a trip to the hospital

Another day of headaches, random aches and pains, coughing, runny nose, you name it. The three of us spent the morning looking up symptoms for malaria because we're all paranoid that we have it. By mid day, two of us were feeling much better but Jo unfortunately was not. She almost fainted in the morning but sat down in time to avoid it but after her mid-afternoon nap, she wasnt as lucky. We decided that it was time to take her to the hospital, because in addition to the fainting, she had developed a rash. Miriam went out to the main road to find a taxi that would take us because its a public holiday and everyone is celebrating all over Mumbai. All day long we've been hearing firecrackers exploding, drums, and people screaming "Ganapati Bappa Morya!" It's madness, I've never seen or heard anything like it. Anyway, so she found a man whose cousin brother (as he called him) is a taxi driver but set a fixed rate for our trip: 250 rupees. Given the unpredictability of the traffic, it seemed reasonable until the ride only took 15 minutes. If we had used the meter, it probably would have been 50 rupees. No big deal really. The hospital was beautiful, we went to Lilavati Hospital, where all of the celebrities and rich folk go for their healthcare needs. And, get this, there's a 20% surcharge for Foreign National and NRIs (Non Resident Indians). !! We were there for about an hour, the ER doctor was trying to admit Jo into the hospital, but we made a round of calls to a few friends who are doctors, their mothers who are also doctors, and Sherry (our dr. roommmate) and decided to head home. Jo is going to get checked out by Sherry's doctor friend tomorrow morning. The director of AVSAR met up with us at the hospital and thank goodness because the ER doctor wasnt making any sense. We kept asking if Jo could get her bloodwork done without being admitted and she kep saying something about the charges being double and inpatients getting preference to outpatients. I dont know. Imagine what it would be like at a government hospital. The doctor even said to us "Um, Can you afford the charges at this hospital? Its very expensive here. One of you should go over to our billing department and find out the cost."

The trip home from the hospital was quite the adventure. It took us almost two hours to get back. Truckloads of children were singing and dancing around us wherever we went. Locals were lined up on the medians just watching the traffic go by. Many of the roads were closed off because of the celebrations going on in the neighborhood.