It's been such a long time since my last post!
I really did mean to do a post last weekend, but then I got sick and time just slipped away from me.
And yes, I did get sick. But no, it was fortunately not malaria.
It started last week amidst my public health readings about all of the communicable diseases such as TB, malaria, etc. I woke up with a horribly sore throat on Wednesday morning and it got worse throughout the day as my classes went on. On Thursday it was no better and I started to feel very achy so I decided not to go to my maternal and child health weekly field visit in the morning. After sleeping it off for the whole morning, I decided to give classes a try in the afternoon. By my last class I was in terrible shape. I felt like I had a fever and I was dizzy. I ended up going to bed at about 7 pm. but I woke up innumerable times during the night shivering and feeling very feverish. I suddenly started to come to the realization that I may have malaria. After all, about 300,000 world travelers per year get malaria (This is what all public health classes do to you). So I didn't go to my classes on Friday either and instead ventured alone into the fascinating world of Indian healthcare. (Actually, Manipal has a very well-known hospital right here on campus so it wasn't as dangerous as it sounds). I was vaguely told which entrance I should go in and which desk to go to first, so at least that part was semi-clear. So I get in the hospital, (keep in mind this is a huge hospital with tons of people coming in everyday from all different parts of the state) and go to the help desk. They tell me I have to first fill out a card with all my information on it and then go to the "registration desk" to give it to them. When I give a lady at the desk my info card and Indian insurance card she did not know what SAP (study abroad program) meant so she had to ask about 6 different workers if they knew and, after much confusion and many words lost in translation, she prints me a "ticket" which everyone apparently needs to get any kind of care. She tells me to go up one floor to room 17 and wait. Luckily, I found room 17 okay but the problem was that the room was padlocked. I waited outside for about 30 minutes and finally the door was opened only for me to realize that there was another waiting room inside room 17. After waiting in that room for another 45 minutes I went up to one of the desks to ask where I was on the patient list. They told me I wasn't on it yet because my file still had to be sent up to them from downstairs, and told me "it takes much time" so I waited a little more. After another 30 minutes I went up again to ask if they had my file. The lady looks at my ticket and says I have been waiting in the wrong place the whole time and points across the hall at room 15. So I go into room 15 and ask the lady there if they have my file and she says "it takes time" and then "I'll call your name when ready". After only 20 minutes of waiting this time ( I was getting impatient ) I went up to the same lady and asked her if she could just see if my file is there because I had already been waiting for about 2 hours total. After quickly running through the stack of papers and folders, she finds my file and gives me a slip of paper. She tells me to bring it to the "cash counter" to pay. So I have to walk down the hall and give them the paper and my insurance card and they stamp it. When I get back to the lady at the desk she tells me to get on this huge scale that's literally in the middle of the waiting room and weigh myself. After I get on she asks what my weight is from her place at the desk, at which point I basically yell to her my weight. I just think it's so interesting because in the U.S. there is this obsession with privacy and personal space whereas in India, there is no such notion.
Anyway, after recording my weight, the lady goes into one of the rooms and hands off my file. After 10 minutes when the lady realizes I'm still waiting, she takes my file out of that room and summons me to a different room to, yet again, wait near. Luckily, I only waited about 10 minutes before the doctor called me into his refreshingly air-conditioned office. He basically asked me what was wrong, listened to my heartbeat and breathing. He immediately (somehow) concluded that I had a bad sinus infection and told me that if the fever didn't go away in two days it was more or less safe to assume that I had malaria (and also to come back for blood tests if that were the case). He wrote me some prescriptions and sent me on my way. So after a total of maybe three hours of waiting in a crowded hospital while feeling very sick and dizzy and a two minute doctor visit it would not be an exaggeration to say that I was severely exhausted and semi confused about what had just happened.
Thankfully, I started to get much better after taking the antibiotics and my fever did go away which means that it was definitely NOT malaria! So exciting.
Somehow, in a severely medicated state, I was able to go on the small day trip that was planned for Saturday. We went to two small towns called Karkala and Moodabidri. They are both famous Jain pilgrimage sites. Karkala has a tall, 42 ft. statue of the Jain lord Bahubali. It is in a very serene setting on the top of a hill which overlooks the surrounding countryside and rivers. There is also a Jain temple in Karkala called chaturmukha basadi which we visited. In Moodabidri we went to the well-known Savirakambada Basadi, or thousand pillar Jain temple. The Basadi in Moodabidri had amazing, intricate carvings on the pillars and all throughout the temple. The guy at the basadi who was collecting donations and who gave us our tour turned out to be a very hard bargainer. Ginny, our resident director who went with us, pretty much got into a fight with him about the price of the tour and the price of taking pictures (she's been there for the same tour before). Classicaly, when he named a price about four times what it normally is, she told him a lower price but to no avail. As we were leaving the basadi Ginny told him, in Hindi, "we paid the foreigner price, right?", to which he responded with a smile on his face, "OK".
I am currently in the process of planning a last-minute weekend trip to Kerala after finding out today that we have no scheduled activities this weekend. If it all works out, I'll be leaving tomorrow after our public health field visit!
I'll let you know what becomes of it.
Here's a quote which was given to us by our professor in Ayurveda today. I thought it was kind of cute.
-Mia
I really did mean to do a post last weekend, but then I got sick and time just slipped away from me.
And yes, I did get sick. But no, it was fortunately not malaria.
It started last week amidst my public health readings about all of the communicable diseases such as TB, malaria, etc. I woke up with a horribly sore throat on Wednesday morning and it got worse throughout the day as my classes went on. On Thursday it was no better and I started to feel very achy so I decided not to go to my maternal and child health weekly field visit in the morning. After sleeping it off for the whole morning, I decided to give classes a try in the afternoon. By my last class I was in terrible shape. I felt like I had a fever and I was dizzy. I ended up going to bed at about 7 pm. but I woke up innumerable times during the night shivering and feeling very feverish. I suddenly started to come to the realization that I may have malaria. After all, about 300,000 world travelers per year get malaria (This is what all public health classes do to you). So I didn't go to my classes on Friday either and instead ventured alone into the fascinating world of Indian healthcare. (Actually, Manipal has a very well-known hospital right here on campus so it wasn't as dangerous as it sounds). I was vaguely told which entrance I should go in and which desk to go to first, so at least that part was semi-clear. So I get in the hospital, (keep in mind this is a huge hospital with tons of people coming in everyday from all different parts of the state) and go to the help desk. They tell me I have to first fill out a card with all my information on it and then go to the "registration desk" to give it to them. When I give a lady at the desk my info card and Indian insurance card she did not know what SAP (study abroad program) meant so she had to ask about 6 different workers if they knew and, after much confusion and many words lost in translation, she prints me a "ticket" which everyone apparently needs to get any kind of care. She tells me to go up one floor to room 17 and wait. Luckily, I found room 17 okay but the problem was that the room was padlocked. I waited outside for about 30 minutes and finally the door was opened only for me to realize that there was another waiting room inside room 17. After waiting in that room for another 45 minutes I went up to one of the desks to ask where I was on the patient list. They told me I wasn't on it yet because my file still had to be sent up to them from downstairs, and told me "it takes much time" so I waited a little more. After another 30 minutes I went up again to ask if they had my file. The lady looks at my ticket and says I have been waiting in the wrong place the whole time and points across the hall at room 15. So I go into room 15 and ask the lady there if they have my file and she says "it takes time" and then "I'll call your name when ready". After only 20 minutes of waiting this time ( I was getting impatient ) I went up to the same lady and asked her if she could just see if my file is there because I had already been waiting for about 2 hours total. After quickly running through the stack of papers and folders, she finds my file and gives me a slip of paper. She tells me to bring it to the "cash counter" to pay. So I have to walk down the hall and give them the paper and my insurance card and they stamp it. When I get back to the lady at the desk she tells me to get on this huge scale that's literally in the middle of the waiting room and weigh myself. After I get on she asks what my weight is from her place at the desk, at which point I basically yell to her my weight. I just think it's so interesting because in the U.S. there is this obsession with privacy and personal space whereas in India, there is no such notion.
Anyway, after recording my weight, the lady goes into one of the rooms and hands off my file. After 10 minutes when the lady realizes I'm still waiting, she takes my file out of that room and summons me to a different room to, yet again, wait near. Luckily, I only waited about 10 minutes before the doctor called me into his refreshingly air-conditioned office. He basically asked me what was wrong, listened to my heartbeat and breathing. He immediately (somehow) concluded that I had a bad sinus infection and told me that if the fever didn't go away in two days it was more or less safe to assume that I had malaria (and also to come back for blood tests if that were the case). He wrote me some prescriptions and sent me on my way. So after a total of maybe three hours of waiting in a crowded hospital while feeling very sick and dizzy and a two minute doctor visit it would not be an exaggeration to say that I was severely exhausted and semi confused about what had just happened.
Thankfully, I started to get much better after taking the antibiotics and my fever did go away which means that it was definitely NOT malaria! So exciting.
Somehow, in a severely medicated state, I was able to go on the small day trip that was planned for Saturday. We went to two small towns called Karkala and Moodabidri. They are both famous Jain pilgrimage sites. Karkala has a tall, 42 ft. statue of the Jain lord Bahubali. It is in a very serene setting on the top of a hill which overlooks the surrounding countryside and rivers. There is also a Jain temple in Karkala called chaturmukha basadi which we visited. In Moodabidri we went to the well-known Savirakambada Basadi, or thousand pillar Jain temple. The Basadi in Moodabidri had amazing, intricate carvings on the pillars and all throughout the temple. The guy at the basadi who was collecting donations and who gave us our tour turned out to be a very hard bargainer. Ginny, our resident director who went with us, pretty much got into a fight with him about the price of the tour and the price of taking pictures (she's been there for the same tour before). Classicaly, when he named a price about four times what it normally is, she told him a lower price but to no avail. As we were leaving the basadi Ginny told him, in Hindi, "we paid the foreigner price, right?", to which he responded with a smile on his face, "OK".
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| Lord Bahubali statue in Karkala |
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| Stonework on a pillar at the thousand pillar temple in Moodabidri |
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| Me and an elephant in the front of the thousand pillar temple |
I am currently in the process of planning a last-minute weekend trip to Kerala after finding out today that we have no scheduled activities this weekend. If it all works out, I'll be leaving tomorrow after our public health field visit!
I'll let you know what becomes of it.
Here's a quote which was given to us by our professor in Ayurveda today. I thought it was kind of cute.
"Yesterday is history
tomorrow is a mystery
today is a gift
that's why they call it the 'present'"
-Mia
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