Well stone me!

As family know, but most friends dont yet know, Brian is road testing the Indian hospital service.

On Saturday morning we set off from our lovely hotel Green View (owned by the charming, kind and very helpful Mr Suresh) for a "Spice Tour". It was in a tuc tuc and on very bumpy roads and Brian soon felt sick, he perked up after that and we carried on, only for him to start feeling really unwell as we were going round a tea factory. I decided that we needed to take him to hospital so a car came out from Kumily and took us off to a tiny hospital, St Augustine's.

The staff at Hospital were so kind and helpful. We saw a Dr Babu Pullicken, who quickly diagnosed Kidney stones. The pain had gone away and so he sent us back to the hotel, telling Brian to rest and come back if the pain returned. Well, we were back at the hospital by about 5pm, with a very sorry for himself Brian, the pain was coming and going, so it was decided to admit him.

I went back to the hotel to get assorted necessary stuff and returned to the hospital to stay over night with the patient. I found him in a single room, he had the bed and I had a much norrower bed, his was hard and mine was indescribably hard. The place was basic but spotless and the staff, some of whom were Nuns were so kind and helpful, some people could speak English, the Dr, a couple of the nurses and the Nun/ Head nurse (she may have been Matron), any one who couldnt speak English smiled a lot and tried to find someone who could.

I arrived at about 7pm, in the middle of the daily 1/2 hour power cut, sadly this power cut lasted till about 2 pm the next day. The Hospital had a small generator, but that was kept for emergencies, so the whole of Saturday night any nurse who appeared was carrying a large lamp torch and we were given a candle for the room. Thank goodness we had the windup torch with us.

Poor Brian had a very uncomfortable night, lots of pain, groaning and throwing up, he was on a drip and I had to keep trying to get him to drink water. Eventually a male nurse gave him some thing for the sickness and some knock out injection, so he did get some rest. The next day he felt very bruised, but improved as Sunday went on. We had a scan done on Sunday afternoon ( a taxi ride away at a scanning and diagnostics place. A bit of pain Sunday night and then very much better Monday morning. At this point it was decided that the stone must have come out and he was discharged.

Well, it hadnt come out and about 2 hours after we got back to the hotel, just I had come into our room with some lunch, Brian said ' I hate to say this, but the pain has come back'. We consulted with our fantastic landlord and the upshot was that about an hour later we set off on the tortuous 5 hour journey back to Kochi, heading for the large, modern Lakeshore hospital, where Suresh's brother in law had had the same problem treated. Here we are, an overnight stay in a reasonably comfortable A/C room and Brian is at this moment having xrays and discussing treatement. I have been emailing relatives and letting anyone else know via this blog. More news later.

Tess