Catching Up

I'm still trying to get my posts caught up, so here goes....

January 4

This was the day that I finally got internet set up!  Otherwise it was a pretty uneventful day.  I spent the morning in the clinic and was able to meet one family that speaks English really well, unfortunately they are only around for a few more days.  Once again I had families taking pictures of me.  Apparently being a white makes you a big deal!

Raji had me try to do some patient assessments with families that speak English, but I felt guilty doing much more than a subjective assessment since the families will already be there for several hours for the day getting their children's exercises done.  Also, I've yet to figure out if there is any sort of formal documentation system in the gym.  The therapists seem to write some things down during the initial assessment, but I never see daily notes or updates done.


January 5

Most of this morning was spent getting our I.D. badges, paying fees, and then in the gym again.  Fees ended up being less than I thought they would be.  Yay for saving money!

For the afternoon I was scheduled to go to the traumatic brain injury clinic.  I was pretty excited for this because I don't have much experience with TBIs, and I figured that I would get to see some interesting cases.  Unfortunately, the PT that worked the clinic only ended up needing to see one patient the entire time, so I just ended up sitting around for quite awhile.

Once it became clear that we wouldn't be seeing any more patients in the clinic, the therapist that I was with sent me back to the gym.  Raji called me over to where she was working with a 9 month-old girl who had seizure disorder and had lost head control after one of her seizures.  I was excited to see something new (most of the children we see have cerebral palsy), but I was disappointed when we were unable to rouse the child from her sleep for therapy.  Instead I ended up spending an hour watching the child sleep while Raji spoke to the mother in Tamil.

Luckily, the evening was better because it was Wednesday!  Wednesday night in Vellore means that all of the international students head to the Darling Restaurant for dinner.   I have been told that January is a busy month for having international students at CMC, and that was clear at dinner.  In all there were about 40 students at dinner.  We got to meet lots of students who are staying at places other than our hostel.  I had a dish called the fish tikka, and I really enjoyed it.  (Especially since at the canteen our meals are mostly carbs!)  I can't lie though - I'm already eying the pizza that's on the menu for dinner this week!

After dinner some of the students went downstairs for drinks, but it was already 10:00 and I was exhausted.  I caught an auto back to the campus with 2 girls from Australia instead.  Our rickshaw was interesting.  Our driver had installed a REALLY loud sound system and flashing lights.  Our driver would zip in and out of traffic even more than usual, and we think he was just trying to get a reaction out of the tourists!