Raibes and my OBGYN

An imam is currently giving the call to the faithful across the street from the mosque. It’s a long and mournful call, and the sadness in his tone is only multiplied when he calls at 5 in the goddamn morning and I want to sleep. We made it back from Udhagamandalam alright. We took a different road down the mountain than we did up, so we ended up driving through Mandhumalai (spelling?) Reserve. We saw two elephants, a baby and its mother, eating. We also saw a peacock and more deer than I care to think about. It was snazzy.

I suppose I should get back to that story about my rabies scare. Last time I really didn’t mean to end on such an important note; a dramatic pause wasn’t what I was going for. My hour at the computer was just up and I didn’t feel like paying an extra 30 rupees for another hour, even though that only translates to about 75 cents. My rabies story involves this: rabies symptoms, two trips to a gynecologist, a diabetes scare, and a visit to one of the sketchiest pharmacies this side of Lawrence.

A few days back when we were at Jyotimami’s house I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever of about 101.4 that subsided within two hours. Then the next day I kept getting headaches which I’ve never gotten ever. Then I kept getting dizzy, I had no appetite, while I ate I felt like throwing up, and I stopped producing saliva normally so I began, essentially, foaming at the mouth. In my head I thought back to two things: first I thought about that dog bite I got at the very beginning of April. The dog had gotten all of its necessary shots just three days before it bit me. Second I thought about an episode of some talk show I once saw (I think it was Sally but forgive me if it was Jenny Jones). Some dude had never gotten a Polio vaccine. But his baby daughter did. One day he was changing his daughters diaper and her shitty shit got on his hands and somehow from that he contracted Polio and his legs went to shit and Sally (or Jenny) gave the guy and his family a wheelchair van and all was well in Oz. Anyways. I was thinking about the effects of a live agent in a vaccine if administered in close proximity to my exposure. I know that before this trip I ended up getting some crazy ass salmonella typhi pills to protect me against typhoid fever, so I didn’t know if that dog had been given a small amount of live rabies (however small, however ineffective) to protect it. So in my head for a day and a half I wondered if I had rabies.

My dizzy spells got worse and twice I had to leave the breakfast and lunch tables because I couldn’t sit up. After I lay down for like 5 minutes I was totally fine, but while I would eat I wouldn’t be able to sit for long. Sometime Tuesday Shalu and I hit up a cyber café, so I casually googled ‘Human Rabies Symptoms.’ The list one website presented me included: fever headache nausea loss of appetite malaise and dizziness as some of the very early symptoms. As I read on, the website said that rabies has an incubation period of two weeks to about six months, so I was still fair game. It also said that if rabies is allowed to incubate to the point where clinical symptoms show, it is almost certainly fatal. I sat there for a few minutes, and for a little while I was okay with my dying of rabies in a remote mountain town in the hills of south India. But I promptly got up and asked if we could please just hit up a hospital.

So we went to the local hospital. Shalu has a good picture of me walking towards it. It looks something like a modified KFC, same color scheme, same air of sickness. It was bad. However once inside they brought me into the consultation room where an elderly Indian woman, a nun I think, asked me what the issue was. I looked into her eyes and said ‘I think I have rabies.’ She grunted a little mmhmmm and went off to get the doctor. The woman called me over and started talking to me. (I only later learned from my father that he thought she was a gynecologist. Also, when my mom saw her she said “She is woman doctor. I don’t want woman doctor. I want many doctor. Man doctor is smarter than woman doctor.” When I relayed this to my sister she told my mom she sucked at life. ) She was about 60 years old and really nice. When I told her about the rabies thin she said not to worry. She said various Good Things to Say to a boy who thought he had rabies. Then she took my blood sugar that was apparently far too high for anyone my age and she promptly freaked out a little. Then she did some other stuff (none of this involved stirrups though) and by the end of it she gave me a prescription for a stomach pill, B vitamin complex, and a mild tranquilizer (my sister wonders if that’s what it really is or if it is just a mild relaxant, either way….I got some good shit.)

So then I took that prescription to the neighboring pharmacy, which, with the addition of a little hay, would have made a lovely stable. Honestly, it was dark, smelly, and just called for a horses touch. I got my mild tranquilizer and other pills and was on my way. The story pretty much ends there. I went back the next day for blood sugar tests that turned out to be okay, and even though my saliva isn’t working yet the other doctor I spoke to that day (gynecologist number two, I think) said I could have this thing called Sjorgenis syndrome or maybe I’m just fucked up from the viral infection that caused the fever. Either way they say I’m healthy and just to keep hydrated. I think I have rabies.
We were in the car for about 10 hours today to drive back to Bangalore. I’m currently at Jyotimami and Anilmama’s house. We go to Mumbai tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have some sort of story there. I’ll keep you posted. I need to remember to write about how my dad wanted to adopt our driver and make him his new son. That’s seems important to mention. We also went to the Tipu Sultan’s burial place. Hmm… I’ll write when I have more time.