Hospital Adventure in India!

First I will just start by assuring everyone reading that I am ok. It has been two weeks since my hospital experience and I have fully recovered. Things can be really scary when you are very sick in a foreign country and you don’t quite know how to navigate the medical system. But when you are gasping for breath and starting to worry about your life, you find a way!

I had had a runny nose all week. I didn’t think much of it. I actually thought that given the Monsoon season it was Hay Fever. Just felt like bad allergies. Then around Thursday it left my nose and went in to my chest. I just felt congested but as a lifelong asthmatic I was used to that. My asthma medicine helped and I just had to spit up or swallow more mucus than I am used to. Those that know me know I don’t get sick very often and therefore rarely slow down when I feel 80%. On Saturday I played 2 hours of badminton – I was sweaty, I was tired, and I seemed to be able to breath well with some coughing added in. Saturday night the “buck up you aren’t sick” phase ended with a locomotive like hit. I began to really struggle to breathe. And the asthma medicine that I have taken most of my life — didn’t work. My lungs felt like they were in an iron cage and that a huge weight was put on my chest. I literally could only breathe in short breathes, maybe 50% capacity. And you know how you just breathe without thinking about it? Well, I had to consciously think about breathing to do it. It was horrible.

We took it easy that night but even reading a bed time book to my daughter got me winded. My wife wanted to take me to the hospital, but it was 11pm and I was really tired and just wanted to sleep. I promised if I still felt bad in the morning we would go.

One of the worst night’s sleep of my life. I had to think about breathing to do it and my chest was so wheezy almost every breath ended in a cough of phlegm. Poor Tami, I kept her up all night too. I think I dozed off a few times but the utter fear I was in probably led to me getting a fever. It was 103 at one point and after some pain killers went down to 101. I had the chills, the sweats, the works! My side of the bed was soaked by the time morning came. I still had a bit of a fever but I think I broke two during the night. I probably only got 2 hours of sleep — which was just a bunch of small naps together.

So we got up, ate breakfast, and went to the Emergency Room at Jupiter Hospital – the nearest GOOD hospital to our home. I went to the desk and told them I couldn’t breathe and they sent me right in to the room. There was a ton of doctors and nurses so they got to me pretty quick. The gave me an IV for pain and gave me a nebulizer treatment. The good news was my pulse, blood pressure, and blood oxygen levels were all normal. After the treatment they said they wanted to admit me and I said “no”. The last thing I wanted to do was sit in a hospital all day and night Sunday as they figure out what is wrong with me. The hospital treatment did lower my fever and they said they couldn’t do more until they had X-Rays of my chest – which I couldn’t get till Monday because the Radiology department is closed on Sundays. They said they could prescribe me pain killers and an anti viral as well as nebulizer treatments. I told them I would do that from the comfort of my home and come in Monday. The odd thing is I never got a diagnosis. I was told by a doctor later that India is such an old country that they have the ability to be able to look at you an determine your illness. They didn’t even test me for anything!

So my driver took me home where I just laid low all day. I was breathing a bit better and of course the fever was gone. Oh and the total cost for the emergency room and all the treatments? About $40 (without using insurance).

I was breathing better Sunday with the meds so we stayed at home and I was able to sleep normally. I didn’t go in to the office on Monday, just wasn’t feeling great. I went to the hospital for my blood tests and chest X ray. It was so efficient. I went in and paid ($12 for the blood tests and $20 for the X ray) and got my tests. I didn’t have any wait time for blood tests and waited about 45 mins for my X rays. I got both results back within an hour. In India, they do not have electronic medical records so you literally have to carry around a 3 ring binder with all of your medical papers, tests, reports, x rays, etc. So I carried along my notebook all day — it was like being back in high school!

I then had a doctor’s appointment. He looked at the blood results, the X ray, and gave me a general examination. He said there was no pneumonia thank God. He said my reports were fine and that he thought I just had an Indian flu bug that was going around that effected the respiratory system. His visit cost $15 and he gave me several prescriptions for cough medicine and pain relievers (medicine cost $5).

I gradually recovered and went back to work the next day and slowly recovered each day. So what I learned about the India medical system:

1. They have a TON of medical staff so its much more efficient and you get more attention than you do in the US
2. However it did seem less thorough than the US. I mean to not test me for COVID or something else in the emergency room was odd. I also felt it was not good for them to prescribe me an anti viral when they didn’t have a diagnosis.
3. I have said it before but medical care here is very affordable. It would almost be more trouble to use insurance and why? Most of my full bills are less than my copays back home.
4. The medical staff in India is very smart and they have a ton of experience. In the end what they did worked because I can breathe again!

I spent the following week doing nebulizer treatments. Tenley was very concerned about me when I did my breathing treatments so she would always come and give me a hug and then put her little chair next to me to keep me company. She was a great little nurse!

Next time – more fun things to do around Pune!