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divorce rates in India, humor, India, Indian weddings, international travel, medical tourist, travel
How I Became a Medical Tourist
I’ve always loved to travel. As a child, it was pretty much the only time we got to eat fast food, so I associated french fries with adventure. As I grew older, it was a sign of my adult status that I could choose to go someplace new just because I wanted to, and nobody could tell my mother what I did there (even if what I mostly did was eat fast food). Still later we claimed we were exposing our children to art and nature, but somehow these trips involved a lot of McDonalds fries. Yes, you CAN get them at Versailles. Don’t judge us.)
But I can honestly say that traveling for medical treatment is a new development for me. I think it started with our last India trip before the pandemic, in January 2020.
My visit to India had been planned for months for early January. Then I woke up on Christmas Eve with a toothache. By Christmas Day, there was a swelling the size of a walnut in my mouth, but no boats from Arran, our little Scottish island, were going to the mainland that day. When I finally made it to my dentist in Glasgow, he confirmed my second-worst fear**: I needed two root canals. But it would be months before I could get it done via the NHS, and all the private specialists I tried had offices closed until the second week of January.
**[No, this was not my WORST fear. He had already been elected President of the United States some years before. It really helps to keep things in perspective…]
When I told my dentist about our upcoming India trip, he was delighted. “You’re so lucky! India has some of the best dental care in the world,” he told me. “Just get it done there.”
I told him I hadn’t been in the habit of considering double root canals a good luck sign, but I’d give it a shot. My friend Jaya recommended a brother’s daughter’s husband with a popular practice in Mumbai. Dr. Hingorani instantly gave me a family appointment and assured me they would fit follow-up appointments around our itinerary. Now that’s India!
That’s how the first morning of our India trip found us sharing breakfast in Mumbai with Dr. Hingorani and his wife before we were whisked downstairs to his clinic for my ‘lucky’ double root canal. My favorite part was the state of the art X-ray machine, whose soothing voice-over recording asked me to close my eyes, played a jaunty tune during the scan, and then told me it was all done. The machine finished by congratulating me on doing a good job of holding still with my eyes closed (a life skill developed early thanks to my father’s conviction that using the brakes on California’s twisty mountain roads would wear them out.)
A few hours later, our driver picked us up and we were on the road for a ten-hour drive to Aurangabad and adventure. I couldn’t feel half my face, was certain I was drooling, and popped ibuprofen like they were M&Ms, so details of that drive are a bit fuzzy.
But I do remember a few things about the trip. There were unexpected sights such as the roadside food mall where we stopped for lunch. In addition to the usual Indian food vendors, it held a Starbucks (awesome Western toilets!), Kentucky Fried Chicken, Baskin-Robbins, Subway, and… a McDonalds with french fries I could not eat, but that clearly meant vacation.
To my surprise, some things I remembered from earlier India trips, I didn’t see this time. Not only were there no cows on the freeway, but we didn’t see the usual lineup of men casually using the roadside as toilets, while the piles of plastic rubbish we’d come to expect along the roads had virtually disappeared as well. Jaya explained how Indian government initiatives had built over thirty million toilets over the past few years, while others discouraged plastic use. (There are steep fines in some cities like Mumbai for even carrying a single-use plastic bag!)
Loud enough to wake us (and perhaps the recently deceased), a wedding band piped us out of the hotel drive in early morning.
At our next hotel in Pune, we drove in past one wedding in progress on the front lawn. The lobby was full of gorgeously dressed guests, while the attendant who carried our bags told me there were up to five weddings going on simultaneously. He said it was not at all uncommon for guests to attend an entire wedding, give over their gift, and not realize they had been at the wrong wedding until afterwards.
Another thing that has changed in the past few years is the intensity of demand for pictures with foreigners. In an India where everyone has a mobile phone and most have internet access, the polite and even shy requests for photos we encountered our first trip ten years ago have grown into insistence that borders on stalking.
Of course, some things haven’t changed yet. In cities, beggars still knock on your car window and hold up their children. If you work up the nerve to cross a street in any major city, you still have to look in ALL the directions, watch out for the cows, and be careful where you step. And unless you want to experience India’s world-class medical expertise up close and personal, you still shouldn’t drink the water.
But if you want to see an India full of stunning historical and artistic treasures, you’re in luck. You’ll find western toilets along the way, on-demand drivers to get you there, and familiar fast food choices. And, as the rest of the world is noticing with increasing frequency, you will find a country with spectacular medical resources at bargain prices. You can get a terrific root canal, amazing food, and all the photos with total strangers you ever/never wanted.
Has India changed? Well, a little girl from a small town in India can grow up, go to the States to attend the University of Chicago, and share a flat with two friends. Half a century later, the three can all meet up in India every year, to travel, search for toilets, explore antiquities, and watch the future unfold. And squeeze in a bit of medical tourism as well.
Please see my next blog post for more of my medical tourist adventures.
Lynette d'Arty-Cross said:
As always, a very enjoyable post, Barb. Glad to hear that you were able to get your teeth fixed! I really, really dislike root canals. I grit my teeth – figuratively speaking – a pretend to be somewhere else!
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barbtaub said:
Root canals are my medical unit of pain measurement. (IRS Audit? .5 root canal units. Role in amateur theater production? 2.3 root canal units. Move house? 3 root canal units. Host the Hub’s department party? ALL the root canal units…)
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Lynette d'Arty-Cross said:
That’s a very wry way of putting it but joking aside, not funny at all.
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beth said:
I love this one, barb! not only did you have to rank the 2 worst fears, which I agree with completely, (and add in clowns, so I have 3), but you lived to tell the tale. and had a pleasant surprise on your trip which had nightmare potential, but turned out lovely, and a wonderful trip at the end.
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barbtaub said:
I completely agree. Clowns are ABSOLUTELY the worst. I can’t even figure out how people can think they’re funny. Because… clowns.
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beth said:
Right
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Lucinda E Clarke said:
We waited until we were in India to get new glasses. They were great, but infortunately both his and my pairs were stolen in the spa baths back in Spain. :(
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barbtaub said:
I wanted to cry when I read this.
Who steals prescription eyeglasses? What could they do with them?
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Kiki said:
oh my… what a story! I remember still quite vividly my own root canal treatments when I lived in Toronto but went on 3 months’ travel before returning to Switzerland. At that time, the dentist drilled a hole in my front tooth and I had to stick in a tiny piece of cotton wool, drenched in a disinfectant – twice per day! And still (or rather, not surprisingly) I hurt like anything, the ongoing infection probably growing mushrooms and worse…. when I had my tooth fixed in Switzerland, the dentist said he had never seen anything like that in his whole life. Which I believed!
I’m so glad you got your problem fixed, and at low cost too – AND could enjoy your trip with friends from a long time back. That alone is a wonderful thing to experience and I’m happy for you to have these great friends.
And thanks a bunch for the smiles and laughter you gave me. So much appreciated.
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barbtaub said:
That dentist sounds like some kind of monster! Like something out of a past century. What a nightmare.
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Kiki said:
It actually WAS in the last century. That was in the early seventies…. Or maybe I was just unlucky.
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Darlene said:
Only you can make getting a root canal funny. I refuse to have one in any country. Although my handsome dentist here in Spain fixes my teeth without any pain. The last time I saw him, I said, “Wow! That was painless. He said, “If you want pain, I can give you pain. But then I have to charge you extra!” Funny guy. I think it was clever of you to fly to India to get it done. xo
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barbtaub said:
There’s something a little scary about a joke cracking dentist.
https://youtu.be/n4b6254AFwk?si=h1WOAflhFBn2BJE9
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tidalscribe.com said:
I started reading this on the bus on the way to the dentist this morning! I am lucky to still have an NHS dentist. The best dentists I have had have always had their room at the top of several flights of steep stairs in old narrow buildings!
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barbtaub said:
I used to think that. But now I think the best dentists are in Mumbai.
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Pingback: How I Became a Medical Tourist (Part 2-ish)#humor #MedicalTourism #dentist | Barb Taub
Jennie said:
Thanks for the terrific read, Barb!
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barbtaub said:
Thanks, Jennie!
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Jennie said:
You’re welcome, Barb!
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Andrew Joyce said:
“There are steep fines in some cities like Mumbai for even carrying a single-use plastic bag!”
I reckon you gotta start somewhere.
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barbtaub said:
India is really putting an enormous effort into their cleanup, and it definitely shows.
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noelleg44 said:
quite the adventure, Barb, especially the root canals, which I’ve had and have bed memories of. I trust it was not too expensive but I’m sure you got good care. Your sense of humor must have helped!
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barbtaub said:
The only think worse than a root canal is a root canal you need but can’t get.
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noelleg44 said:
Agreed – a tooth ache is the worst!
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Pingback: How I Became a Medical Tourist (Part 4) #humor #coronavirus #medicine | Barb Taub
Pingback: How I Became a Medical Tourist (Part 5) #travel #India #humor | Barb Taub
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