AJBlog

Hi there folks. If anyone reads this that is. Well it has been a long while since I blogged last. I realize that though a lot had been happening all this while, I just couldn't put it all online for you.

So here it is. I am starting from the picnic the whole hospital had over 2 days in Hetauda, Nepal, about 4 hours from here. It was a great outing and we all had a lot of fun. We needed it.

We went in about four vehicles, which included 2 hired buses.
All the junior doctors went together in a small van.
The picnic was on the banks of a small river.
The water was very cold.

There was this bridge which led to the other side of the river. And on the other side were hills covered by forest.
And there's where I saw these two kids rocket right up a hill. It was all dry; the forest was further up.

And then I saw them zoom down the hill at top speed.

And when they realized that I had a camera and was awestruck at what they were doing they gave me an opportunity to take some great action snaps.

Now by action snaps I mean real lively action like doing a somersault jumping off a small rock, and jumping down a cliff into the not so deep water.

We came back by seven in the evening, dead tired.
Most of us crashed right away not to wake up till the next morning.

All in all it was a good day. ;-)

I have seen my share of the weirdest things on earth during the past few weeks, and thought I would enlighten the readers with some of them. On doing so, I would also like to add some of the stuff I had seen earlier and was hesitant to post hitherto. So brace yourselves for the blog of the month.

I would like to start with a cow I saw a couple of weeks back as I was returning from a weekend trip to Birgunj. Now, cows are commonplace in India. And everyone knows there are more cows than there are vehicles on the streets of Bihar. But this particular cow had all my attention for the few minutes I could have it in my field of vision while speeding past on a cycle rickshaw. This monster cow had five legs! I'm not kidding, and this image is not photoshopped. The thing on the back of the cow is an extra leg. So much for the first occurence of the month.

Allow me to tell you this one. The other day they called me to resuscitate a baby in the labor ward. The lady had not had any antenatal checks and had arrived in the second stage of labor. The head of the baby was out, and the shoulder was stuck. By the time I arrived at the scene however, the baby, or rather the babies were already out, though it still baffles me how it happened. Take a look for yourself. This is not what you call a 'normal' baby. Had there been a heart beating, I would have been at a loss as to which one to resuscitate first. But they were born dead.

Three hands, two legs, two heads, one umbilical cord and a male genitalia... That explains the Siamese twins.

Now the next one may not be that dramatic, but it highlights an important point I had made in one of my previous blogs about the village doctors. This kid was brought to the outpatient department with a history of multiple episodes of loose stools and vomiting. This had been going on for about five days and the child was treated with all kinds of antibiotics by the village doctors. I should mention that the child was just a couple of months old.

Today I received a call from the labor ward again and was told that a baby had just been born and had not cried after birth. I rushed in to find this tiny baby with tinier limbs and the nurse hovering over it trying to resuscitate. The baby had a steady heart rate and though we promptly intubated her and bagged her for some time, we couldn't save her.

The next picture is of a baby brought to the out patient department about four days after birth. This condition, I learned is known as exstrophy of the bladder. We had to refer the child to a higher center.

One night in the emergency room, a patient arrived, all alone. He was apparently crossing the international border in the evening and had fallen on a metal object, hurting his head in the process. This had happened about five hours prior to his arrival, and he had struggled on to the hospital despite being injured. I wasn't actually prepared for what I would be seeing under the turban on his head.

A child with mouth full of candidiasis. This baby couldn't feed from the breast. On treatment it improved drastically.

The next couple of pictures are old ones which I hadn't put online. The first one is of an anencephalic baby, which was born way before term.

This next one was taken when I was still in Obs and Gyne. Was called upon to do a dilatation and currettage for a lady with severe bleeding one day and this tiny little baby was born.

This baby was brought to the out patients department with history of some rash on the face. Probably hadn't been given a bath since the day he was born.