US Trip Part – III (The Hospital Ordeal in US)

Never in my life had I felt so pampered and important. Even my parents, friends, and girlfriend did not ever pay that much attention to me that I got on that fatal day of Nov 02, 2006. And the place where it happened was even more bizarre and would sound ridiculous if it was at Mount Auburn Hospital, Emergency Department, Boston.

I was not feeling well when I arrived from India. Fever, cold, and cough had grappled me and were not leaving me for long, despite of persistent medication which I took off the shelve. My condition was deteriorating day after day and I realized that it was high time to visit a doctor. No big deal. I have done it many a times in India when I visited doctors with the same symptoms - they listen to my story, and ultimately give me a dose of antibiotics - and got treated. That was my Indian experience of getting cured for the cold.

Welcome to US. I did not have a “primary doctor” and my condition was severe (just cold and fever) to take an appointment and visit a doctor the next day. I wanted the treatment to happen on the same day. I told my colleague and he helped me by taking me to the hospital in his car. Since there was no primary doctor for me and I did not have an appointment either, I had to enter the hospital through the emergency department.

My lifetime experience had started. At the counter I was asked my name, age, and the reason for the visit and the receptionist asked me to sit and wait on the sofas lying in the lobby. I thought I would soon see a doctor. Two minutes later a cute nurse of Japanese origin arrived and took me in a room. She introduced herself as my nurse and asked me whether I was on any medication, did or do drugs, had an allergy, etc. She examined my pulse, heart-beat, breath pattern, etc. using stethoscope and also noted the temperature with the thermometer. She asked me the type of medicines I was taking for the cold and finally asked me to proceed to the next adjacent room.

I entered into a small room with a computer and files all around. What kind of doctor is this? Entered another girl who started asking questions about my demographics. She asked about my address, origin, religion, insurance cover, etc. I don’t know how your religion or ethnicity affects your medication. She asked my phone number and since I did not remember mine I took out my new Sony 990i. “Oh, you have a nice mobile. Does it have a camera?” she said. Phew!!! Here I am dying with my condition and she is looking at my mobile! She printed a bar code on a wearable tag and put the tag on my wrist. Later I realized that the room was in fact like my office's HR office and she was working perhaps as a hospital HR. Thirty minutes are already over, however, the funny thing is that the doctor is still not in the picture.

I was again asked to sit in the lobby. A lady in her 40s entered and asked me to come inside. I walked in a small room with computers, probes, sensors, and machines. Looked more like a star-trek set than the hospital room. I felt happy that finally the doctor has called me for the check-up. But the ambience of the room was too much overwhelming and scary. I was in my thoughts contemplating about the room when the doctor asked me to remove my clothes. What??? Naked, in front of a lady doctor? I felt shivers in my body for the thought of being naked in front of an unknown woman, that too not for sex but cure. Soon she ended my worries by allowing me to leave the underwear and pointed me to the apron on the bed and asked to put it on. She knew I felt uncomfortable with all this, so she mitigated my fears by leaving me alone in the room. The apron or the robe was difficult to wear and I was feeling sick from the core of my heart after wearing that. It reminded me of the dresses in lunatic asylums in Hollywood movies. It also reminded me of intricate and difficult medical surgeries that I had seen on Discovery channel. My body went cold and wan as the thought of operations and surgeries passed by my thought window. The doctor came back and asked me to lie down on bed. Then she used her stethoscope and probes to check my pulse rate, heartbeat, and oxygen level in my blood. Gosh! never in my life I thought cold was such a dreadful disease. She asked me the same set of questions about my symptoms and disease which had already been asked many a times. From the drawer on the right she pulled out a file and handed me few papers to sign on. Yes, it was a consent form which would allow the hospital to walk free if I died during the procedure. Now I was almost terrified. Were they going to do a heart surgery for cold? May be US had a permanent solution for the cold by cutting off one of the valves in your heart. Who knows how would they save the earth this time? I was helpless and had no choice but to sign it and agree and abide to all the rules and regulations pertaining to the document. I signed it and passed to her.

“I will send you the doctor very soon?” She said.

The words lingered in my ears and resonated loud enough to shake my body. The doctor was still not in the picture. She left me alone in that research lab and I waited for the doctor to come. In the gallery I heard two nurses bitching about their boyfriends- one suggesting the other to not to go for divorce but to wait for some more time. God! Who cares for the patients? Boyfriends are more important anyways. I waited impatiently for the doctor but I was visited by a man and a woman who did not look like doctors at all. They told me that I would be X – Rayed and took me on the stretcher to the X-Ray room. I felt so embarrassed lying on the stretcher when the people sitting in the lobby gave me their weird looks as I passed the lobby next to the X – Ray room. The nurses only helped me to make me more embarrassed by asking if I could stand on my feet for the X – Ray. "What the hell?", I thought. I had cold not cancer. I told them that I had enough strength to stand on my feet. The female nurse came and asked me to open my chest and before I realized she had put two tiny sticky metallic discs (as small as the heads of smallest pins) on my tits. They shot the rays twice for my X – Rays. I did not know what the function of those metallic discs was but I felt the cold on my tits when she put it for the first time. I again lay on the stretcher and was sent back to my room.

After five minutes came the real doctor. PINA PATEL was my doctor in the hospital. "Indian doctors here also?", I thought. She must not be more than thirty - dusky but good looking, confident and professional. To my agony she again asked the same set of questions to enquire about the disease but her first question was very weird though.

Why are you here today Mr. Verma? She asked.

May be I was bored of going to pubs, discs, clubs, parks, etc. and decided to try hospital this time. What a stupid question one might ask from a patient in the hospital. I forgave her for her silly mistake as she was a gujju. She told me that I was perfectly fine and should continue the same medicine. If I had to hear this after two hours of tests why the hell did I go there? I insisted on antibiotics as my throat was paining. She cold heartedly declined to my request without showing any sympathy. In fact she proposed one more test for the throat and another examination by her colleague.

After fifteen minutes I saw another lady doctor raising the curtains from side and entering my room. She was white and again the same age as Pina. She repeated the Pina’s story with no additional changes and left my room.

Another ten minutes break and then came a lady to take throat swab. I didn’t understand there policy of giving 10-15 breaks in between the visits of these people. Were the breaks intentional to allow the patient to make few last calls to their relatives and pray to god or to plan an escape from the hospital. God knows the truth. She had a long peg with cotton on one end and she inserted it deep in my throat. I almost was on the verge of throwing up on her but her dress was pretty so I restrained myself.

This time the break went for thirty minutes but there was enough space between the curtain joints to allow the light signals from the lobby to enter my eyes. There was a beautiful blonde nurse who knew I was there on the bed but still was on the phone for all the time. It seems as if she worked for the call center rather than the hospital. She would steal glances at me and I did the same to tell her that I was not really happy hearing her voice since last three hours but I was completely ignored and she kept gabbling ceaselessly.

Pina came back again after thirty minutes and finally told me that my throat tests were negative and there was no bacterial growth, which meant that the time had come to leave the hospital. The nurse came in again and asked me to sign me on the discharge papers. I got the shock of my life when I figured out that I was actually admitted in the hospital for four hours. She offered me her good wishes and asked me to meet the receptionist in the lobby. There was no fees, no charges, nothing to do in the lobby and we headed to home. I was elated by the fact that no major surgery was performed on me and I was still in single piece without stitches.

US Trip - Part II (Picking a girl in US)

Praveen Shukla had asked for my help in shifting his stuff when he decided to move from Pond Street house to Windsor apartment. How could I have denied a friend request? The whole experience happened to be so good that I started believing in God from that day. My uncle said once, “If you help others, god helps you.” I never believed it until that fateful day.

We were busy bringing the stuff from Shukla’s house to the ground floor – on the road near the truck – when I spotted a black hair girl sitting next door and smoking cigarettes. She was sitting on a folding chair with her legs resting on the wooden fence and was smoking cigarettes carelessly, casually, and ceaselessly one after the other. She was least bothered by our presence and was lost in her own world of smoke and her cell phone. One hand holding the cigarette with grace while the other working meticulously with the keys on her cell.

She was looking pretty in her curly black hair which was falling down from her shoulders and was touching her waist again and again with every gentle stroke of the evening breeze. Her Mexican-white skin looked flawless in the dusky sun and was glowing with the warmth of her youth. Her body was in shape and near to perfection. She was comfortably dressed in her white t-shirt and tight fitted blue jeans.

I did not like the injustice of god. How could such a beautiful girl sitting all lonely on such a wonderful summer evening in Boston. I decided to approach but I wanted some reason and I did not take time to find one. Cigarettes – Yes!!! The common thread between us. I went inside and picked a can of Heineken beer from the refrigerator and started walking towards her. “Hi, Can I have a cigarette please?” were my first words to her. She obliged me by offering me one. I put it in my mouth and asked for the lighter. I did not go away after lighting it but I kept standing there with her. After two-three puffs and a sip from the can I asked her whether she lived there. She negated and said that it was her aunt’s house. The discourse had started and I kept throwing questions and intelligent answers. She did not take time to realize that I am indeed an educated man. We exchanged our cell numbers and she had taken a promise from me to help her in purchasing a laptop which I happily agreed to.

Shukla was looking at me with a look of contempt and hatred. I had to say her good bye otherwise Shukla would have killed me. Instead of helping him out I was doing flirting – how would he accept it? With a very sad heart I bid her good bye and again went into labor shoes from Romeo’s shoes.

After two three days, I sent her an SMS and I did not get any reply. I waited for three days but of no use. Finally I called her up and left a voice message but again received no reply. I realized that my love story, like all the other love stories met a tragic end. However, the villain in my love story was nobody else but my dear friend Praveen Shukla. Only if he had not given me his censured glance while I was talking to her, only if he had given me few more minutes and not asked me to start work again, life would have been so different. I would have got some more golden moments to spare with my new found angel. I would have made all the promises of love and life, I would have discussed all my luck and destiny, I would have exchanged all the vibes and emotions, I would have felt her silky hair and kissed her cheeks but only if, only if.

Of course, how would you expect a girl to reply back when you spoilt her evening by leaving her all alone with the frightening darkness after the dusk? Certainly, that is not chivalry.