Asking for a friend…

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Delhi Belly: a level of hell that Dante missed.

Warning: if you have a weak stomach, you may wish to skip this post. I’m just sayin…

It’s a fact. No matter how careful you are, odds are that you’ll devote some of your vacation to a minute study of Indian plumbing.

Call it what you will — Montezuma’s revenge, the traveler’s trot, the Toltec two-step, Delhi belly, the runs, traveler’s tummy or the commonly accepted TD (for traveler’s diarrhea) — but don’t call it fun. Symptoms include diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea and vomiting. Further, it can be dangerous, causing severe dehydration, malnutrition or worse.– IndependentTraveler.com

We were staying in Thekkady, and all of us were exhausted. The night before, we laid awake listening to someone nearby who apparently was in the final throes of attempting to cough up his toes and spit them out. We were concerned, but figured that given the pitch and volume he was devoting to his efforts, his condition was not immediately life-threatening.

Now it was evening again, and the sound of our hotel neighbor’s suffering rose to frightening decibels. Surely, by now, he had hacked up every one of his internal organs. Alarmed, we asked the hotel staff what to do, and found out that the screams were coming from local black monkeys with attitude issues.

But actually, I no longer cared about monkey screams because by then I had made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Believing the hotel’s assertion that the carafe of water they’d brought to our room was filtered and safe, I absently used it to brush my teeth. An alarmingly short time later, I was thinking about death. Good, good thoughts.

Janine and Jaya swung into action, each of them producing handfuls of pharmaceuticals. The winner was, apparently, the pills usually administered to cancer patients on heavy duty chemo. Actual conversation between them that I will never be able to unhear:

Jaya: “Hey, this one sounds good.”

Janine: [reads from box of pills] “Slows intestinal transit time, thus allowing more water absorption into the bowel.”

Barb: “I’m going into the bathroom and never coming out.”

With the help of another handful of mystery pharmaceuticals that Jaya and Janine just “happened” to have with them, I managed to overcome the more obvious effects of Delhi Belly long enough to pack for our departure from Thekkady.

Our driver, Suresh, brought the car around and we piled in. Jaya and Suresh insisted it was only a four-hour drive to our next destination, Cherai Beach, so I have no idea why, in my memory, the journey seemed to take about a week and a half… I’m sure there were things we saw on the way, but all I remember of the drive is a series of increasingly-desperate toilet searches. Of course, this was rural India, and commodes were in short supply. I was pretty sure this was not the day I was going to acquire squatting skills, so our progress was considerably hampered by the need to stop every few miles and demand to know whether a roadside restaurant or vendor had “western” facilities. (They didn’t.)

I don’t want you to think that Janine and Jaya had absolutely no fun on this trip. Actually, they loved stopping at various roadside stalls and seeing how many drugs they could pick up over-the-counter that would have required a high-level prescription in the US. As a special bonus, the drugs came wrapped in a piece of newspaper from the “matrimonials” section. Sadly, we couldn’t read most of them, but here are some we liked:

• • “ANCIENT noble & upper middle class Christian Orthodox family invites proposals for their son, B.Com, self employed…”
  • CSI CHRISTIAN DOCTOR GIRL, 30/170 CM, SLIM, VERY FAIR, GOOD LOOKING, MBBS, MD, SEEKS GROOM FROM COMMITTED CHRISTIANS. MBBS/MD/ENG….
  • “URGENTLY PROPOSEL INVITED RCSC BOY 28/165, SLIM, FAIR, MBA, UK Business Malayasia financially sound invited beautiful educated girls only….”

I could tell my fellow-passengers were getting desperate when Jaya announced that we should stop at a random house and tell them I needed to use their toilet. “People in India are very kind,” she reminded me. But I refused, sure that what I’d probably do in the bathroom of a complete stranger could well put US/Indian relations back to cold-war footing. The rest of the ride passed with Suresh stealing wary glances in the rearview mirror, Jaya insisting that we accost innocent civilians and demand use of their toilets, and Janine plastered against the far door. Fun times.

Finally, we made it to our hotel in Cherai Beach. As Janine and Jaya went to check in, Suresh took the opportunity to whisper back to me, “Madam! I’ll take you to hospital? Now?” But the only trip I wanted to make was up to our room with its beautiful, beckoning, western-style bathroom. Janine and Jaya went out to explore the ocean that they kept around there somewhere, and I went horizontal.

By evening, I didn’t have a single bodily orifice that wasn’t actively involved in attempting to evict my internal organs. Janine and Jaya were onboard with Suresh’s hospital plan, but I just wanted to be left alone. I had a bathroom. I had a bed. I had roommates who had somehow acquired even more piles of pharmaceuticals.

Me: “I’m good. Just give me lots more drugs. I have a plan.”

Janine [suspicious]: “Does your plan involve death?”

Me: “Absolutely.”

Somewhere in the middle of the night, I heard whispering coming from above me.

Janine: “Shouldn’t we ask her if she wants to go to the hospital?”

Jaya: “No, she’d refuse again. We’ll just take her anyway.”

Me: “I’m right here, you know. I can hear you.”

And that’s how my tour of India came to include a little hotspot that never made it into TripAdvisor. Poor Suresh brought the car around and the three of them bundled me off to the Don Bosco Hospital in nearby North Paravur. It was both the strangest and one of the best medical experiences of my life. The strange part was that I was put in a bed and received treatment immediately. The best part was that after a quick (non-English) consult with Jaya, they hooked me up to an IV. Janine approved the IV but asked them to double the amount. Jaya approved the medicines but asked them to double the quantity.

Both of them took way too much pleasure in the fact that my headache was treated via a shot in the tuchus followed by (unless I was hallucinating by then) a butt massage. I wrapped my Baby Goat Beard pashmina over my head and listened to cats being murdered (or perhaps mated) in the next room.

After a few hours, the cats were still suffering (or making new cats) but I felt much better. Janine and Jaya were delighted to get their hands on more pharmaceuticals and we all headed back to the hotel. Total cost including the handfuls of additional drugs? Under 1000 rupees (about $16.50). Indian medicine rocks!

Next day, I slept. Janine and Jaya explored the ocean, which turned out to be across the street from the hotel. Who knew? By late afternoon, I was well enough to step into the surprisingly warm water and admire the beautiful coast as the sun set while the moon rose.

 

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Please see this entire series for tales of how medicine and travel intersected for me. 

• • Part 1: How I became a medical tourist
  • Part 2: The adventures of the WMIT (World’s Most International Tooth)
  • Part 3: Even further adventures of the WMIT (World’s Most International Tooth)
  • Part 4: A Christmas Miracle?
  • Part 5: Come for the finger surgery. Stay for the temples. And the paratas.
  • Part 6: Why I’m the worst wife on the planet.
  • Part 7: Delhi Belly: a level of hell that Dante missed.