Welcome to Delhi, or, My First Encounter with Delhi Belly

It's Dana this time.

I arrived in Delhi last Tuesday night (a week ago) and had been settling in nicely---the jet lag wasn't terrible, I got some of the ever-popular shalwar khameez or "Indian Pajamas" to stay cool in the heat(photos of those to come, as promised), and I had started to explore the nooks and crannies of South Delhi. And then.......I got a visit from the Delhi Belly.

I'll let you imagine the details yourselves (or not) but this morning, properly felled to my knees by the wonders of Indian street cooking, we ventured to the giant, shiny Max hospital across the street. The only thing is that by street, I mean 4 (western,85 Indian) lanes of hurtling buses, autorickshaws, motorbikes, and cars divided by a median of crumbling bricks covered with debris. I'm sure it's fine for sprinting across if you don't feel like you'll expel all fluids from your body while simultaneouly passing out, is all I can say.

Anyway, as eluded to by BJ's visit to the doctor to conquer Lyme's disease, the modern, urban Indian hospital is in fact more like an international chain hotel that happens to give colonoscopies and saline drips. I got the latter (see above) to help bring my blood pressure back up and to make it possible to venture back across the street alive.

After the mini-adventure getting to the hospital, things inside were in fact much cleaner, more orderly, and quicker than any experience I've ever had in an NYC hospital. What's more, in India, where the idea of life insurance is just beginning to emerge in the middle and upper classes but health insurance does not, medical expenses are unbelievably low. The cost of my visit with an internist? 600 rupees,or $12. The cost of five days worth of antibiotics, antidiarrheals, etc? 300 rupees, or $6. Granted, that's still well beyond the reach of the average Indian, so it's not as though the Indian scheme is any more fair than the American one in a relative sense. But, another discussion for another day.

For now I'm taking my $6 pills and drinking the chicken soup that my landlady insisted on sending up (after I refused 5 times and said I was already in bed/asleep/not dressed....it does taste good though).