#54 Back in India

Hi Everyone I arrived back in India a week ago and I hit the ground running. Lots of things are exactly the same: * I am back in the same exact room I had so this time I put up the mosquito netting on the outside window of my balcony. The advantage is no mosquitoes can come in my room from the door to the balcony. The disadvantage is the netting blocks the wind and doesn't allow my clothes to dry fast when I hang them on the clothes line on my balcony. There is a clothes line down the hall that I can hang things on if I need to dry them fast. I also found that the window in the bathroom is not screened so I must keep my bathroom door closed or critters can come through there - mosquitoes and geckos. I don't mind the geckos, but the mosquitoes carry disease that I would rather not have. * I am still in the same office at the hospital - Center for Digital Health. My boss before I left had an unfortunate incident that shortly after I left he had a fever. When the fever left he couldn't talk - just a very small whisper. There is a paralysis of his vocal cords. He has had one procedure done and it helped a little, but if his voice doesn't come back, he may need surgery. So he never finished the report on Services for the Aging and now he has asked if I could do the final report. He is away on vacation until March so in the meantime I am doing another project Which leads to New Things: * I am working on a Handbook for By-Standers, something we Westerners have no clue about!!! In India there are no CNAs in the hospital, and the nurses don't do a lot of things that Western nurses (I know US & Australia) do for patients. So a "By-Stander" is required for any treatment- Outpatient and Inpatient - in the hospital. I have been acting as a By-Stander for an American who had very swollen feet and ankles, WARNING - blood clot or Cardiac Problems. They had to do all kinds of tests to check her out. So every time she needed a test, I had to be there and they would order one at the drop of a hat. They definitely kept me busy. And I had to keep refilling her water bottles. The nurses don't do any of this. And the Discharge Process was unbelievable. As my former boss, the Indian Doctor who resided in England once told me, "The British invented bureaucracy, and the Indians perfected it". I had to take my By-Stander card down to the offices, and go from one window to another (at least 3 of them), then take the printed final bill upstairs for the patient to review, and then she gave me the money and I went back downstairs to pay for it. I wondered what would have been done if she tried to pay for it with a credit card that needed a signature? As it is, she paid for it in US Dollars and I was worried they wouldn't accept it but they did and I got her out of the hospital. But it took hours to do. The main reason was most of the staff don't speak English so I learned to ask "Do you speak English?" first, and of course they say Yes, but they don't. More about this later. *** So the "Handbook for By-Standers" should help so everyone doesn't have to find their own way on how to do these things. I learned a lot and it was not easy being a By-Stander. And this woman was not really sick. I can imagine how it would be for a By-Stander who was really sick, not able to bathe by herself or get out of bed. Westerners are so spoiled by the service we receive in hospitals. * I arrived on Saturday morning and Tuesday there was a country-wide Strike for two days. No public transportation. Banks were closed. The hospital still functioned but they rolled out their school buses to help transport employees to the hospital. And they had to put signs in the windows that they were Emergency Hospital Staff or the buses could have been attacked. I walked by the parking lot and it was interesting that all the cars had "HOSPITAL STAFF" signs in their windows. They weren't taking any chances of being stopped by union members saying they should be at home. I read the internet and the Union was striking that the government was contemplating privatizing the train system. After what I have seen in Australia, I absolutely support the strike. Australia privatized everything after I left and it is not good. The Unemployment Office is privatized. The Social Services are privatized. For Private Industry to make a profit from these services the motivation is the bottom line, not service to the citizen. The majority of Indians are extremely poor. The trains give them the transportation they need for a very low cost. And it keeps thousands of Indians employed. Privatizing them would probably put thousands out work, increase the cost of tickets, and eventually let the rich become richer. So what else is new? It rained while I was gone and the view from my balcony now has waterways... a lagoon back there. And it feels hotter, even though the temperature is lower than Australia, the humidity makes it hot. Some areas of the hospital are air conditioned so I get relief sometimes. But I need to be by a fan to keep me cool. Right now I am in my room and I have my ceiling fan on. It's comfortable for me but according to the internet, it is 88 Degrees Fahrenheit, or 31 Degrees Centigrade. It was getting up to 40 Degrees C when I was in Australia. I am finding the food tastes a LOT hotter to me. Yesterday's breakfast hit my nose like I ate some really hot Chinese mustard. I'm sure I will get used to it again. I am finding it nice that so many people are coming up to me to say hello when they see I have returned. But also, many people are away. The Head of the Nursing Department is away so I have not seen her yet. And I brought back a box of Australian Chocolate covered Macadamia Nuts (I bought it at the airport) as a souvenir and I am hoping they will keep until she returns. Someone gave me a box of Tobler chocolates and it was putty when I went to eat it. I have been able to keep up with the weather back in the US. While I have been hot, the Northeast got snowed in. Even today I just checked and the high over the next few days will only be 50 Degrees F. I would be freezing. And it is only 53 Degrees F in Phoenix. Oh Noooo. Yippes, it's only 16 Degrees F in Fort Collins. Time to put the long johns on! I have been enjoying myself reading. My last free book from Barnes & Noble’s Nook was A Texan's Promise by Shelley Gray. Just a nice simple "Christian" book. I read Prince of Tides back in Australia then saw the film before I left. My brother checked out the DVD from the Library for us to watch. On the flight to India I watched Argo, the new film with Ben Affleck and that was excellent. When I got here my boss's daughter had a DVD - Eddie Murphy's "A Thousand Words" and she loaned it to me to view. I have never had this happen to me before but the DVD player said the code on the DVD would not allow it to be shown on my computer. She bought it here in India so maybe they didn't follow Copyright regulation. Ha Ha. I'm going to close for now. I hope I am not boring you OR if you have any questions about anything I've written, please email me and ask. Love you all Marie *** I just reread this and saw I was supposed to tell you more about asking the Discharge Staff if they spoke English as I was processing my patient as the By-Stander. I have found that Indians want to please. So if you ask them if they speak English, they will say yes, whether they do or don't. More than likely they don't. It has been very difficult communicating with the staff but if I keep asking questions, I can sometimes find someone who can speak English and they will help translate. At one point a nurse came into the patient's room and gave her medicine. Actually they gave the prescription bag to me. They were always doing this - pain pills, antacids, vitamins, etc. But she asked them "What are these pills for?" The nurse answered "Medicine." When the nurse left we laughed. There was no way we were going to find out from the nurse what the pills were for. My patient had to google the name on the internet and discuss it with the doctor the next day when he came on rounds. You don't want to go to the hospital in India. However, the movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is excellent. If you haven't seen it, check it out.

#53 My last day in Australia

Hi Everyone My visit to Rottnest Island was eventful. My brother, Walter, and I had a small cottage facing the Indian Ocean. It was lovely weather, well at least for me. It was warm and I opted for NOT renting a bicycle but taking the bus. The two walking tours were cancelled due to the heat. The Quokkas tour was cancelled and the area where they are usually seen resulted with tourists reporting finding four dead ones. The Quokka is a miniature Kangaroo. But we saw a lovely sunset. Fixed ourselves sandwiches for dinner because the price of everything was inflated. A cup of regular coffee cost AUS $5.00. I needed my coffee so I bought one anyway. The finale to our trip was Walter dehydrating and needing to go to the First Aide Center. I got my first ride ever in an ambulance. And it was amazing how everyone on the bus were so helpful when Walter wasn't feeling well... first the bus driver gave us a bottle of water, then a really COLD bottle of water appeared, and then someone had ICE in a plastic bag which we put on his head. It was when we arrived in the Town Center that the EMT arrived, helped him out, and we took the ambulance ride to the First Aide and he was given 3 drip bags of fluid. He knew he received an infusion but he didn't know he received 3 of them. We made it to the ferry on time and my brother drove home but end of story is that he returned to the hospital the next day by ambulance and I didn't go with him this time. In fact, the neighbors took me to the airport to catch my flight to India, where I am right now. I did have a good time in Australia. I'm the type who sees the glass half full so it was a good trip, even with all the excitement. Here are a few photos of Rottnest Island and quite representative of Australia in general. Beautiful water, clean beach. The Aussies know how to handle the sun, with the exception of my brother. And I am not picking on my brother; he has had a lot on his mind lately so I give him some slack. In the photo with the bicycles to the left of the photo, notice the little tent in the center of the photo. Everyone has these that they pop up and they keep themselves and the little ones out of the sun except for when they are in the water. They are very light and fold up into little carrying packs. You use the sand in built in pouches for the weight to hold the tent from blowing away. Let me post this and then I will do another posting for my return to India. Take care everyone. Love, Marie

#52 Observations about Australia

Hi Everyone I have less than a week left in Australia and I haven't posted one photo from here. I'm going to a big resort area here in West Australia, Rottnest Island, on Tuesday with my brother for one night, and I will be sure to take my camera and take a photo or two to post for you. Rottnest Island is a short ferry ride from Perth and there are no cars allowed on the island. They say the island was once attached to the Mainland of Australia and the Aboriginals lived there. Now it's a short 45 minute ferry ride over and people get around by bicycle. There are lots of these little creatures living there, Rottnest Island's famous marsupial, the quokka, that looked like Rats so they gave the name Rat Nest to the island I also realized that most of you have never been to Australia and have no idea what it is like here. First of all, sometimes I think is a lot like the U.S.A. The people are a lot like us, the houses and landscape are very much like the U.S. The biggest differences are the birds, and the fauna but you have to look closely or you will think it's the same. And the cars drive on the wrong side, like England and India. I'm very used to cars driving on this side now. The beaches are beautiful. Clean, and almost no one there. Miles and miles of beautiful beach and clean clear blue and turquoise water. Traffic is like the U.S., busier in the cities and during rush hours. TV is a shock that so many of the programs are American, everything from American Idol to Glee. PBS is on a station and I get to see that. However, the prices of everything are much more expensive. The One Dollar Store is Two Dollars here and the one closest to us closed down since I've been here. I don't know why I seem to always start this Blog late at night when I am tired, but once again my eyelids are closing and the brain is disengaged and I cannot think of what else to write. So goodnight everyone. I'll get back when I return from Rotto. Love Marie