what florentino daza’s godfather avowed in love in the time of cholera surely rings true. and, beyond a shadow of a doubt, i am quite sure to which category i belong. though it is quarter break, i have not left the radius of my couch for longer than i would like to calculate. i had planned to venture to gangotri on a trek to the glacier with brian, jamie, ethan and maddy but my stomach has again curtailed my plans of indian greatness. to be honest, i am amazed with how content i am being a hermit. much more content than being a patient of the indian medical system with it’s non-sedated endoscopies and colonoscopies and bus-station-like hospital waiting areas. my colonoscopy, one of the most humiliating experiences in my life, involved newspaper on the examining table. the whole time in the back of my mind i was thinking about the time that katie couric had a colonoscopy on the today show to prove how easy it is. my colonoscopy definitely wouldn’t have made that cut. and now, following doctor’s orders, i am testing the waters as a vegan.
in the last two months i have seen pretty much every inch of my insides and some parts i would have preferred to remain veiled in mystery. i went to delhi in july for a full work-up at apollo hospital. upon arrival these incredibly tall indian men dressed in raj attire greeted the taxis and directed us to our correct locale, through the bus-station-like open air corridor. indian medicine is like the indian educational system, all about quantitative analyses. completing the apollo health checkup was like ticking off boxes on a scavenger hunt. chest x-ray, ultrasound, cardiogram, blood, urine and stool samples, etc. multiple patients crowd into an examining room simultaneously, sharing their personal information without apprehension. the assertiveness necessitated by indian culture is also prevalent in the medical arena, people gather around the door to the doctor’s office as if they were rushing to obtain tickets to a sold-out concert.
the no frills in-and-out care enables much lower medical costs, but who doesn’t like a little coddling now and then? however, my woodstock friends supply quite enough tender loving care to the tune of flowers, meals and entertainment. when my fortune in japan said, “the patient will take a long time to heal,” the gods definitely weren’t kidding. i am just beginning to wonder what they had in mind for “a long time.” patience has never been my strongest virtue.
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