Another Day of Home Visits!

It's Wednesday evening at about 5:15 PM and Ryanne and I are just unwinding after a long hot day of home visits.  

I began my day today in an outpatient clinic about 45 minutes outside of Trivandrum.  They actually used a small room that also doubles as the town's "library".  Because it was kind of a slow morning, one of the doctors took my group out for chai before patients began coming into the clinic.  There outpatient clinics actually serve more than just the pain/palliative patient population.  They told me that many patient come in with slight coughs or small cuts that just want to talk to somebody about that.  These patients usually just talk with one of the nurses there and are on there way pretty quickly!  There were about 8 patients that came into the clinic this morning and after all was done we set out on home visits.

We kept pretty much the same routine for our visits as we did last week (small introductions, ask the patient how they are feeling, check on the family, changes in medications, etc) and I began to realize just how efficiently these teams can operate out in these rural areas.  They are able to do so much with so little, and still give the patient as much time as they need.  I think all four of the patients that we saw today had a stroke within the past two years or so and are paralyzed entirely on one side of their body.  Not quite as intense as we saw last week! 

I actually took some pictures this time so will put those below!  

Ryanne and I are going out to eat at a place called "Black Pepper" tonight!  Should be pretty good!  

An example of just how adorable EVERY child is here in India.

           

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The small library the doubled as our outpatient clinic.

Grandmother and Granddaughter

The man that had the art of chai making down very well! 

The world's largest fruit in the world's largest democracy!  The Jack Fruit!