Medical Help

nedhopkins

Given the horrors the tsunami ravaged on India and other lands, my encounter with a bull seems little more than a diversion. Still, it may be of intrerest and use to travelers who need medical attention in India.

Travel is, as the adage boasts, educational. I learned something in Jaipur, India: I learned that it is unwise to attract the interest of cows if their bull is nearby. This is how my lesson occurred.

I had gone to Monkey Temple. My auto–rickshaw driver said I would build ‘good karma’ by feeding peanuts to the little simians. (An auto–rickshaw is a carriage attached to a motor scooter.)

I bought a two (2) kilogram bag of treats and wandered around the temple grounds, alternately handing peanuts to monkeys and throwing a few onto the ground near where groups of monkeys were sitting.

As on the streets and everywhere else in India, there were cows at Monkey Temple. Even before I threw my first peanut the cows began following me. They clearly recognized the plastic bags in which Monkey Temple vendors sell peanuts — and they slurped up the peanuts the moment I threw some toward them.
The cows were aggressive. Two of them approached and nudged me before my driver — having located a large stick — shooed them away.

After an hour of exploring Monkey Temple I still had a fourth of my kilo of peanuts. About a kilometer from the temple grounds my driver and I encountered a bull and several heifers milling about an intersection.
The driver suggested I might generate even more good karma by feeding the remaining peanuts to the cattle. I did — and soon had no peanuts left.

The cows didn’t understand that the peanuts were all gone. Three of them crowded me hoping for more. I backed up. Then, out of nowhere, came a big black bull.

He lowered his head and brought it violently up into my groin.

The bull had edged his way between the cows. That was lucky for me. He was all but stationary when he gored me. If he’d been coming at me hard, I’d probably not be here to tell the story. Instead, the entire force of his attack came from thrusting his massive head at me while he was standing still.

It hurt like hell. But the bull had not broken the skin. All I’d suffered, I thought, was a large bruise.
Four days later, in Chennai (Madras), I realized the bull had done more than bruise me. A large area — extending in several directions from the top of my left hipbone — was discolored. In its center was a lump shaped something like a frankfurter and nearly two–thirds as long.

In an e–mail I asked my wife to check with our doctor as to whether I should be concerned. She did — and replied that I ought to seek medical attention immediately. ‘Do not wait 24 hours,’ our doctor had insisted.

Having booked a car and driver for a visit to the fabulous temple towns of Kanchipuram and Mahabalipuram the next day, I did wait. I called my hotel’s doctor the morning after my tour, four days after the goring.

The physician came to my room, examined me, and referred me to a specialist located in the Apollo Hospital. (An Indian I spoke with a week or so later was impressed. The Apollo, he said, is one of the best medical facilities in the country.)

At the Apollo confusion seemed to reign; but no American hospital I’ve been in handles patients any better or more expeditiously.

I saw my surgeon, Dr Ravikumar Parasa, within half–an–hour after arriving at the hospital. Another half–hour and I was undergoing an ultra–sound examination.

Since Dr Parasa was scheduled for surgery in the afternoon, I was instructed to return to the hospital early in the evening.

Dr Parasa saw me again shortly after 5:00. He read the ultra–sound; drew blood from the ‘lump,’ a haematoma; gave me a tetanus shot; and wrote a prescription for three drugs to be taken orally and a salve.

Over the next two weeks the haematoma gradually subsided and the discoloration receded.
Though I had called the travel insurance company from which I had purchased coverage, I didn’t need its financial or other help:

• The ultra–sound exam cost all of 1,290 rupees — a little over US$30.

• Dr Parasa’s charge — for seeing me twice, for ordering the ultra–sound, for the blood test, for the tetanus shot, and for writing four prescriptions — was all of 500 rupees, less than US$12.

Today, nearly three weeks after the bull stabbed me, the haematoma and the discoloration are nearly gone. And I am a huge fan of Indian medicine.



Reply to this topic

edwardseco

I reciprocate that sentiment after a hospital stay for my boy..

bijapuri

the Appollo seems to be at the forefront of relief efforts, often having been the first med staff to reach some villages.

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