ride down to Agra was great, we weren't bothered by anyone (we had the curtain closed so no one could see us) plus we were at the very front of the bus so we could really see where we were going (and who was coming on and off the bus... this is key). By the time we got to Agra we had slept for about 6 hours and the total trip was about 12 and half, and we had to pee like none other!

Once we got off the bus we found the GROSSEST bathroom in India. Katie told me after that out of all the bathrooms in India she had been in this was the worst (I had no idea on the other hand because I tend to wait until we get home and not take my chances at public bathrooms... probably not the best idea). This bathroom was just a "hole" in the ground and the door had cracks between the boards so you could totally see in and out, plus the "locking" mechanism was a chain that you put over a nail. Oh how I miss you New England out houses! Anyways when we were finished a woman in the bath room was squatting in the corner and asking us for money for food (this was all with hand gestures) but Katie and I both agreed after we gave her about 5 Rps (10 cents in the US) that she did not need it at all because she looked very well nourished... This was only the beginning of the chain of scams of the trip.

The next order of business was to find a place to eat breakfast close to the Taj Mahal because the rest of the group in the taxi had not arrived in Agra yet. So we jumped on a rickshaw (in Agra they called them took tooks) where we were taken to a place close to the Taj Mahal, but we wanted to go to a cafe... this is when our driver told us to hop on this bicycle carriage and this other bicycle driver would take us to a cafe. Once on, Katie and I realized this was possibly our biggest mistake of the morning because it was slow going and Agra is HOT! Plus not even 5 minutes into the ride Katie got whipped in the face by a dirty cow tail... yes... they are everywhere! Because the situation was already out of control Katie didn't think much of this cow flick... oh we were in for it.

Once we got back onto the main road the guy asked us again where we wanted to go and we said to a cafe to eat breakfast that had AC... he told us that he knew a very good place and it was close by. Well this place was called Only Restaurant. Once we pulled into the parking lot I immediately noticed there were no cars in the parking lot and the fountain was broken and it looked closed. We asked the driver if it was open he said yes so we went in. To our surprise it was open but we were the only people there! The only man working there turned on the AC for us and took our order. I put my contacts in at another empty table... there were many... oh and the hadn't really turned the lights on... or maybe that was just the atmosphere they were trying to create.... anyways we had our own personal restaurant... ridiculous!

The food wasn't great, but we ate because we were starved! Once we were finished we found our driver of the bicycle thingy and we asked him to take us to the hotel that the rest of the group in the taxi was staying at which we thought was called Ashish Alice Hotel. Once on the road (not even two minutes) he pulled over to ask for directions. Then five minutes later he asked again. Another five minutes he asked again... oh and it was getting hotter and hotter out and we were moving very slow... just peachy. This went on for about an hour until he was pointed in somewhat of the right direction and at one point Katie and I got fed up with it and jumped out of the carriage thing and said we would find a rickshaw to take us. At this point we were going in circles (literally we took 3 left turns in a big loop) but he told us to get back in and we were only 2 minutes away. Well we got back in but we didn't get to the hotel for another 10 or 15 minutes. Once we pulled up we found that the hotel was called Ashish PALACE Hotel.... lost in translation of a cell phone call Palace had turned to Alice and we had been unnecessarily lost for over an hour and a half on this stupid bicycle thing! The best part was when we got out we asked how much and he said 200 Rps. so Katie handed him that amount and then he said "No for both". This just sent me over the edge and I had a little bit of a hissy fit and said that this whole thing was ridiculous and just threw the money at him... what a scam...

Once in the hotel things settled down a little, we took showers, a nap for me, a run for Katie, and then we were off to get some lunch at our favorite cafe... Cafe Coffee Day. Post lunch we went with a friend in the group to the Taj Mahal.

The Taj was everything I expected it to be, huge, symmetrical, and a land mark of India. The funny thing about the Taj is that for Indians it only costs 20 Rps. when for foreigners it costs 750 Rps. (over $15 in the US), the difference is just astounding, but hey they get our money... We did get a guide but he was useless because none of us were listening, he did come in handy for taking group pics of us however. We stayed at the Taj for about and hour and a half and while there we had our picture taken by almost every Indian person there... well it felt like it. People would even try to take our picture secretly... they weren't very good at it. I was also very surprised the lack of Westerners at the Taj, I thought there would be a ton, but it ended up being only a few and a ton of Indian tourists! We then went to the Red Fort. This was another wonderful Agra landmark and you could see the Taj from a far, which is almost more impressive than actually standing in front of it. When coming out of the Fort we got accosted by "sales men" trying to sell us peacock feather fans, post cards, and other excessive touristy things. (This also happened coming out of the Taj with a group of little boys that were selling snow globe key chains of the Taj Mahal... We felt bad for them because we knew they were working for someone else and they chased our rickshaw down the road for a good while!).

Katie and I had also been trying to get a bus home, but we were getting a lot of mixed answers from people saying that we had to stay and there was no room and that you couldn't book it in advance... this was extremely frustrating! The driver that we had to the Taj said it was not possible to go back to Dehradun for a few days, but this is because (we found out later) that he wanted us to go to a marble store (of which he would get commission if he brought people there and they spend money). What a dream! Scams galore! Instead we decided to stay with our friends at the hotel and went to a roof top restaurant and had a pretty good meal of chow mien (yes I miss noodles and am sick of rice).

That night Katie and I got our own room, which was the best 1000 Rps I've spent in India because I got such a good night's sleep and we watched Friends (the tv show in English) and ordered room service in the morning.

We had time to spare so we decided to waste our afternoon at the Internet cafe near the hotel where we spent about two hours (where I updated my blog) and then we went into shop mode because attached to the Internet cafe there was an awesome (touristy) store where we bought clothes and presents for peeps back home (oh and myself). This shopping experience was the best I'd had in India... low stress, the man was very good at customer service and helped us with everything, plus he had a great selection of things (anything you could think of). This place was called Amin Art Gallery and is featured in the Lonely Planet... I would def. recommend it!

After this Katie and I HAD to eat before going to I.S.B.T. to get on another 12 hour bus back to Dehradun so we ate at Pizza Hut... again I really am sick of rice and miss home.

Once we got to I.S.B.T. we got our tickets for the bus... however we did not get beds this time, so we were going to be below the beds in seats (and in the back of the bus) but we were still thrilled to get seats and get the heck out of Agra. This is where my confidence in the sleeper bus falters because of the horrific ride we had back to Dehradun...

First, the bus had horrible shocks in the back and we bounced around and at time were sent flying into the air. Second, our driver hit a railing about 10 minutes into the drive. Third, we got a flat tire around 3 in the morning. The worst I haven't even told you about...

At about 10pm two very creepy guys got on the bus, they were def. drunk by the way they were acting and walking. They sat right in front of Katie and me. For the next hour Katie and I were on edge because these men kept looking back at us (and we were only feet away). We could tell they were only waiting for us to fall asleep so they could rob us because every few minutes one of the men would light up his cell phone and the other would look back to see if we were awake or not. Well we stayed awake the whole time. We were so on edge that I got out my handy dandy rape whistle that Bates gave me at the start of my freshman year and I was ready to blow that thing if these men tried anything, I was prepared to wake that whole bus up! Katie and I had also borrowed our friend Sarah's mace for the ride... Katie was manning that, armed and ready, fight or flight... I had way too much adrenaline running through me during this hour. The staring finally go to Katie and she tried to sarcastically and meanly say "hi"... more like go away hi... but it didn't come off that way so I growled at them through clenched teeth saying "Stop, Turn Around" which helped for a few minutes because they stopped looking back at us. Eventually they got off the bus around 11pm and I collapsed, started crying, but recovered quickly because we still had many hours left on that bus.

The next great thing to happen that night was after the bus got the flat a man came back and sat right behind us in the last seat (we really were at the back of the bus and the darkest part). Katie and I got the creeps from him (we were already on edge) but when he started creeping over our seats Katie whipped around and gave him the death stare, after which he moved to the other side of the back seat and then I glared at him and he went back to the front of the bus. I watched where he went and saw him put a button up shirt on at the very front... then I realized he was the conductor of the bus, AND HE TRIED TO ROB US TOO!!!!!! No one else on the bus was bothered or even got a second glance by any of these 3 guys even though their luggage was all over the isle and could have EASILY been stolen. We had definitely been targeted because of our white skin and being female... just great... this is when our new term came in handy... Ideal India... which is what Katie and I have been using for the past week to write off all the ridiculous things that happen here.

But we survived the sleeper bus to Agra and back!

We got back to Dehradun around 9 am and were so happy to see Dehradun... and then we were off to Mussoorie, the Queen of the Hills city for the next few days to stay at Landour Community Hospital and finish our rotations.

Ideal India

Namaste

The Buddhist Temple in Dehradun

Namaste!

On Friday the 23rd, (right before going to Agra) Katie, Lauren, and I went to the Buddhist temple in DehraDun, and it was simply wonderful! It was quiet, away from all the honking, although we did get accosted as always being asked to take pictures with strangers. I even had to shake this man's hand while the picture was being taken... I felt like some kind of representative.

Well in all pictures we get asked to be in, I feel like it is some kind of cultural connection, like they want to share our world/experiences and be friends (from a distance). I don't even know how many strangers' pictures I'm in, and what they will do with them... show their friends? "oh look, we saw these westerners" or put it on their desktop to their computer? frame it? who knows!!!!???

Anyways, at the Buddhist temple we got to go into the bottom of it, where the walls were covered in paintings and there was a wonderful Buddhist statue. It was so peaceful under there because you had to take your shoes off, so your feet were cool, plus they asked for silence in the temple. While outside the temple there was some kind of ceremony going on with the Monks, they were preparing to enter the temple and receive their vows (we learned this from speaking to one of the monks, he was very nice). There were also many many signs around the temple that were inspirational to mankind and your actions around the world... plus ones like "Do not eat peanuts" and "Do not show public display of affection" and many more (I did take pictures of them.

We also went over to the HUGE standing Buddha, covered in gold?! Around the outside of this big Buddha there were gardens and prayer wheels, it was a very wonderful place. I felt calm and relaxed, but Katie and I were gearing up for our weekend trip to Agra... we had no idea how great that Buddhist temple experience would be before the... dun dun dun... sleeper bus...

Namaste

MacDonalds

Namaste!

So yes, we did try the MacDonalds in Dehradun last week, because... well... why not?! We needed to see what it was like in India! Immediately when we walked in there was a sign saying: "We do not sell pork or beef" and thus all they had was veggie everything and chicken. I was a little hesitant getting the chicken nuggets, because durring the first week of the rotation we at Kumar foods and I got sick from the chicken. We later found out that eating chicken in the monsoon season is not that great of an idea... unless you want things coming out of both ends!... Wonderful I know...

But I faired okay with chicken nuggets and the fries were exactly the same as in the US... I was pleased to know that McyDs has somewhat of a standard for what their chicken should be when served in other countries. I also felt a little at home becuase the food looked familar, even though I basically never eat at McyDs at home, only under dire situations...

This experience was also somewhat strang because beleive it or not... McyDs was Western central... aka all the white people in Dehradun we saw here, and we never see them anywhere else! Its kinda funny actually, when we do see other Westerners we get excited, almost as much as Indians because we are such a rarity here! At McyDs all the Westerners we saw were also dressed in traditional Indian attire, which we though was funny because all of us (Sarah, Katie, Alan, and myself) have not gone to that step yet... plus you look a little out of place, like an oxymoron or something...

Namaste

Dehradun Clinicals - week 2

Namaste!

So I am still getting caught up on my blogging, sorry to be so far behind, but finding reliable Internet here is a tricky business...

Anyways, last week in Dehradun Katie and I shadowed Dr. Gandhi again because our clinical doc for the week was out of town for some kind of emergency?! so we were back at City Heart Center with Dr. Gandhi Monday through Wednesday. Again this rotation was a lot of cardiology and so we listened to a ton of hearts and lungs, but we did get to see an emergency where an old woman with Parkinson's disease was in ventricular tachycardia where her ventricles in her heart were beating super fast and thus there was no relaxation in her heart, which is needed. This is because the heart fills upon relaxation, so the heart was not getting the blood supply needed and thus not getting the oxygen it needed. Dr.Gandhi told us "This is classic V Tach., you see it, you shock it..." At one point I saw her heart rate at 230! Dr. Gandhi defibrillated her once and the jump looked PAINFUL! She immediately went back into V Tach. and Dr. Gandhi had to defibrillate her again, and again, looked super painful... she did recover after this procedure but the next day Dr.Gandhi told us that she went back into V Tach. overnight and they could not defibrillate her out of it... which lead to an MI (heart attack), and after that there was nothing they could do... :(

On Thursday and Friday morning Katie and I did get to shadow Dr.Joshi at Doon Hospital which is a government hospital and is as crazy as a train station at rush hour... The way on receives medical treatment here is almost beyond explaining in words. Dr. Joshi is another cardiologist so we saw a lot of patients with hypertension, recent, old, and acute MIs (heart attacks), mummers, prosthetic valves, and many children with VSD (ventricular septal defect) (these were clinically cool because you could feel it on the chest if you put your hand over the heart). I did pin point a systolic murmur on one patient and Dr.Joshi called me a budding cardiologist, well I have no idea what I'm budding into! We looked at a ton of EKGs, which Katie and I could only guess how to read because Dr. Joshi is a very busy man and didn't have too much time to explain things. When he did have time to explain things, he was an extremely good teacher and went into a lot of detail, he also would ask us questions and test us some, this was difficult sometimes because of the noise and the accent, plus some medical terms are different here in India, when they meant he same thing. The crazy thing about Dr. Joshi's office was that patients line up and crowd his office, people wait "patiently" for his medical attention, and many people shove to get next on the stool, plus everyone is looking over his shoulder while he treats his patients, oh and did I mention, there is almost no patient privacy?! It was quite the experience.

In the evenings Katie and I would go to our next clinical rotation at an OB/GYN. Dr. Nesha Gera did not get many patients in the evenings because the monsoon came in the evenings last week, and people just don't venture out when it rains that hard (wading through small rivers on the roads is not very pleasant plus you get soaked from the down pour). Dr.Gera is very nice and would serve us tea every night with cookies and raisins. We did get to see some interesting cases, and oh yes... a lot of pregnant women! Katie and I were pumped to see ultrasounds when we could see the fetal heart beat, spine, eyes, and movement. We were allowed to listen to the fetal heart and on one woman we got to feel the position of the baby's head! We also got to see a uterus biopsy. We did have one very interesting case where a woman's cervix was "falling out" of her vagina. This is called a prolapsed uterus and Nesha told us to fix it you had to have a hysterectomy (removal of woman's reproductive organs). Every time this woman would stand up the cervix would "fall out" and it looked painful and very uncomfortable. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any births at this rotation, but Katie and I were hopeful for one in Mussoorie (hint hint we saw one today!). We also found out about abortions, they are very legal here in India and can be done up to 20 weeks... Dr. Gera does not perform them unless totally necessary, like if there is a problem with the fetus or it will harm the mother or there is any kind of foreseen complication like eclampsia. Also when performing an ultrasound in India it is illegal to tell the sex of the baby because most families will abort if it is not a boy, another sad fact I found about the sex of the baby is that often once a woman gives birth to a girl they will sometimes "through it away" like into a river... very sad.

Well that's it for clinical stuff from week 2 of Dehradun and week 3 of the program. I hope to post more about the fun things I did in Dehradun last week tomorrow!

Until then...

Namaste

Yoga and Meditation and the worst meditation group ever!

In Patti we had this yoga instructor named Tanmay who almost convinced me on the last day that he was married and had two kids and was 27 years old... well he was actually 23 and got this joking manner probably from hanging around Dr. Paul so much.

Every morning we would wake up at around 6am and do yoga from 6am to 7am, the warm up was much different from any that I have done in the states, but the yoga positions themselves were basically the same, and I learned a few new ones as well. Our group in general was not very flexible so watching them would make me laugh and espeically on the mornings when it had been difficult to wake up, we would all zone out sometimes, which made it even funnier :) Tanmay did tell me however he was surprised by my flexibility, just a little flattering. After yoga in the mornings we would usually shower and eat breakfast, zone out, because the yoga wouldn't wake us up... we were all still exhausted from Dharamsala. (I also forgot to mention our shower and bathroom had cockroaches in it... I never saw them, but everyone else did)

Meditation however was another matter... we would do this in the afternoons from 6pm - 7pm. Our yoga and meditation master Tanmay is a very happy person and was always laughing about everything thus when we had to do meditation one day I couldn't help but screw things up...

We had just started our breathing exercises and I opened my eyes to see if we had actually started (sometimes it was difficult to know what was going on ) when I opened my eyes I saw Tanmay staring back at me (looking a little furious?! or he maybe was being funny... but I started cracking up. That was the end of that meditation lesson, we totally screwed it up... all four of us (Sarah, Katie, Alan, and myself) couldn't stop laughing, I was even crying I was laughing so hard! Tanmay had no idea what had gotten into us, and neither did we! We were supposed to be concentrating and letting go of our mind and body, and we were laughing up a storm! So Tanmay had us do laughing meditation... aka, laugh for 15 minutes straight... well thats harder to do than you think, even if you are already laughing hard. After laughing meditation, which was also a bust, we were somewhat punished by being told to lay down for 15 minutes, but then Tanmey just left us, and went up to the top of a near by hill and watched us for an extra fifteen minutes! We had no idea what was going on and eventually the bugs got to us and we all got up, afterwards Tanmay told us he didn't know why we kept laying there... we never got the hint to get up... hence why we thought it was punishment, Alan said he was laughing on top of the hill when he looked up after a half and hour of laying on the grass being eaten by bugs... haha

Our last meditation session we did a jibberish meditation and we also started laughing, but Katie and I were partners and we recovered and did the whole 15 minutes of jibberish, it was insane! Try pretending to speak Chinese or some other made up language, you will feel like a fool and a little funny for almost making fun of other languages you don't understand, crazy! Sarah and Alan were partners for this and they had to be separated because they kept saying crazy things and laughing like "yaba daba doo" and "chimichanga".

Things were just too funny with Tanmay, on the last day he kept calling me "bacha" which means child in Hindi, but I would tell him right back that he had a bacha in side of him, and Dr.Paul thought that was funny and suggested that we do an ultrasound because Tanmay was pregnant! Oh Dr. Paul...

We asked Tanmay if we were the worst meditation group ever and he just laughed, so that was a resounding yes!!! Getting eaten by the bugs at the end of meditation was probably the highlight in talking about meditation with our group, I guess other groups had had revelations and we were just sitting there scratching up a storm... we were the worst meditaiton group ever!!!!!

Dr.Paul and his Leopards

Dr. Paul has quite the sense of humor...

Did I forget to mention that our living area was caged in?! Oh and padlocked everynight?! This I thought initially was to keep out people trying to steal things and small animals getting into our food, but Dr. Paul really played it up.

Our first day there, Katie, my clinic partner and very close friend now, wanted to go for a run, Dr. Paul told her to stay on the road and not go very far because of leopards! Throughout the week he played it up, convincing everyone (especially myself) that the leopards were everywhere and going to attack, he even would tell the villagers to talk to us about the leopards and their attacks! There was one old man that was especially colorful in telling us about the leopards becuase he didn't speak English so he only used hand motions, I have a great video of it which I hope to post later so stay tuned!

One night we laid out in our courtyard and watched the stars, becuase one of my other friends in our group (Sarah) had never seen a shooting star! Well she saw one and we had a very relaxing night just relaxing under the Indian sky, but of course Dr. Paul had to do something... Just as we stopped talking about leopards and how they could jump down and eat us all in our little courtyard, Dr. Paul grabbed my leg and I jumped and screamed! That night I had a dream about a leopard with Dr. Paul's face on it!

The next night we went on a night walk down the road... of course Dr. Paul again lived it up by throwing rocks behind our backs into the bushed to make it seem like a leopard was there... well that just set me off and I became totally petrified... oh yes... and I'm a little afraid of the dark, and when there is talk of leopards... well I had a bit of a break down when we got back. Because Dr. Paul made me (cry) (I'm embarassed to say so, but it happened) he said he would buy us ice cream... well that funny man, he never got it for us, he's suck a jokester!

On the last day in Patti we went on a herbal medicine walk with Dr. Paul and he took us afterwards to a few of the villagers houses and we had chai and cookies (I could barely eat dinner after that I was so full of sugar). We had to walk through some tall corn points and Dr. Paul would hide in the corn and jump out at us! (He also did this one afternoon when we came back from meditation and jumped out of the shower... he really really really loved scaring us!) We stopped at the house of the villager who I told you about before that had the hand gestures telling us about leopard attacks and concluded with... there are no leopards in this area... Oh wonderful, I cried and got worked up about this over NOTHING!!!!!!

Dr. Paul you jokester you...

The little girl that made me cry

There was one very memorable patient for me in Patti, it was a little girl who was carried in by her father(?) and she was wearing a really cute pink and blue dress. She was extremely pretty and reminding me immediately of that cute little Lucile (my sister) when she was a toddler, so I instantly started feeling a little homesick because I miss my sister.

As flies swarmed the little girls eyes, tears swarmed mine as we were told that she had a very bad case of conjuctivitis (you could tell immediatly that this little girl was in pain from the infection going too long without getting medical treatment).

Although I tried averting my eyes so that this girl couldn't see me crying, every time I looked up she was looking right at me. Her eyes, full of conjuctivitus, helplessness, the striking likeness to my sister overwhelmed me, I didn't leave clinic, but tried my best to hold back real sobs. As I cried silently in the corner, I could only pray that she would feel better with the medicine that Dr. Paul was giving her, and hoping that her father would bring her in sooner if further complications arose.

The feelings I had that morning were overwhelming because I wish I could have done more for her, my friends on the program with me told me later I should go into Peds, I know everyone at home would love that because of following in Gramp's footsteps, but I don't know if I could handle the feelings knowing that children need help and can't exactly get it for themselves, it was a hopeless feeling.

Before the girl left I gave her a "sticker" band-aid with a Disney princess on it, and put it on her arm because putting it on her eyes would have been silly... I only wish I could have given her more than a silly band-aid...

Clinic and Health Camps in Patti Village

Namaste!

So it has been a very long time since my last post and I am still trying to get caught up from my past two weeks now in Patti and Dehradun, but here it goes...

The week that I spent in Patti Village was a huge change in scenery of India for me, we stayed at a small camp that had living quarters below a store and the clinic. The accomodations were modest and was a little better than camping. Our beds were pretty hard being a ply-wood board and a slight covering that may have been one blanket thick so I used my extra blanket that they gave me as "extra" padding but it was still a little hard to sleep on. The funny thing was I used my lab coat from clinic as my blanket at night :P !!! Oh I also forgot to mention that we were in the middle of no where! Hence why I couldn't update the blog! We had some very traditional Indian food prepared for us throughout the week and I got sick for about 2 days, but was still able to go to yoga, clinic, and meditation.

As a side note, I have not gone one week in India without getting sick, so I miss home purely on food and "cheat" often by eating peanut butter sandwhiches and anything resembeling noodles when we go out to eat.

OK, OK, back to clinic in Patti:

The first day we arrived we were exhuasted from our trip to Dharamsala and took a nap before going to clinic, we didn't see much that day, or any other day for that matter, health care in the extremely rural areas of India consist of colds, sinus infections, general cuts, and small infections. Dr. Paul who works for CFHI is quite the doctor though and his lifestyle in Patti would be any doctor's dream when they still want to practice and be in Nature, his clinic (run by CFHI) is free and his pay is not what it used to be when he was working for himself and another doctor. They often are running out of supplies and medicine, I wish I had gathered more before coming here, and seeing the frustration in Dr. Paul's face when he told us about this, was heartbreaking. Sometimes people will send him medicine that is expired and he can't use it becuase even though they are in a 3rd world country, there are still standards for medical treatment.

Although the type of patients we saw was a little less rigourous from what we saw in Dehradun with Dr. Gandhi, we still got to see a woman with mastitis of the breast, a girl with typhoid, and a three year old girl with a huge abcess on her inner thigh that Dr. Paul drained while we had NO ELECTRICITY! So Dr. Paul used my headlight as his source of light for that procedure, I felt honored! :) The abcess was gross! It was like a huge pimple and puss kept coming out, we helped by holding the little girl while she cryed and screamed, and the local anesthetic didn't do much, but afterwards she was sleeping like none other, so she must have felt better.

On Tuesday and Thursday we traveled out into the Indian country side by hiking to near by villages to hold health camps where villagers who couldn't walk to Patti could still see a doctor. The first one we went to we sat on someone's porch and an old woman came up to me and patted me on the back, I thought she was awesome, she had some great mannerisms, but she told me in Hindi "You can't understand me!!!" and smiled, what a character! The second one that we went to we sat in someone's house for over 5 hours and saw about four patients so we started a massage train (just the girls) and Dr. Paul told us that the "Tickle train is closed for lunch" which started the beginnning of that afternoon as a funny joke. Dr. Paul's porter (person who carried the medical supplies) had gone out into the jungle and found some mushrooms. Dr. Paul was showing us the mushroom and decided to make it funny by relating the image of a mushroom to a male body part... I don't know if I can even begin to explain that converation, but it was hilarious!

The great thing about clinic in Patti and the surrounding health camps was that Dr. Paul let us listen to everyone's heart and lungs and we got to take everyone's blood pressure, so that was really great clinical experience!!!! Clinic was usually twice a day from about 9am-1pm and from 4pm-6pm except on the days we hiked to the health camps which we would leave for at about 10am and return around 2-4pm. The nice thing about Patti was that there was no honking, and it was very peaceful, and the most restful time I've spent in India.

Namaste

So Worth it... Dharamsala and the car ride from hell...

For some reason someone brought up the brilliant idea that we should all go to Dharamsala to see the Dalai Lama, well guess what, it was only somewhat worth it...

We left at about 9pm on Friday July 9th and drove through the Himalayas with MANY MANY MANY stops along the way. AKA our drivers took stops almost every 30 minutes. Oh did I forget to mention we took 3 taxis for 15 people?! Fun right? This may be where I get a little hostle because the driving part of this trip was almost unbearable. We drove through twisting turns and high mountain passes, oh and we also got a flat tire at one point! Well we made it to Dharamsala at about 2pm on July 10th so just one way was 17 HOURS!!!! In a taxi!!! Oh and were we covered in exhuast, did I forget to mention that our drivers didnt use the AC?! Yup, we had the windows rolled down the entire time!

Once we got to Dharamsala we found this GREAT place to stay all inclusive of HUGE spiders and rats nests in the ceiling, but did I mention the view?! It was lovely and the hotel was away from the road, far down a steep slope nestled in a little valley, so that was nice. Just to give you an estimate for the hotel it was about 600 Rupees which is about $13 in the US... what a dream! (sarcasm) But quite and experience.

That night in Dharamsala we walked around the little village area and shopped in the touristy stores finding all kinds of gifts for people back home and some new Indian and Tibetian clothes to wear since ours were filthy from the car ride. We did meet one great woman who sold me some bracelets and was a Tibetian refugee, she reminded me of my mom, miss ya mommy!!! There was another shop keeper whose name was Moona who gave us a little lesson on the ways of Dharamsala, he told us of how Dharamsala can give you everything and how people find you and you do not have to find them, and he also gave us this great little phrase: Shanti Shanti, which translates as something like: peace, love, spirituality, or my own interpretation of it: Akuna Mattata (from the Lion King)... NO WORRIES :)

Dharamsala is a safe haven for Tibetian refugees because it is the homeland of the Dalai Lama and a place where Buddhism is not tormented for being practiced and away from Chinese governmental ideals (which they fully deny)... While at the temple of the Dalai Lama we did find a Tibetain museum which was very informative about what happened during the Chinese invasion of Tibet and how people ran away to India over tretchrous passes in the Himalayas. Also while in the temple we saw people praying and many monuments but.... NO DALAI LAMA... oh well :( He is very busy, but always has time for Tibetian refugees.

As we wasted time waiting for the taxis to take us home to Dehradun we hung out in a cafe and drank chai and bought more presents. The ride home was not as horrible as the one to Dharamsala because it was only 14 and a half hours and we didnt stop as much. Katie and I sat in the back seat almost the whole time and we basically went insane from how ridiculous the car ride was and the conversations insuing between two love birds on a horrendous date at 2am. We also found out on the car ride home that we had gotten lost on the way there and also the normal route to Dharamsala which normally goes through Punjab was totally flooded and people were dying from the floods. So we had to go the back way all around the mountains... wonderful.

Oh did I mention we got another flat tire on the way home...

In the end it was a good trip and Im glad that I went, but the icing on the cake was on the way home one girl on the trip started puking from car sickness and was looking totally miserable, hanging over a fence post saying... It was so worth it...

So Worth It...

Shanti Shanti

Namaste

Back from the Jungle

Namaste!

I am finally back from Dharamsala and Patti Village aka the jungle! For our weekend get away we hiked over 15km (or about 10 miles) through the foothills of the himalayas from Patti to Mussoorie (elevation about 7000ft). This hike was ridiculous because it was raining and there were LEECHES! Most people saw theirs around their ankle and would pull them off, I was wearing scrub bottoms and a leech climbed up to the back of my knee and sucked until it was happy and fell off, so when my yogi-master pointed out that I was bleeding I realized I had already been attacked so I didn't have to pull it off! GROSS!!!!!!

I am very exhausted and am only saying a quick hi because the cyber cafe I'm using is very expensive and will write all about my week in Patti when I get back to Dehradun tomorrow or Monday. This week was wild...

Namaste

Going Away to Patti Village

Namaste!

Today is my last day in Dehradun for a week or so, we will be going up into the mountains to a village called Patti, where it will basically be like camping in the jungle! We will be taking day hikes to health camps and many people will come for medical help from the very very rural surrounding areas. I will not have any internet or phone contact this week so this will be my last post until I get back next Sunday.

This weekend the group will be going to Dharamsala, to see the Dalai Lama. I hope he will actually be there!!!

Its very hot here and the monsoon rains are coming this afternoon, so hopefully it will cool off for our 12 hour taxi ride to Dharamsala!

Posts coming in a week, wish me luck on my journeys!!!!

Namaste

No Monsoon Today, Just Sunshine

Namaste!

Today was extremely sunny and hot!!! Clinicals this morning went very well, Katie and I observed Dr. Gandhi and saw many patients and read another ECG, this time the T wave was increased which means left ventricle hypertrophy. We also saw a man that came in with very yellow eyes (white part) which means he had jaundice (liver failure). Another woman came in with dental pain, Dr. Gandhi called us over to look at it with the flashlight and the teeth were black and rotted right down to the roots and into her gums, remember to brush your teeth!!!! A girl came in with a kidney infection where they injected her with something and she left. The woman with cellulitus in the eye finally was well enough to open her eye, but her pupil was not responding to light so her optic nerve was being pinched due to swelling, she could also not see.

Tonight we also saw Dr. Gilhorta and saw a few patients, mainly ones with diabetes check ups. He told us that in 2015 the amount of people with diabetes in India will increase 2x and by 2020, every 3rd person in the world with diabetes will be in India. Just some interesting predictions. He also said his son predicts that Germany will win the world cup! We saw a man with ketoacidosis, extremely high amounts of sugar? turn to ketones, becomes very poisonous to the body. He also showed us how to read a chest x-ray, only how to tell what side of the chest the heart is on.

Today we also went to clock tower in Dehradun and had lunch at a place called Kumar foods, where I had chicken for the first time since coming to India! Very satisfying!!! We also walked around the markets, I bought a necklace and a present for Lucile, I won't say what, its a surprise Lucile!!!!!!! Love ya!

Well that's it for now,

Namaste

Monsoon

Namaste!

This morning again we woke up to the MONSOON rains! These rains are CRAZY!!!! The past few days they have been starting heavy in the morning and last until mid afternoon and they start to clear up. I am so glad I got my new hiking boots before leaving because they are Gortex and have a lot of protection from the HUGE puddles we have been walking through. Also essential is my new rain jacket, also Gortex, big lifesaver. I'd also like to give a shoutout to Kelsey's parent's rain pants, also very very practical and useful, thank you so much!!!

Today was my second day of rotations, I have not yet gone to the second doctor I've been following but followed Dr. Gandhi earlier this morning. Some patients today consisted of a woman that was meaning to take her medication and accidentally picked up the wrong bottle and poisoned herself, she was pregnant, thus last night they had to abort her baby. :( Very sad. We also saw a lot of MIs (heart attacks) and Dr. Gandhi showed us an irregular EKG which they call an ECG, oh and the ICU is called the ICCU. But on the irregular EKG the T wave was reversed and shows that this was in fact an MI, the patient also came in with a heart rate of 180! But he is doing much much better. I have also learned that here patients regularly self diagnose and are very non-compliant with whatever the doctors says to them. There were a few new patients we saw and I got to use my new stethoscope! There were also a few gone that had gotten better, but one had died (she was very old and had sepsis). Tonight we are going back to Dr. Gilhorta.

My friend Katie, who is doing the rotations with me is a first year med student and has been helping me understand a lot of the medical terminology and we look it up in her boards review book when we come home. She is extremely nice!

On the ride home in the Vikram (small bus thing that seats about 8 uncomfortably), Katie and I were asked to go to some guys house, we refused and he didn't follow us, so it was okay, but a good laugh afterwards. Our driver also was very wild, our Vikram broke down at one point and they had to restart it like a lawn mower. We also almost hit another Vikram, quite intense!!!! While walking home we also got stopped by a car full of a whole family, they wanted to talk to us, they were speaking in Hindi and I didn't understand them so I said "Mujhe Hindi samaj nahin atti" which means I don't understand Hindi, at first they didn't understand but then I said it again and they all clapped and seemed to understand. They then stopped and asked if we could take a picture with them (in India, there really aren't a lot of foreigners, aka people with white skin), so we did and they thanked us and drove off, Katie and I also had a laugh about this, so it was a very interesting commute today!

Well thats all for today!

Namaste

Delhi and Dehradun

Namaste!!!!!!

I've finally made it to India and my first day of rotations! I flew into Delhi on Saturday the 3rd and walked around a market, I stayed in this eye hospital hostel, it was very very hot that night, during the day someone told me it was 40 degrees C and that translates to about 107 degrees F!!!! I was sweating so bad!

On Sunday was traveled to Dehradun, north of Delhi by train, it was about a 7 hour train ride and it was quite interesting, we were served many odd arrangements of food ranging from chai to bread and butter to a fried potato patty! Once in Dehradun I settled into my home stay with my host mother Ninu, her cooking is very good and I especially like the spicy Indian food she has been serving us, everything is veggies too. For Breakfast this morning we had egg sandwiches and chai and then went off to rotations with the doctors.

The first doctor I worked with today was Dr. Ganhdi, he is a very hard working doctor and has his own hospital with about 20 beds (this is what I saw anyways). He works from about 11am to 1am and gets about 4 hours of sleep a night. He is an amazing person and cares a lot about his work and patients. We saw a variety of patients today including a brain hematoma with a severe aspiration complex from feeding the patient too much, cellulitus in the eye, a heart murmur that caused a stroke, and septic shock that weakened the capillaries in the lungs and caused SOB (difficulty breathing). I'm so excited I'm learning sooo much!!!!! The second rotation today was very short because the doctor had to run off to an emergency surgery on a patient that had a complication from a surgery earlier today.

Well this is it from me now, but I'll be updating reguarly this week, hopefully. There was a strike today by almost all of India because of some kind of raise in the price of fuel and nothing was open today, so I'm very happy that I found this internet cafe open!

Namaste