Week Three (A Medical Adventure of Sorts)

As mentioned in a 'preview' a few days ago, for those of you who are reading regularly (and despite the lack of comments I do in fact know that at least some of you are, or at least this is what I tell myself to ward of the threat of psychological and social isolation) I got a case of mysterious sick after my first couple weeks here. It started with a persistent fever, a lot of gooey nose business, and a headache that would swish around my head whenever I moved, which for that period of time at least I did rather infrequently. Most mysterious however, was a blotchy itchy redness that started in the corners of my mouth and then without seeming reason or pattern would appear elsewhere, a spread of something strange and alien traveling and setting shop in any nook or cranny it took a fancy to, unlike any dermatological condition I've enjoyed while stateside or frankly anywhere. This, in the land of mysterious viscous substances, monsoon puddles that cover entire streets and end up knee high and furnished by floating diapers and who knows what, and a constant forced-sharing of every space and surface with unknown thousands of others all of their own unique hygienic states, is a tad bit worrisome. The mystery! The intrigue! The constant muttered hopes of reassurance that I did not in fact have some subcontinental herpes.

So, while every other ailment and issue seemed to dissipate in its own good time, after a few days of incredibly bored sweating performed in an often powerless apartment, the rash remained and continued to wander. The mystery expanded not only along the surface of my skin but also within my mind, an all consuming nag of possible consequences and outcomes and a constant recounting of places I had been and more importantly things or people I may have touched.

Then, I went to the doctor, an adventure in and of itself.

The Indian medical system and social society is quite a different experience from our US/American standards of things. For one thing, formal records, appointments, and all those rules of order that seem to bother so often don't exist here, leading to a jumbled room of patients waiting to be called by first name, last name, or frankly anything and pointed into dimly lit irregular rooms (I was just entitled 'you' while there, my status as a foreigner requiring no further identification or categorization). There exists a certain social-club-esque atmosphere in the waiting room, strangers asking each other openly and directly why they were there... 'normal check-up? evaluation? consultation?', something that just strikes me as a bit odd. I, as the lone foreigner in the room was asked quite a few times why I was there. I didn't feel much like sharing so each time I would say that I was here to see the doctor. An obvious reply, yes, but a seemingly satisfactory answer for a relatively invasive question.

I then saw the doctor. The doctors here do not wear gloves, or have nice sheets of removable trace-paper covering their examining tables. They also don't touch you or ask you personal questions (oddly less personal than those questions hosted in the waiting room on the other side of the dingy wall). This doctor was not particularly helpful, pretty much saying I could have anything in the world but not seeming too alarmed by that. So, I gave some blood and some urine for them to take a peek at, which also was its own special set of experiences. While I watched carefully to make sure the needle being inserted in my arm was new and clean, not much else was. The party atmosphere of the blood-test room, with a group of patients waiting to be tested all sort of huddled around whoever was letting blood at the moment in one small room, was a bit odd. The urine sample tray was also seemingly proudly displayed on a stool near the center of the waiting room, like some kind of multi-shaded opulent display of glowing pieces de'art, each one's unique composition lending a particular new hue and opacity and perhaps simultaneously a new way to consider one's own reflection warped and held within the convex plastic. A commentary of self-portraiture, personal versus collective identity, the dialectic between oneself and the group? I do not know but any variety of analyses could be suitable. Beauty and Ideology! I left unresolved and equally worried about whatever new bits or diseases I may have picked up while there.

This is coming across as quite bitter and demeaning, but I was concerned, yes?

Rather than seeing what seemed to be a Bengali-only speaking clinic of a skin doctor recommended by the doctor, I went to see a guy I picked myself, a contact of the Institute here and a guy with a pretty strong hold over the English language and a rather reputable series of credentials. The waiting room was akin to a cozy cave, the cadre of a dozen or so patients stooped beneath furiously desperate fans, requisitely shoeless (a rather quaintly Indian aspect of hospitals and clinic waiting rooms here). After a pleasant conversation with a college English major whose own English language abilities were not particularly good but and was simultaneously highly amused by my Bengali pronunciation, along with my vegetarianism and my lack of any smoking habit, I saw the doctor and was almost immediately diagnosed with scabies.

'Scabies'... a word not usually received with the utmost of joy. But here, with the huge range of possible afflictions, it was a godsend: A handful of bugs I could rid myself of with a couple pills that simultaneously would do away with any worms I might have picked up (on the side, just in case) rather than some flesh-eating virus passed along by shared auto-rickshaws or the errant whack of elbows in the street. 'Scabies!' I thought to myself as I happily walked home, a threatening monsoon cloud cooling things to the point of being downright pleasant, a guava in hand, dusted in some red and mildly spicy salt (their choice, not mine) and a gulab jamun and a couple other strange globs of milk-sweets in my other. 'Scabies! Just scabies!" was all I could think as I happily wove myself through people and speeding buses and cars careening towards the sidewalk. “Haha, oh scabies...”

'What a wonderful evening to be walking along in Kolkata! The City of Joy... Scabies!"