The Travails of Travels

Here we are trying to drive from the airport to Paharganj for our last evening in India in a taxi thats transmission is having its final agonal breaths. It seems extraordinarily unlikely we will make it to our destination in this wheezing contraption. 

And Paharganj isn’t my final destination of the day. Oh no, that would be too easy. That cold that never quite went away resurged in the last few days and the Indian version of cold meds couldn’t put a dent in it. Before our flight here from Trivandrum I made sure to take those anyway, along with my allergy pill and anti-inflammatories to anti-inflame my juicy ear canals. As soon as we ascended, my left ear went from stuffed and uncomfortable to a screaming 7.5 on the pain scale and then a pop and then… cottony nothingness. Uh oh, I think my eardrum just ruptured and I need a doctor pronto! 

3 and a half more hours in the air of people playing video games and movies without earphones, very loud men having heated discussions directly around me and a long descent threatening to rupture the other ear. Not my favourite flight but at least there was chocolate cake, ya know?

So, the taxi died. 

A and the taxi driver spent a long time flagging down a tuk tuk for the 3 of us and all our luggage. It was a tight fit with all of us squeezed in there and a shawl wrapped around my ears to keep the wind out. Once our stuff was tucked in our hotel, A texted to say he had me an immediate appointment with a nearby ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) specialist. I’m pretty impressed since I’ve been on a waiting list for an ENT appointment in Canada and it’s expected to be a year.

It was a grimy little hole in the wall office in Paharganj. He kicked A out of the exam room, took some notes and looked in my ear with a flashlight your dad probably had in the kitchen drawer in the 70s. “I have an led flashlight in my purse,” I offered. “I am a doctor; I have a light!” he said emphatically, as he put basically a coal miners candle lantern on his head. Then he stuck a not recently cleaned earoscope directly into my newly torn open ear I had been protecting so carefully. “You need antibiotics.” Well, I sure do after that. 

My eardrum is ruptured and, with my head so congested, I am at risk of the other one rupturing during the flight tomorrow. I am not supposed to blow my nose. I am supposed to take a wild and somewhat random amount of antibiotics, allergy pills and nasal drops. I need to stick Vaseline coated cotton in my ears to shower. Fortunately, he had some cotton from the turn of the century sitting on his desk to give me for that purpose. As I ascend and descend in the planes I need to keep my mouth wide open. On the plane I can’t use any earphones for movies, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. And, I need to see a doctor in Canada the day I arrive. How bloody possible is that now? 

Medical care in India? Maybe not the most hygienic, but definitely competent and accessible. Medical care in Canada? Mythical.

At least I got a few beers tucked in there before I started the antibiotics.