My Hospital Stay in Wai

March 12th-23rd, 2011

I ended up staying in the small hospital, called Geetanjeli, in the town Wai (remember, pronounced “why”...the irony of that kept creeping back into my head) for 11 days! When I injured my back five years ago paragliding I fractured 2 vertebrae but I never even stayed overnight in the hospital so this was a bit of a surprise.

The first night I slept fairly well, all things considered, but perhaps part of the credit goes to painkillers. My room was right next to the intensive care unit so unfortunately Natalie and I could hear the incessant beeping of medical equipment monitoring some patient’s vitals. It was reassuring to have Natalie stay overnight seeing as I couldn’t move much so she fetched things for me such as medication and water. Strangely the nurses will write a prescription for you but not actually bring the medication and the pharmacy is part of the same building but you have to go outside to go to it...which was a wee bit difficult for me at this juncture.

English Dave first showed up early in the morning having ridden down from Panchgani on his motorbike. Dave and Natalie went out to retrieve some food supplies and I was mildly surprised when they returned with coconuts as part of their bounty!

The cavalry arrives with coconuts!

Why are we posing like this?...

Natalie mentioned that I could upgrade to the “deluxe room” which really meant that it was air conditioned and had a TV, for only 300 more rupees (under $7) per night! Of course, why not? So a wheelchair was brought to my room and I gingerly, and painfully, got out of bed and into the chair. They wheeled my just 10 meters down the hallway and then there seemed to be a problem...a big set of stairs. What, no elevator? Come on Dave, of course not, this is India! Well there was an elevator of sorts but this one was not manufactured by Otis!

Because they're my elevator of course!

Arriving in my new "deluxe" room:

The new room was decent. I was impressed that I had not only a remote control for the TV but one for the air conditioning unit that was mounted above the window which looked out upon some sad looking concrete apartment blocks. However, not so well thought out was the fact that there was no light by my bed nor were the switches for the main light nearby; they were located by the door. The call button for the nurse was on the opposite side of the room, under the window although I was given a phone and could reach them in that manner. Equally baffling was that there was a fan on the ceiling with the on/off switch by the door and the dial to control the speed was across the room, again under the window...who wired up this place?

My new room:

Getting settled in:

My first coconut milk in India:

Much to my surprise, and delight, there was a standard western toilet in the bathroom, but no shower or bath. I could ask to have a bucket of hot water brought in but for the first few days it was easier to be a bit stinky than attempt to wash...however, eventually ,with a bit of help, I did wash in order to feel human again.

Surprisingly there were no food services either. I guess it is just assumed that your family will come and stay with you and take care of this, um, minor detail. For the first three days I relied on my new friends from the Eco Camp to stock me up with snacks and sandwiches but unfortunately Natalie, Dave and Olivier all headed north to Himachal Pradesh (a marathon 40+ hour train journey), so then I was reliant on Andre, the owner of the Eco Camp, and he’s a busy guy so I didn’t expect he could make the trip down to Wai every day although there was only one day the rest of my hospital stay that he did not appear. It is a bit humbling to all of a sudden be dependent on people that you have just met and hardly know...and I can’t thank them enough.

For two dinners I was able to order a hot meal through Amol, a nice, bearded fellow who I think played some kind of administrative role in the hospital. Both times it was the same soupy chicken curry in a bowl with rice on the side. The first time was only on day 3 for me and I still was lying horizontal and fairly immobile. The plate was passed to me and I noticed there was no cutlery. Amol asked, “Oh, do you really need a spoon?” Okay, now I know I’m in India and it’s normal to eat with your right hand...but come on, a soupy curry while lying down in a hospital bed!?!

My CT scans...check out my name!

Getting fitted with a lumbar belt:

Much to my chagrin, every morning, at 6:30am, a woman would come in, turn on my light and proceed to sweep my room. This seemed a bit odd to me. Why did this need to be done this early? Especially in a room occupied by a patient who can hardly get out of bed?!?

There were a number of “nursing techniques” I just had to laugh and shake my head at too. For instance, I had a pee bottle that I used for the first 4-5 days. No nurse ever emptied it...again, it was assumed that I would have family or friends there to take care of it. One evening, Dr. Kaddu, the head doctor and I believe owner of the hospital, came in with another doctor and a couple of nurses to check on me. While speaking with the doctors, I hadn’t noticed that one of the nurses had in fact picked up my pee bottle, but hadn’t emptied it, she simply took it from the small table by my bed (where it was conveniently located) and placed it across the room, in the corner on the floor...damn! I had to get up and retrieve it!

The nurses would often come in, check up on me and then leave without closing the door too which kind of defeated the purpose of having the air conditioning plus it was much noisier. I would often yell to try and get their attention but many times I just resigned myself to getting up and closing it myself (at least near the end of my stay when getting up wasn’t so painful).

English Dave and Swiss Olivier stop by en route north on their motorbikes:

Dr. Kaddu was a bit of an interesting character: a balding man in his 50s with glasses and sporting some well kept ear hair that grew along the full curvature of his ear that was trimmed to an even centimetre’s length...and often distracting. He was a very nice guy but could definitely do with practicing his listening skills. Numerous times I found myself repeating the same thing and they would fall on deaf ears (perhaps this hair was playing some role). Thankfully he often had a female doctor, Dr. Ingulkar, with him and she would eventually get my point across to him by saying it in Maharathi (the local dialect).

After the first few days I started to have an incessant headache. It wasn’t a migraine or anything super strong but it just wouldn’t stop, from morning to night, and nothing I took would help it. I was sure that it wasn’t dehydration as I was drinking lots of water. I wondered whether just the impact of my crash could have caused it but then you would think that it would have started from day 1. I mentioned it to the doctors and they had all kinds of suggestions for its cause: too much using of my computer (aw, come on, I used to work on these things 8 hours a day for 13 years!), too much TV, too much reading, too many pillows... I think it came down to a side effect from the meds I was taking and/or too hard of a pillow. Lying there for 24 hours a day for many days in a row, your body is not going to like it. I also developed some chest pains behind my lower right ribs which I think was my liver complaining about the meds too.

By day 4, I was constipated. A normal situation considering I was continually horizontal and my body had gone through some trauma. I was provided with some laxative and I had to laugh at the drug’s name: Evict! Almost as good was the name of the initial pain killer I had on the first few days which was a suppository...called, wait for it....”Just In”!

The infamous laxative...Evict!

My room...getting a bit messier:

Just a week before coming up to Panchgani I had purchased a USB modem to be able to access the Internet wherever I could get a cell signal. Indians are crazy about their cell phones and towers are almost everywhere (and cell phone usage is very cheap) but surprisingly it didn’t work in the hospital. I could connect but the data transfer rate was so slow that a web page would not fully render. So instead, while battling this ceaseless headache, I watched a lot of TV. There were over 50 channels but of this only 7 were in English, 3 of which were sports, 3 movie channels and one, strangely, was “Turbo”, Discovery’s automotive channel (read: lots of mechanic shows about making hot rod bikes). Never in my whole life have I, or will I again, watch so much cricket! (the world cup of cricket is on right now) I can kind of see why people like the game but I have a difficult time getting over a sport where you can be watching it, take a nap, watch a movie, and come back to the game and not much has happened!

Thankfully I have a cell phone (thanks Deano!) and I was able to talk and text with family during this time as it means a lot to have their love and support. My Internet connection started to work near the end of the week and amazingly enough I was even able to Skype (with video) to my family...awesome! It was nice to be able to surf the net to...albeit at a snail’s pace.

One evening I was talking to my friend Naomi in Israel and my door opened up and three young kids, a boy and two girls aged about 12, 8 and 6, came into my room and just stood there staring at me for about ten minutes as I continued to talk to Naomi. At first I found this a bit annoying but I think i was at my wit’s end with this headache, the longest I’ve ever had in my life. They asked, in minimal English, mostly gestures, whether they could have some food. Even though I wasn’t eating much at this stage, I guarded my little horde of cookies, crackers, an apple and some chocolate with my life as I didn’t know when I might get some more. The kids soon left but returned the following night and this time I was up to engaging them more and ended up offering them my chocolate. I wasn’t quite sure why they were in the hospital this much but I guessed that it was to visit a sick family member.

Looking down at the hospital foyer:

Near the end of my stay, I finally ventured outside as I needed to buy some bottled water. I thought I would just have to go to the pharmacy attached to the building but it seems as though I had run this guy dry. Looks like I’ll have to walk over to the bus station to one of the vendors there. I had initially been fitted with a lumbar belt but now they had ordered in a different brace for me that is like a big grey plastic cross on my chest and wraps around to the back. Well, you can imagine I had quite a few sets of eyes checking me out as I crossed the dusty parking lot of bus station...not only was I the only white guy around, I looked half bionic! On the way I did meet some cool kids, of course playing cricket, and chatted with them for a bit...they did put a smile on my face.

Where my two hot dinners came from...glad I found this out after the meals...

The bus station where I walked to a couple of times for water and snacks:

The Geetanjeli Hospital:

On the last day I was definitely ready for a change of scenery. Andre called to see if I was ready to be picked up. I hadn’t paid my bill yet although I had seen Dr. Kaddu and he had given me the clearance to leave. I told Andre to come in and I should be ready to go...I mean, how long can a bill take? Oh Dave, haven’t you learned that you’re in India yet? They gave me a bill but it was just a handwritten total on a small piece of paper. I guess they’re used to patients just paying in cash and going. I however, needed an itemized bill for claiming for medical insurance back in Canada. Can you believe that it took over 2 hours!...well I can.

Dr. Kaddu, Dr. Ingulkar and not my favourite nurse (never caught her name):

Dr. Kaddu, my favourite orderly Milesh:

The 15 minute windy drive up the mountainside to Panchgani was surprisingly not too bad on my back. I definitely felt it but thought it was going to be worse. Andre showed me to my room in the ground floor of his house...quite nice! There’s a rudimentary kitchen too so I’ll be able to cook some of my own food which is nice. There’s a nice Russian couple with a one year old in the other room. I was a little concerned about a crying baby but so far, no problem...as it’s sure nice to be out of the hospital!