Day 4

Day 4
>
> April 14, 10:46 pm, Vellore
> I'm pretty tired tonight, so this may be a little on the short side.
> I haven't had a really good night sleep in some time. For some
> reason I keep waking up at like 5 am and can't get back to sleep.
> It's annoying. Besides that I usually wake up a few times in the
> night too. I'm excited though because they brought me an actual
> blanket to use, as opposed to just the sheet, and I think I may
> sleep better with that. At least that's what I'm hoping.
>
> Breakfast was great again this morning. I'm really enjoying the
> food. I need to remember to get some pictures of the food. I can
> never remember all the names either, but they eat a lot of fried
> stuff for breakfast that is delicious.
>
> After breakfast we went to the hospital and did some pediatrics. It
> was out-patient clinic day, so we split up and each went with a
> different doctor and saw patiets. It impressed me that although the
> details are very different, medicine is fundamentally the same
> wherever you go. It is a common language between strangers from
> different worlds. I would say that I felt more comfortable- or more
> at home- today in the hospital, seeing patients, than I have
> anywhere else here. It's kind of a neat thing to experience.
>
> Even though the circumstances here are completely different, much of
> it is exactly the same. We saw a number of worried parents bringing
> in their kids for regular old viral URIs, or fusiness, or "my child
> just hasn't been eating well." it was funny to see that parents here
> worry about little things that are nothing, just like they do back
> home. I guess we're not really all that different are we?
>
> But then we also saw some more interesting things. A little girl
> with a wide open anterior fontanel at 1 year old, which made the
> doctor suspect vitamin D defficiency. A boy that was being treated
> for TB meningitis. A boy with failure to thrive, frequent loose,
> fatty stools, and possibly a cyclic neutropenia. That one is still
> under evaluation. I think they are actually going to do an ERCP
> because there was some common bile duct dilitation. I guess a main
> difference is just that you consider different things higher on your
> differential than you would in the States.
>
> The doctors were great. The lady that I was with was very friendly.
> Of course, they are pediatricians, so I would expect no less. Haha.
> But yeah, she as very nice and explained a lot to me. It was good.
> The facilities are basic, but I guess they are sufficient for their
> needs. They have computer with electronic records, though much of
> the charting is done on paper... sort of like at home.
>
> This afternoon we made it over to the computer lab at the hospital.
> The wifi worked pretty well. Later we made a trip out to the train
> station to try and get some tickets to Kerala for this weekend. Like
> everything else here, it took a lot of effort to get anything done.
> We went from person to person, getting a little bit more information
> from each one until we finally had an idea of how to reserve train
> tickets. Much harder than you would think it should be. But again,
> that seems par for the course. In the end, the train was full so we
> got on a wait list. Not really clear on the details of how we find
> out if we get on or not, or how much advanced notice we get, if any.
> I guess we still need to figure that out. Hopefully it works out.
>
> There were some monkeys just hanging around the train station. That
> was fun to see. The ride back on the auto was death-defying, as
> usual. We actually saw a little boy almost get hit on the way over
> there. The auto (rickshaw) was only inches from smacking into him as
> he darted out into the street. Though he was spared from the auto,
> he was not spared from his mother who gave him a good smack for
> jumping out into traffic. Then our driver proceeded to hurl some
> unintelligible (at least to us) insults to the mother as we rode past.
>
> We went back down Gandhi again today. This time I was a little more
> adventurous. I bought a nice shirt for Rs 290 (about $6) and then
> got some mangoes and even enjoyed some fresh coconut juice straight
> from the (young) coconut. I used to love that stuff in the
> Philippines, and it was just as I rmembered it. I'm waiting for the
> mangoes to ripen a bit, but I think they'll be good.
>
> At dinner Aurora tried to order a veggie burger but instead got a
> cucumber and tomatoe sandwhich. It was pretty funny. They must not
> have any concept of a patty. We tried.
>
> Anyway, we're enjoying ourselves, for the most part. It's great
> being here. More fun tomorrow!