My reading for the day

For after this manner I the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves... even as Sarah... whose daughters ye are. 1 peter 3:5-6

What does it mean to be Sarah's daughter...

When you resist the temptation to react to circumstances and maintain a peaceful, meek and quiet spirit in times of frustration...
If you can stay calm in a storm, if you can praise God under pressure, if you can worship in the midst of critics and criticism...
If you can rebuke the fear that is knocking at the door of your heart, and tell that low self esteem that it cannot come in...
If you can stand there and push a tear from off the side of your face and smile in the middle of the rain....
.... then you are Sarah's daughter.

Thank God

Every morning and evening, as much as i can manage, I grab my cycle and head out. In any random direction. To any random distance. Just to get away. Where I don't have to think of my patients... My boss... The hospital... My staff.... And shedding the extra kilos don't hurt either!!
And the view is breathtaking... Even in this dry, barren land. Sometimes I just go 'WOW!!'...
Past the different villages... Three men on a bike... A bullock cart... I cycle...
Past the view of the rising sun from the top of the flyover... I keep going...
Past the villagers returning home after work... Past the cows bathing... I cycle...
Past the sunset throwing the sky into hues of orange, red and purple... I go...
No one else... Nothing else.... Just me and my cycle...
With the sound of music... The smells of the city far away... The feel of my beating heart and complaining muscles.... The weight of the day's frustrations getting lighter with each pedal.... I cycle...
And I thank God...
I thank God for the Road....

The Christian Fellowship Hospital, Rajnandgaon

Here are some shots of the hospital and surrounding areas. Pictures of the farm will come up later.

'House' Doctor

Most experiences here are some that might never be repeated and that I will never forget. 

Its was one of those days when I happened to be the only doctor on campus owing to my boss being out. One of our regular (private) patients came with complaints of his father having abdominal distension and breathing difficulty. The difference in this case being he did not bring the patient to me, he wanted me to go along with him to the patient.

Owing to his very worrying description, and owing to the fact that my boss has done the same thing a number of times.... I went.... Alone... At 9 in the night... With a guy I didn't know... To a place I had no clue about... And without my cell!!! (I realized all these various facts when already in the car!) 

Thankfully, all went off well... The patient turned out to be having a mild case of gastritis... I administered all the necessary drugs... I was dropped safely home.... AND IN ONE PIECE!!

All's well that ends well.

Walking with an epi

Since I have been sharing my success stories, let me share some failures as well.... Especially one story that I'll never forget...
One lady in labor came to the hospital... As is the case with most cases that come from the villages, she had never been to a hospital before and did not even have any concept of antenatal care. This was her second child, the first being a home delivery. She came purely because all attempts in the village had failed. The attempts being... 100 vaginal examinations and manipulations, labour augmenting drugs used indiscreetly, hot water and oil fomentation to 'smoothen' the birth canal and god knows what else.
Thus, when she came... She was 6 days pains and leaking with a swollen vulva and fetal heart non recordable...  I told them to go elsewhere for an emergency cesarean. (My boss was not around at the time which meant that post delivery I would have to tend to the mother lying open in the operating table and the baby that was just born.) But they begged and pleaded to try vaginally as this was the only hospital they knew of. So I did.
Pitocin... Episiotomy.... Forceps.... But the baby would just not deliver....
Finally... I gave up....
Asked them to take elsewhere...
And she went...
With a cut vagina.... And a baby still inside... She walked out....


PS - The staff told me that earlier they used to resort to destructive procedures like craniotomy (cutting a hole in the fetal skull) to get the fetus out as most babies died in utero much before reaching the hospital.
PPS- I have no news of that mother. I pray both of them lived.