Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Hello, Mrs. Salisbury's Classes!

I am sorry that I have not gotten around to doing a post dedicated to you before now.  I am leaving Vellore (the town that I have been staying at) tonight to travel to Delhi for a few days before coming home.  I wanted to do a quick post to you while still in India, and I promise to do a better post next week!  I am leaving for the airport soon, but for now I thought that I would mention the weather in India.  (I hear that you have gotten lots of snow days while I have been out of the country!)

It is currently winter in India, just like in Kansas.  However, India's winter is very different!  Just like at home people are complaining about how cold it gets in the winter.  Right now it gets up to 90 degrees during the day, but people are wearing earmuffs in the morning because the temperatures are in the 70s!  I have told them how cold Kansas gets, and they can't believe it!  Most of the people here have never seen snow, and some did not even know what it was when I talked about it.

People here have also told me that in the summer temperatures get up to 120 degrees!  I'm just glad that I came in the winter!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

My Room

I keep forgetting to post the (much earlier) promised pictures of my room!


My bed is on the right.

We each have a closet and desk.

Half of the bathroom

Another view of the bathroom

The shower

Notice that the shower curtain hangs a good 8 inches from the ground, and there is a bucket available for bucket showers.  It's also a good idea to keep the bucket full since we sometimes run out of water.       

The water heater has to be turned on 10 minutes before you shower if you want hot water.

CMC towel

These monkeys are on the ramp to our building.


And some more of their friends are playing across the street.

Last Days in the Gymnasium

January 13


I continued to work with the little girls lacking ankle motion after necrotizing fasciitis, and her ROM (range of motion) is AWFUL!!!  She probably only has 10-15 degrees of motion at the ankle (plantar and dorsiflexion combined).  Even so, it seems like it's maybe moving a little bit better than it was when I met her earlier is the week, and she's working really hard to get back to walking normally. The sole of her foot has really become overly sensitive, so we've been working on desensitization along with her exercises.  She's really sensitive, and would pull away any time that I touched her foot at all.  Eventually I was able to get her to sit still, and even though she didn't say anything her face showed that she was in a lot of pain when I was working on the sole of her foot.  While there's no doubt in my mind that her pain is real, there is a huge psychological component to it as well.  When I was doing scar massage on her leg she didn't even notice that my forearm was touching the sole of her foot at the same time!  When I pointed this out to her she just smiled.

The PMR Building where the gymnasium is located


It was Lucky's last night in town, so a group of the students went to a restaurant in town called Surabi.  It ended up being a pretty small group because plans weren't announced until late, but it was still a really pleasant evening.

Clockwise from bottom left: Lucky, me, Yukio, Tim, Andy, and Devaki

January 14


This was my last day in the gymnasium.  I got to work with the same little girl lack ankle motion, and I have to say I'm a little sad that I won't get to work with her anymore and see her progress.  I am glad for a change in scenery though, since most of my time is just spent watching.

Over my lunch break I ran into Carli and Megan, and they took me up to the roof of the Asha Building on campus.  There's a really nice roof garden up on the roof with a small food stand.  There's also a great view of Vellore.

On top of the Asha Building

Another rooftop shot

Vellore




We had a mellow night at the hostel because we were leaving for Pondicherry and 6:00 in the morning the next day!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

More Typical Days

January 10


I got another patient who speaks some English!  I'm not really sure how much she truly understands, but some communication is better than none...  She is a 12 year old who had a case of necrotizing fasciitis and had to have the infected tissue surgically removed.  Now she has a huge scar where the graft was placed, almost no ankle range of motion, and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.  What saddens me is that the exercises she is getting seem to be largely the same standard ones given out to all of the pediatric patients, which will only provide a limited amount of gains for improving ankle motion.

I also worked with a 14 year old girl with scoliosis.  She was really sweet, but understood almost no English.  This made giving her instructions for a home program really difficult!

We had to leave work early because Dr. Mani (who founded my scholarship) is in town, and we were supposed to meet with him.  What I thought would be a casual gathering ended up being a somewhat formal meeting about arrangements and orientation for incoming international students.  The meeting wasn't very exciting, but we got free dinner at the Alumni House!  It was the best meal that I have had so far in India, but when I asked what it was no one could tell me.  The best response I got was "cauliflower in a capsacin gravy?"  I was telling Devi about it later that night, and she thought it might be Gobi Manchurian.  Based on what I have found online, I think she was right.

Picture of Gobi Manchurian that I found online



January 11


I fell behind in my journalling, so when I got to writing about this day I couldn't remember anything that had happened!  Not good!  It was really just another day in the gymnasium with nothing exciting happening that night, but I don't remember any more details that that!




January 12


This was really just another typical work day, but since it was a Wednesday we made the weekly trek to Darling for dinner.  I finally gave in and ordered pizza, but I had to put up quite a fight to finally get my pizza.  Almost everyone had finished eating, and my pizza still hadn't come!  And in true Indian fashion, the only response from our servers was "Yeah, yeah yeah."  This response left us not sure whether they understood that my dinner was missing or if anything was being done about it.  We had to ask several times, but it was so worth the wait.  The pizza isn't as good as anything at home, but it came out hot and covered in vegetables!  (And trust me, it's hard to get dinner with produce that is easily recognizable here!)

Around Vellore

January 9


I got up this morning and went to a service at St. John's Church with Jerry, Salena, and Carli.  The church is located inside the Fort grounds, and there is a bus to take students there from campus.  According to a handout that they give to visitors, the current church was built in 1846 and is the oldest church building in Vellore.  It was nice to go to a service, but it was too traditional for my taste.

View of the Fort from the bus

Another view of the Fort
St. John's Church

St. John's Church

Fountain in front of the church

In the afternoon we hiked up College Hill, which is located across from campus.  The first path that we took led us to a Muslim burial ground.  A man told us that it would be okay for us to come closer, but we didn't want to run the risk of offending anyone so we decided to back track to the other trail that we'd seen.  The other track took us to the top of College Hill, where we could look out over Vellore.  It's actually bigger than I would have guessed based upon what we have seen while driving around.  At first I didn't think that I was going to make it to the top, as we all know that I'm not much of a climber, but eventually I made it.  (It's still safe to say that I'm not much of a climber though!)
Start of the trail
(You can just see the edge of College Hill on the left of the picture.)















At the top of College Hill (Thanks for the photo, Carli!)
Back row: Andy (KU), Devaki (Singapore), Jerry (Singapore), Adedoyin (California), Selena (Singapore)
Front row: Carli (Tasmania), Me, Kunlin (Singapore)

Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Golden Temple

January 8


I enjoyed a lazy Saturday morning, complete with sleeping in and lounging most of it away in bed watching (really bad) movies on one of the two English language channels.  In the afternoon Jerry from Singapore came by and invited me to tag along with a few people going to the Golden Temple, one of the two recommended travel sites in Vellore.  Our group ended up being Jerry, Selena, and Kunlin (all of Singapore) and myself and Andy.

To get to the Temple we decided to take a bus instead of an auto rickshaw, and this choice led to one of our "true India experiences."  Getting to the Temple by bus from where we are staying involves taking one bus and later transferring to another.  The second bus ride was so crowded that I really didn't need to use my arms to maintain my balance while standing on the bus and there wouldn't have been room to turn around if I had wanted to!  Then at one of the stops the bus broke down.  In order to get it started again several of the men had to get off and push until the clutch caught like in the movie "Little Miss Sunshine."

When we got to the Temple there were people everywhere.  Cameras are not allowed, so unfortunately I couldn't get any of my own pictures.  (I will include several that I have found online though!)  Shoes are also not allowed, so we checked them and bought tickets for 100 Rupees (a little over $2).  Tickets are not required, but they turned out to be a wise investment as they later let us pass a lot of the crowd.

There is an enclosed walkway into the temple that is in the shape of a star if viewed from above.  Along the path there are many inspirational sayings from many religions and facts about the good deeds that the Temple does for the community.  One sign in particular read something like, "Why do we build a Golden Temple when tins money could be used to build schools or libraries?  The inspiration received here is enough to lead people to build many more schools and libraries."   I suppose their theory is something along the lines of the "pay it forward" idea, but I'm not sure that I really see the logic in their argument.  The temple was really lovely, but it also probably was a waste of A LOT of money...

View when you first arrive at the Golden Temple

Overhead view showing the star shaped pathway with the Temple at the center.


The entry path into the temple is covered, and the covering has a lot of really intricate woodwork.  However, no one seemed to appreciate it or be interested in looking at it.  In fact, many of the people literally ran through this area.  As we got closer to the temple we had to funnel through what felt like closed in cattle shoots.  Thankfully, we had bought the tickets previously mentioned and we got to go through a special line that skipped ahead of much of the crowd.

The Golden Temple is set in the middle of a pool of water.  It's entirely covered in gold with marble floors and crystal chandeliers.  We went at night, so it was all lit up and glittered beautifully.  I couldn't believe all of the intricate gold carvings on every surface of the temple!  There was a small circular path that went around the outside of the pool and then up to the entrance of the temple so that you could see all sides.

The Golden Temple at night

Detail on some of the columns

Another detail shot

For the ride home we opted to take an auto rickshaw.  Our driver took back roads, so it was very bumpy.  We had originally planned on going to Sun Min's (American student doing research in India for 10 months) house for a movie night, but we ended up cancelling because we were all too tired.  

I spent the rest of the night relaxing in my room, although my relaxation was temporarily put on hold by this little guy!  (Sorry it's so blurry!)


These lizards are all over the place, although this was the first one that I found in my room.  He was only about an inch long from tip to tail, and he was crawling on our wall.  While I'm sure that he is harmless, I really couldn't wrap my head around the idea of sleeping with him crawling on the wall over my head.  I had to wait 45 minutes for him to come low enough for me to catch him between a piece of paperboard and an empty Ramen noodles cups, and then I took him outside and set him free!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Typical Day

January 7


This was actually the first day that we made it into the clinic for the start of the work day, since up until this point our mornings were usually started getting various registration issues sorted out.  I can honestly say that the start of the work day a CMC in unlike any other work environment that I have been in.  I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but CMC stands for Christian Medical College.  The staff and students are very religious and there are bible verses and other Christian images posted all around the hospital campus.  The typical workday starts with the physiotherapy department staff and students assembling in the hallway outside of the gym to sing a hymn and pray together.  The staff then splits and goes to their respective areas of the hospital where together they do a brief calisthenic warm-up together.

Overall the rest of the day was pretty typical, but unfortunately it was the last day at CMC for the family that I have been working with that speaks English really well.  I was pretty pleased when they asked if they could get my email address so that they can stay in touch and contact me with any future questions.  I can see why having a contact to discuss their son's condition (cerebral palsy) would be important for them.  Unfortunately, I get the impression that the staff at the hospital is so busy that there is not a lot of time spent educating patients and their families about diagnosis or prognosis.

At the end of the work day I said goodbye to a mother and son that I was currently working with.  The son is 5 years old and very stubborn.  When I said goodbye, he refused to say goodbye in return to me.  His mother asked why he would not say bye, and she informed me that he explained that "bye" is a Tamil word.  Since I do not understand Tamil, he refused to tell me bye because I would not understand him.  In general Tamil seems to be mixed with random English words and phrases, especially counting and medical terms.

That night we had a relatively low-key Friday night with an early dinner at the college canteen.  After that a small group just sat around in Jerry and Quinlan's room across the hall from mine.