Report of 7 Aug 2019
And this is the joy of being back.
I have had a tasty lunch, eaten an ice-cold mango - ahh, manna. One has not lived until one has eaten a cold mango. I also had a glug of buttermilk after breakfast. Buttermilk is likely an acquired taste for Westerners. I like it - it is yogurt, thinned with water and with salt and spices added. My aunt, a botanist, said she started drinking a glass of it in the mornings and was free of stomach ailments. We are now trying this approach. A probiotic, which is marketed elsewhere, is buttermilk jazzed up with other ingredients, including sugar. The value of yogurt for digestive ailments is taught to us from a young age.
Our balcony, with its view of the sea, is where I am. Also nice. I swam this morning for the first time after returning. I had lifted weights before that, on the advice of my weight-lifting coach back in Fort Wayne, and then swum. The old legs were sluggish. I must have put on weight, though I cannot quite feel it. A patient at Kovalam said rather matter-of-factly that I had "uppified (bloated)." Indian candor is legendary.
I was back at work at Adaikalam last week, then went to Mysore and Coorg. A cousin lost his 27 year old son; the young son had special needs and was very dear to all of us. I went to condole and then we went to Coorg to condole with other cousins who had lost their mother. We then went to Kunjiri, my mother's home and where her land (i.e., her personal asset) still is. All of it was nice. We saw as many relatives as we could. Coorgi candor is also unique: an aunt said, "Do come in, your face is much worse, isn't it." I had had some darkening of the skin a couple of years ago and tried every trick in the book. It appeared to be clearing, or so I thought, until the aunt weighed in.
When my train to Mysore stopped in Bangalore for the usual 15-20 minutes, I got down to buy a snack. As I turned around after paying, to stretch my legs a bit, I found to my horror that the train was moving and very definitely leaving. Yaiiii. The new stoppage time is apparently 5 minutes. I mulled over letting the train go with my luggage and taking a local train later, but decided against it, ran alongside and got on. There had been no pre-departure warning whistle, nothing. The getting back on the train was not as easy as it sounds: I had to judge where to place my foot - on the steps or on the main ledge - and then plan my strategy. People have died while doing this, slipping and falling onto the tracks below. Thankfully, I made it and was then in some shock later. It is a tremendous credit to my weight-lifting coach that some of my muscles were strengthened enough for me to stay upright through this whole maneuver.
I was back at Kovalam this week to some unsettling news. We have no money and the clinic is going to be cut back to twice a month from its current weekly schedule. I firmly believe that twice the number of patients will show up at the bi-monthly clinics and we will have to deal with that. The patients are going to be very upset, but we will try this altered schedule for now.
One of our long-standing patients, a fisherman who no longer goes to sea, was one of the first people to greet me at Kovalam and that was lovely. We chatted a bit, he asked how everybody overseas was. The patients get quite upset when I leave, but are used to it by now and fully support the "going to see mother-in-law." Make no mistake that the mother-in-law is number 1 in many Indian (and probably non-Indian) households.
I talked to my father 2 days ago and that was nice. The boys and we hung out separately on the weekend, too, and that was therapeutic. We rued the shootings in the U.S.
We had to send a patient to the hospital today as she was unresponsive. She likely has Turner's syndrome, where the chromosomes are XO, not XX as most women have. Men have XY chromosomes. Everyone hesitated to send her as we owe the hospital a lot of money. The hospital itself would not turn away our patients, and I appreciate that. All tests are normal and the patient is back in our facility. She is a delightful sort, wandering around chatting with everyone and unfailingly patting my head or pinching my cheek. She is not wanted by her family - no one has come to check on her, in my time here - and that is surely their loss. How people can become so disposable is an issue that saddens me. At the same time, my heart is immensely gladdened that the Banyan gives many people a home.
Home. A nice word. A warm place, most of the time.
Unw -
R
I have had a tasty lunch, eaten an ice-cold mango - ahh, manna. One has not lived until one has eaten a cold mango. I also had a glug of buttermilk after breakfast. Buttermilk is likely an acquired taste for Westerners. I like it - it is yogurt, thinned with water and with salt and spices added. My aunt, a botanist, said she started drinking a glass of it in the mornings and was free of stomach ailments. We are now trying this approach. A probiotic, which is marketed elsewhere, is buttermilk jazzed up with other ingredients, including sugar. The value of yogurt for digestive ailments is taught to us from a young age.
Our balcony, with its view of the sea, is where I am. Also nice. I swam this morning for the first time after returning. I had lifted weights before that, on the advice of my weight-lifting coach back in Fort Wayne, and then swum. The old legs were sluggish. I must have put on weight, though I cannot quite feel it. A patient at Kovalam said rather matter-of-factly that I had "uppified (bloated)." Indian candor is legendary.
I was back at work at Adaikalam last week, then went to Mysore and Coorg. A cousin lost his 27 year old son; the young son had special needs and was very dear to all of us. I went to condole and then we went to Coorg to condole with other cousins who had lost their mother. We then went to Kunjiri, my mother's home and where her land (i.e., her personal asset) still is. All of it was nice. We saw as many relatives as we could. Coorgi candor is also unique: an aunt said, "Do come in, your face is much worse, isn't it." I had had some darkening of the skin a couple of years ago and tried every trick in the book. It appeared to be clearing, or so I thought, until the aunt weighed in.
When my train to Mysore stopped in Bangalore for the usual 15-20 minutes, I got down to buy a snack. As I turned around after paying, to stretch my legs a bit, I found to my horror that the train was moving and very definitely leaving. Yaiiii. The new stoppage time is apparently 5 minutes. I mulled over letting the train go with my luggage and taking a local train later, but decided against it, ran alongside and got on. There had been no pre-departure warning whistle, nothing. The getting back on the train was not as easy as it sounds: I had to judge where to place my foot - on the steps or on the main ledge - and then plan my strategy. People have died while doing this, slipping and falling onto the tracks below. Thankfully, I made it and was then in some shock later. It is a tremendous credit to my weight-lifting coach that some of my muscles were strengthened enough for me to stay upright through this whole maneuver.
I was back at Kovalam this week to some unsettling news. We have no money and the clinic is going to be cut back to twice a month from its current weekly schedule. I firmly believe that twice the number of patients will show up at the bi-monthly clinics and we will have to deal with that. The patients are going to be very upset, but we will try this altered schedule for now.
One of our long-standing patients, a fisherman who no longer goes to sea, was one of the first people to greet me at Kovalam and that was lovely. We chatted a bit, he asked how everybody overseas was. The patients get quite upset when I leave, but are used to it by now and fully support the "going to see mother-in-law." Make no mistake that the mother-in-law is number 1 in many Indian (and probably non-Indian) households.
I talked to my father 2 days ago and that was nice. The boys and we hung out separately on the weekend, too, and that was therapeutic. We rued the shootings in the U.S.
We had to send a patient to the hospital today as she was unresponsive. She likely has Turner's syndrome, where the chromosomes are XO, not XX as most women have. Men have XY chromosomes. Everyone hesitated to send her as we owe the hospital a lot of money. The hospital itself would not turn away our patients, and I appreciate that. All tests are normal and the patient is back in our facility. She is a delightful sort, wandering around chatting with everyone and unfailingly patting my head or pinching my cheek. She is not wanted by her family - no one has come to check on her, in my time here - and that is surely their loss. How people can become so disposable is an issue that saddens me. At the same time, my heart is immensely gladdened that the Banyan gives many people a home.
Home. A nice word. A warm place, most of the time.
Unw -
R
posted by Renu at
3:38 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home