Megan's Trip to Apollo Hospital

So for my next adventure, I figured I’d pick up where I left off before Agra – with Megan being sick. Pretty please, don’t get sick in India. Although the odds are not in your favor if you do come.

Anyway, Megan got sick on a Friday night, and I heard about it Saturday morning. Now, on this particular Saturday Megan and I were supposed to be working. As such, I went to work, and Megan stayed home.

Come about 3 pm Megan calls me up on my still working phone (this is before the government got ridiculous and cut my service off because…well…I don’t even necessarily know why) to tell me that she’s running a fever and has called for the driver, but that he hasn’t shown up yet. I immediately go downstairs and find somebody in HR who can help. They figure it out, and before I know it, Megan has been taken to what I hear is the nicest hospital in NOIDA.

The name of the hospital is Apollo, and the care is…well…better than Megan says she got in China. Which makes me wonder about Chinese hospitals. They stick an IV in her…quite painfully, from the way she’s grimacing every time they change it, and pump her full of so many drugs I can’t even count them. The one solace (for me) is that the night nurse is absolutely gorgeous. I guess the one solace for Megan is that this whole thing has to end at some point.

Now, being at a hospital in a country halfway across the world, getting filled up with more medicine than you’ve ever seen before in your life and worse, not even knowing what that medicine is or why it’s there…it can be a scary experience. So for the next two nights I wound up staying on a nice leather couch (paid for by the IV drips and by the fact that a 5 minute consultation with the doctor runs something like 15 USD). I wasn't the only one being helpful - the guys from the office all came by, and everyone was really supportive. I just wound up relocating - which was no skin off my back. It was pleasant, until people came in to check on her. The following describes a REAL conversation, from start to finish (maybe not word for word, but I’m not making this up or exaggerating AT ALL).

6:30 am

(door creaks open. Random Indian Male walks in).

Random Indian Male: Hello.

(Megan remains asleep. Nic opens his eyes and closes them again, hoping that the man was making a general greeting and will go away soon).

RIM (looks at Nic, who appears fast asleep): Good morning sir.

(Nic continues to keep his eyes closed and his breathing regulated.)

RIM: GOOD MORNING SIR

(Megan awakes)

Nic (opens his eyes): Huh? Oh…hello.

(RIM walks over to Megan’s table, places some food on it, turns around and leaves).

End scene

Yes, that was 6:30 in the morning. And no, he doesn’t know that the only thing between him and the basement 4 flights of stairs below him was that I was too tired to get up.

Anyway, after gouging Megan for all she was worth for 2 nights (her fever had disappeared after 1), the doctor, in the infinite wisdom of his 600 rupee 5 minute consultations, decided that she should stick around for a third night. Which makes sense from his perspective, since the bed is right there and he could keep pumping saline bags into her as long as he wanted. But it wasn’t quite as great from Megan’s perspective. So, hero that she is, while I’m at work on Monday she has a long conversation with the doctor where she convinces him that she’s not paying for another night and that he should discharge her, and then actually has to sneak out of the room to sign the bill so she could leave. Yes, I said sneak out – she got them to take the IV off her under the premise of going to the bathroom, then hustled out of the room, paid the bill, and got someone else to get the IV line out of her. Finally, after all this is over, she calls me, leading to the adventure that is the subject of my next post.