A trip to the doctor

Ear infections.  Associated most of the time with babies, sometimes with children, but rarely, if ever, with adults. But for one month now I have been combating an ear infection. 

First I hoped it would go away on its own. Of course it didn't. 

I didn't really want to go to a doctor, so I just stopped by a pharmacy and got some pills. They helped a little. I was able to recover from my underbite and my ear eventually unplugged, but something was still off. 

After a day of traveling my ear decided "I don't like airplanes, please pay more attention to me," and returned to being plugged and painful. So, what better introduction to India than a trip to the local doctor.

I am currently in Faridabad, a neighborhood in greater Delhi, and I believe it is quite typical. The home where I am staying is quite nice, 3 floors, plenty of bedrooms, nice living areas and very clean.  Right next door is a trash pile in a vacant lot, and very poor housing next to that...everything all thrown together. I am staying with a host family, so young Jaiya, the 14 year old daughter, brought me out to the doctor.  We stepped out of the gate, avoiding the cow grazing in the middle of the dirt road, and headed to the local doctor just a few  blocks away.  The doctor's 'office' (for lack of appropriate word) was the first floor of a residence with a couple people waiting in case a patient should show up.  Jaiya was there to help explain, and a thermometer was jammed under my tongue while the doctor was retrieved from upstairs.  The doctor came down and shoved my head to the side and pulled my ear around, peering into it at different angles with a flashlight (a regular flashlight that we might use for camping rather than doctoring). He asked me a couple of questions about the pain ("not terrible until you started prodding without delicacy"), put together a smattering of pills, and sent me to the pharmacist for more medicines. 

At the pharmacy, a young man of perhaps 15 years was at the counter to deal with customers.  Jaiya gave him my prescription (written on a spare piece of notebook paper, nothing official like we know prescriptions), but he said we had to wait.  I assumed for a supervisor, which perhaps it was. About five minutes later another boy came to the counter and retrieved my prescriptions just as easily as the other guy could have, which makes me think he was a 'superior.' This other boy, however, the official pharmacist, could not have been more than 12 years old! But he gave me my ear drops and more pills and sent me on my way.  I am now home taking 4 pills, who knows what they are, 3 times a day and have some variety of ear drop to use.  What I am taking, I have idea, but it feels like it might already be working.

I bought health insurance for this trip, but the grand total for the doctor's visit and the pharmacy was 154 rupees. That is $3. It was funny, he didn't have a one cent piece to give me change at the pharmacy, so I got 3 pieces of candy as payment...fine by me.