On the Way to India: Well-meaning but Now Dead Bacteria.
(Caution. Do not read the following if you are eating or have just eaten.)
I had been dreaming about Pizza Hut for about the entire time I’d been in Nepal, though my mom’s arrival with cheese helped this a lot, and in my desperation for said cheese I looked it up on the internet. Are there Pizza Huts in India? As it turns out, there were about five of them in New Delhi alone, so I knew I was all set. I knew that whatever else might happen, I was going to have a real pizza (not a flat Nepali one) the night of our layover in Delhi. Our flight was delayed for five or six hours, so our group of eight Fulbright people (the “Nepal Delegation!!!”) got to ‘relax’ in the Kathmandu airport. For the wait, the airline gave us a disgusting packed lunch in the waiting room.
Moving forward to the stinky hotel in Delhi (what was that smell, and where was it coming from?), I had soon convinced my roommate and travel buddy Jessie that she also wanted Pizza Hut, and called for delivery. Being on the road in Delhi was a culture shock – it was an eerie silent drive of no honking and people staying in lanes. Having a pizza delivered fit right in to this sort of dream world. The pizza was good, though obviously not healthy. The bacteria hiding in my stomach must have heard me thinking to myself “oh this isn’t good for me at all,” and in the middle of the night decided to come to my rescue and eject all of that pizza from my digestive system for me before I had a chance to digest the cheese. Though I’m sure their intentions were good (the bacteria), their timing was awful. The group had to leave early in the morning to go catch our flight down to southern India, so I didn’t have any chance to buy antibiotics. So I boarded the flight knowing that I was going to suffer. I did pretty well until the food cart had me trapped in. Oh, bacteria.
I diligently suffered through the pain all the way until the hotel in Kozhikode, Kerala. I would have been really impressed by the scenery of forests made entirely of palm trees if I weren’t attempting to have the mindset of an ascetic (accepting the pain). Once safe in the hotel room, I watched TV and suffered more. I was hoping it would just kind of go away, but once I decided that the pain was about as bad as any pain I’d ever experienced, I had to become proactive. Fulbright isn’t like a college program where there’s someone in charge taking care of you… I was on my own. The program had decided to split us all up with new roommates, so Jessie was in another hotel and my new roommate hadn’t arrived yet. So I eventually called down to the lobby and found out where the nearest doctor was (two buildings away), and took an autorickshaw there. Autorickshaws are like mini-versions of the tempos (tuktuks) I’ve described in my emails about Nepal.
Anyways, the doctor tried to tell me that I just had gas and said I should take an antacid. He diagnosed this after listening to my stomach with a stethoscope. And having a nurse check my blood pressure. I was appalled: The only reason I had paid to have a doctor visit was to be given some nice magic antibiotic pills. I did my best to reason with the guy – I told him I had already taken antacid pills (these are great for anyone stuck in any public place while sick: smell-reduction), and that gas doesn’t make people throw up that many times. He just smiled in that disgusting I’m-a-doctor-so-I’m-smarter-than-you way, and said “Oh, just take this and then if you have a temperature later you can come back and I’ll give you antibiotics.” Seeing as I had no other recourse, I turned to the old trusty standby, crying. I made it a brave, angry sort of weeping though, not anything tragic. I said, through my only-slightly-pathetic, indignant tears, “Can you at least take my temperature now?!” Thus, I won the battle with my own 102° F temperature. I took the gigantic gram of ciprofloxacin (in Nepal they only come in 500mg) and slept for the entire evening, and woke up almost completely cured and just slightly weak. Goodbye bacteria. (Don’t worry, you people who know about antibiotics and resistance, I completed the course of antibacs, another 4 pills over the next 4 days. For those of you who don’t know, always finish your course of antibiotics or all the bacteria will become resistant and take over the world, even before the ozone layer disappears and we run out of oil.)
I had been dreaming about Pizza Hut for about the entire time I’d been in Nepal, though my mom’s arrival with cheese helped this a lot, and in my desperation for said cheese I looked it up on the internet. Are there Pizza Huts in India? As it turns out, there were about five of them in New Delhi alone, so I knew I was all set. I knew that whatever else might happen, I was going to have a real pizza (not a flat Nepali one) the night of our layover in Delhi. Our flight was delayed for five or six hours, so our group of eight Fulbright people (the “Nepal Delegation!!!”) got to ‘relax’ in the Kathmandu airport. For the wait, the airline gave us a disgusting packed lunch in the waiting room.
Moving forward to the stinky hotel in Delhi (what was that smell, and where was it coming from?), I had soon convinced my roommate and travel buddy Jessie that she also wanted Pizza Hut, and called for delivery. Being on the road in Delhi was a culture shock – it was an eerie silent drive of no honking and people staying in lanes. Having a pizza delivered fit right in to this sort of dream world. The pizza was good, though obviously not healthy. The bacteria hiding in my stomach must have heard me thinking to myself “oh this isn’t good for me at all,” and in the middle of the night decided to come to my rescue and eject all of that pizza from my digestive system for me before I had a chance to digest the cheese. Though I’m sure their intentions were good (the bacteria), their timing was awful. The group had to leave early in the morning to go catch our flight down to southern India, so I didn’t have any chance to buy antibiotics. So I boarded the flight knowing that I was going to suffer. I did pretty well until the food cart had me trapped in. Oh, bacteria.
I diligently suffered through the pain all the way until the hotel in Kozhikode, Kerala. I would have been really impressed by the scenery of forests made entirely of palm trees if I weren’t attempting to have the mindset of an ascetic (accepting the pain). Once safe in the hotel room, I watched TV and suffered more. I was hoping it would just kind of go away, but once I decided that the pain was about as bad as any pain I’d ever experienced, I had to become proactive. Fulbright isn’t like a college program where there’s someone in charge taking care of you… I was on my own. The program had decided to split us all up with new roommates, so Jessie was in another hotel and my new roommate hadn’t arrived yet. So I eventually called down to the lobby and found out where the nearest doctor was (two buildings away), and took an autorickshaw there. Autorickshaws are like mini-versions of the tempos (tuktuks) I’ve described in my emails about Nepal.
Anyways, the doctor tried to tell me that I just had gas and said I should take an antacid. He diagnosed this after listening to my stomach with a stethoscope. And having a nurse check my blood pressure. I was appalled: The only reason I had paid to have a doctor visit was to be given some nice magic antibiotic pills. I did my best to reason with the guy – I told him I had already taken antacid pills (these are great for anyone stuck in any public place while sick: smell-reduction), and that gas doesn’t make people throw up that many times. He just smiled in that disgusting I’m-a-doctor-so-I’m-smarter-than-you way, and said “Oh, just take this and then if you have a temperature later you can come back and I’ll give you antibiotics.” Seeing as I had no other recourse, I turned to the old trusty standby, crying. I made it a brave, angry sort of weeping though, not anything tragic. I said, through my only-slightly-pathetic, indignant tears, “Can you at least take my temperature now?!” Thus, I won the battle with my own 102° F temperature. I took the gigantic gram of ciprofloxacin (in Nepal they only come in 500mg) and slept for the entire evening, and woke up almost completely cured and just slightly weak. Goodbye bacteria. (Don’t worry, you people who know about antibiotics and resistance, I completed the course of antibacs, another 4 pills over the next 4 days. For those of you who don’t know, always finish your course of antibiotics or all the bacteria will become resistant and take over the world, even before the ozone layer disappears and we run out of oil.)
posted by Alani Price | 10:15 AM
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