The cool doctor's car that took me to the hospital
So, while at Everest base camp I awoke one morning with a terrible headache that was only on one side of my head. I thought that maybe it was the altitude and the reason why I decided to descend down. I descended and it didn't go away, but continued, only on the left side of my head.
I began to worry: I have brain swelling and its going to explode, its a tumor, or maybe I am thinking too much and that is causing them. So, I got a massage but they didn't go away so I just started taking lots of ibuprofen, like 5-8 a day. They continued on in India and when I got to Rishikesh and entered the ashram a friend of mine had been sick and went to an Ayurvedic doctor. Ayurvedic medicine is basically just natural medicine India style. Anyways, I went one day and the doctor was out. My friend Kaye told me that Bagri (the old guy dressed in white) is a doctor and that I should ask him. So, one day after tea I went down. I had resolved that it was connected to a slight neck pain that I had. He looked at it, put some tiger balm on it, and then told me to come with him to the hospital at 5:00p.m to see his friend. Oh, o.k. I thought. I returned at 5p.m. And we didn't leave until 5:45 but I chatted with some of the workers and we took pictures of the doctors cool car. Then, we drove to the “hospital” which is really more like a clinic. I entered and I saw his friend, no picture unfortunately. This man is the epitome of a workaholic. He is 77 years old and still works every day. His shoulders are hunched over, hair is gray and he has bags under his eyes that go down to his cheekbones. Poor guy. He told me that I need to stop sleeping on comfortable pillows and that I would need to go to physical therapy for a few days. O.k., sure. So I was sent to the physical therapy section. I entered and was told to come for 5 days, the charge would be 50 rupees ($1). My favorite thing about going there were the chats that I had with different people receiving Physical Therapy or the students that were there receiving their training. As they looked at me strangely, this white girl here for what? And as I learned more about Hinduism I understood why the entire time that I went there, the large cobweb in the culture, with a large spider in it remained. It was a reincarnation of something, potentially an uncle or a friend and so killing it was out of the question. I ended up going there for the rest of my time in Rishikesh, about 10 days where I learned a lot about Hindi's as I became friends with my doctor who is from Calcutta.
He had recently been married, the result of an arranged marriage which is quite common here. The Hindi's have a very different outlook on marriage. The family “arranges” the marriage in the sense that they try and find someone that would be a good husband and father and also that their daughter or son would like. In fact, if the two people meet and there isn't anything then they aren't necessarily forced into the marriage. Though very few marry because of being in love, rather for familial reasons. Such was the case of my doctor. I asked him if he was in love with his wife. He said no, but that possibly, with time he would. Ah, India. Regardless of all that, my neck pain went away and I also began receiving therapy for my rotator cuff injury. I ended up spending about $20 for two weeks of therapy. That wouldn't have even covered the gas that I would have used for a car in the U.S.
My doc and I
