Sylvia's Journal

I visited Axel last night until the hospital appeared to close down for the night. For dinner I went down to the lobby where there is a Subway shop and purchased my very first (ever) Subway sandwich from a helpful shopwallah who explained patiently to me there was a system to putting together a Subway sandwich, going from step one to step four. I order chicken ham expecting both chicken and ham but ham but chicken ham was one thing unrelated to pork.

I took a tuktuk back to the hotel, the little motorized rickshaws that have a turning radius of about one foot. He drove through back alleys and over what seemed sidewalks, past tents where religious celebrations took place that made him laugh, or happy or both. He spoke no English but we managed to get back to the hotel in no time for a couple of dollars.

In the morning I was back at the hospital carrying two coffee lattes up to the patient. The allergy diagnosis has been discarded and now it is simply a bronchial infection that is being treated with frequent doses of antibiotics and a periodic nebulization that is done by an old and noisy machine. The doctors still say ‘a couple of days’ before they think it will clear up.

At naptime, after lunch, I walked over to the shopping center up the street. To get to this glitzy side of India I have to walk past bins overflowing with garbage and a bunch of kids looking for scraps of stuff that is either edible or salable. The stench is horrendous. On the medium strip cows move around lazily, nibbling on the occasional weed that other cows had left untouched.

Next to Axel’s hospital is an Ayurvedic hospital, complete with an emergency department which makes me wonder how Ayurvedic medicine would treat an emergency. Outside the hospital wall are life size pictures of patients receiving copious doses of oil in a variety of ways, making me even more curious. How would they treat a bronchial infection?

I wandered around the very fancy and medium fancy back to back malls looking for a place to eat and stumbled onto a sushi place. I figured I better have sushi now before the oceans are contaminated forever with Japan’s nuclear fallout and sushi restaurants will become extinct.

We are getting phone calls from our daughters. They have lifted Axel’s spirits. Although he is sick, he is well enough to be bored by the hospital routines and the food (exactly the same so far for lunch and for dinner). I brought him my leftover pizza and a tiramisu to liven up his dining experience. Only a nice glass of red wine was missing.