So Photogenic!

I am posting a couple of pics that were taken just after Christmas at a dinner that my grandparents hosted for ALL of the family. We had to be put in a separate room as there were more than 30 of us (and this is just siblings, spouses, and their kids)! I'm glad I didn't have to pick up that bill!

Myself and all of my siblings, a prize to anyone who isn't a Ziegenhorn, married to a Ziegenhorn, or related to a Ziegenhorn who can name all of us and put the name to a face (I'll be checking the comments to see who the big winner is)!

Yeah, I know, the braces are HOT.

Creative Way to Waste Time When the Boss is Gone for the Day...

This Is My Life, Rated
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Mind:	7.8
Body:	9.3
Spirit:	7.8
Friends/Family:	7.4
Love:	10
Finance:	8.5
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Prevent War with France, Vote Obama!!!

Eric and I were having dinner with a French colleague of mine last Friday and as often happens, the talk turned to American politics and this fellow had a very interesting viewpoint on the Primaries that I had never considered but I think warrants serious consideration. Our French friend reminded us that their current President, Nicolas Sarkozy is currently dating a super-hot former supermodel, Carla Bruni who is presumed to be the soon to be French First Lady. If Hilary Clinton wins the primary and goes on to win the general election in November, the not so hot but mysteriously irresistible Bill Clinton would be the First Gentleman(?). There is no way that the former President Clinton would be able to restrain himself in the presence of the uber-hot Bruni during international summits, the G8 meeting, and any numerous diplomatic visits. Once their affair is discovered the inevitable consequence would be the Franco-American War (the spaghetti is so good, how could we resist such a delicious sounding war?). So cross your fingers and pray that Obama will be victorious. Though come to think of it, we haven't kicked France's *ss in a while, it could be fun.....

Nighttime Haikus

I have recently been reading the blog of a very intelligent and passionate female PhD student at Harvard. She is very funny and is a terrific writer, making her blog quite addicitve. I have put off plenty of work the past couple of weeks in favor of getting caught up on her thoughts. If you're curious, check out this link, but be warned, she doesn't mince words, can be a little graphic (okay, a lot graphic), and she drops the F-bomb pretty liberally. Anyway, she has inspired me to consider that perhaps "science dorks" can be a bit creative as well as nerdy and annoying. So a few days ago while I was struggling to go back to sleep after a not-so-unpleasant early morning awakening, I thought these up, so here goes nothing!

Nighttime Haikus

Contentment is our
Mira sleeping on my chest.
Rest for her, not me.

In bliss every night
Eric and I sleep with our
arms and legs entwined.

Each night our Chaya
wakes us up with her crying.
So sweet, pet me please!

Caught Between East and West, A Tale of India's Growing Pains

I have found that India is truly a place of extremes; extreme temperatures, extreme population, extreme poverty, extreme wealth, extreme beauty, extreme devastation. As India finds herself moving at warp speed from a third-world country to a global super-power, a good deal of conflict can be found between those people on the leading edge of "Westernization" and those who cherish the India of old. I feel that India is struggling to find its voice in the global community and is trying very hard to earn the respect of the "Western World", trying to win a seat at the global table, if you will. One of the most obvious ways that I have noticed India trying to break onto the world stage is through sport. I have recently seen commercials airing with the ultra-famous Bollywood star Sharukh Khan (complete with rippling abs) rallying the citizenry around India's new Formula One team, Force India. There isn't much controversy surrounding this sport endeavor (except to me, why are Indians racing sports cars while the roads in the country are a disaster? And doesn't learning to drive in India give drivers an unfair advantage, I mean really, if you can drive in India and survive to your 20th birthday without either killing yourself or being killed on the roads isn't that equivalent to steroid use? Both give equally unfair advantages.). Unfortunately the Indian female athlete is not as lucky as her male counterparts.


First of all, I guess that I should say that "the Indian female athlete" is something of an oxymoron, Indian female and athlete are almost utterly contradictory. It is in fact so contradictory that when you do a Google search for "Indian female athlete" the first few articles that show up are about an Indian "female" athlete who won a silver medal in the 2006 Asian Games failing a "gender test".* No joke, check the link if you don't believe me. Though it is quite common to see boys and men outdoors playing the ubiquitous cricket, I have never once seen a girl included. Nor have I seen groups of girls playing anything at all. I feel that some of the potential reasons for this are the standard reasons that would apply to any culture, but India's culture also throws up a few more roadblocks to any potential female athlete. For instance, girls (and especially women) are expected to dress in a very "modest" way. Legs are not meant to be exposed and even bare shoulders can be considered scandalous. Imagine any female athlete; now put her in long pants and a loose sleeved shirt, what sports' uniform is that? None that I can think of. In combination with modesty, girls are also taught from a very young age that fair is beautiful and great care is taken to stay out of the sun for fear of darkening the skin. This compels them to stay inside and not participate in sport.


Despite these obstacles some Indian women have had the opportunities to participate in a sport, and a few have made it nearly to the top of their sport. Sania Mirza is a 21 year-old female tennis star who is currently ranked 31st in the singles category and 18th in the doubles category and hails from Mumbai. Unfortunately she has been plagued by scandal throughout her career for a variety of different reasons. As a tennis player she wears the typical women's tennis uniform, ie. short skirts or shorts and sleeveless shirts. This has caused a great deal of controversy and in 2005 a group of Muslim clerics (Mirza is a muslim herself) issued a dictate that she cover up while playing tennis otherwise she would be a "corrupting influence" on young Indian women. In January another scandal involving Mirza erupted when a photgraph was taken of her resting her feet near a small Indian flag. A private citizen pressed charges under the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act. She has also been in trouble for shooting a commercial near a mosque as well as for stating at a leadership conference that "whether before or after marriage, the most important matter is that sex is safe" by which she obviously meant that pre-marital sex is hunkey-dorey (at least that is how a number of her countrymen interpreted it and responded by protesting and burning effigies of her).


The unfortunate consequence of all of this scandal is that Mirza has decided to no longer compete in any tournament held in India in order to avoid conflicts and has even considered quitting tennis altogether. If India wants to be a player on the world stage, it will have to figure out how to do so in a way that is acceptable to all of its billion citizens, a task that has so far been impossible to achieve.


*How stupid do you have to be to fail a gender test, a geometry test I can understand, but a gender test???


PS-Yee ha to Title IX!!!

Disaster Recovery

Thank goodness I have married the smartest and most patient man in the universe. Eric to the rescue, he fixed the blog. Three cheers for Eric!

Blog Disaster Strikes!

Sorry anyone who happens on the blog today, like an idiot I decided to try to play around with it and inevitably screwed it up. I think the content is pretty much fine, I just need to make it look pretty which is no small feat when your Internet connection SUCKS! Not to fear, I will fix it ASAP!

Sympathy Pains

The saga of the Indian GI bugs continue... I mentioned in my last post that on Sunday morning I was feeling not so bad so I boiled up some chicken livers that we had bought for Mira and Chaya the previous day. After they had cooled down Eric chopped them up and let the girls have a feast. They have had them before, it is one of the treats that we give them in addition to their regular food. In the early afternoon while I was moaning and groaning on the sofa we heard the unmistakable sound of cat vomiting. We both got up to see who it was and found Mira throwing up all of the liver that she had eaten. We weren't really concerned because, well, cats puke a lot. At least ours do, which isn't surprising based on what we find them chewing on. Their favorites include paper (paper bags, boxes, mail, newspaper, whatever), our mop, our broom, our fingers, less frequently toes, ants, lizards, cockroaches, furniture, toys, really just about anything. So when she puked we didn't think much of it, just cleaned it up and moved on, nothing to see here. Well, later that afternoon I was admitted into the hospital and Eric came back home for a bit to gather some things for our overnight stay and tended to the kittens as we figured that they would be just fine if left alone for the day. He left plenty of food and water and cleaned out their litter so they were set.

When we arrived home on Monday afternoon we had about half a dozen surprises waiting for us. There were big piles of vomit in just about every room and we found signs of kitten diarrhea in the litter. Later that afternoon Mira puked a couple of more times so we figured that she was the culprit. She was definitely not acting her normal obnoxious self so we were concerned. I called up the vet and he said to bring her in the next morning. So Tuesday morning we packed Mira into her basket and took her to the vet where she was also diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis. The vet, a very nice guy, Dr. Pawan, started to explain what gastroenteritis is and I told him not to worry, we were well acquainted with it. The vet tried to give her IV fluids as she was also severely dehydrated, but she was having none of it so he had to slightly sedate her to get the IV into her. She also received a bunch of antibiotics to try to kill the bug and then we took her home armed with a couple of prescriptions to pick up for her. Just for reference, the cost of the vet visit was $7.50 (including the IV and antibiotics and her prescriptions had to be around $.50). We were instructed to keep her on a liquid diet for yesterday and today and introduce her to solid food slowly and a bit at a time. Yesterday she was still feeling so badly that she wasn't that interested in food at all except to sit by her container of regular food and whine to make me feel as horrible and guilty as possible. I broke down (I am a weenie) and wet down solid food in plenty of water so that it was mushy and gave it to her, and she just drank the water. Today has been more challenging, Mira is a very fussy eater and she has been snubbing anything and everything that I have put before Her Highness. I spent about 45 minutes making a very nice chicken liver stew for her (and burnt myself and managed to spray chicken liver stew from the blender all over the kitchen in the process, disgusting, I have a bad history with liver) and she won't even touch it! Luckily Chaya is like a garbage disposal and pretty much eats whatever Mira won't bother with (which probably explains why Chaya is looking more and more like a furry piglet rather than a kitten). Mira is beginning to get back to her normal self, and hopefully the McCoy/Ziegenhorn household will manage to be GI bug-free for the next few days at least!

Down For the Count

When I wrote my last post on Saturday I actually wasn't feeling horrible, but as the title implied, I was just sick and tired of getting sick. Because I really wasn't feeling that bad Eric and I decided to do some grocery shopping so he met me after work and we took a rick (autorickshaw) down to MG Road so that we could pick up a few things. We like to go to MG Road for groceries because there are a couple of grocery stores that cater to Westerners where you can find "exotic" things like lettuce, etc. Anyway, after around one and a half hours of shopping (most of the time is spent getting from store to store) we headed for home and I was feeling okay. One the way home we ran into a horrible traffic jam (the reason for the jam we found was because the police here are absolutely dumb, they were directing traffic at an intersection and have no idea how to do it. As in, they weren't letting opposing turning lanes go simultaneously, each group of vehicles was going one at a time and they would let that one set of cars go for AT LEAST 5 minutes before stopping them and letting the next set of vehicles go. It is hard to explain but trust me, they are idiots). While we were sitting in the rick I started to feel really horrible, I was getting hot and sweaty and my body was just aching. We finally made it home and I thought that maybe I was feeling badly just because of sitting in traffic in the heat surrounded by fumes so Eric and I went for a little walk to drop off our ironing and to pick up something at a local grocery. That was a mistake. By the time that we got to the grocery store I didn't feel like I had the strength to stand up so I sat on some bags of rice while Eric gathered our things and then we headed back home. The rest of the afternoon I crashed on the couch cuddled under a blanket to try to stay warm (it was around 85 degrees out but I had the chills). Then the vomiting started, gross.
This lasted through the night but by Sunday morning I was feeling okay, I still had a low grade fever but compared to the previous day I felt like a million bucks. I managed to do four loads of laundry, make Eric a batch of cookies and cook up a pot of chicken livers for Mira and Chaya (more on this last part in the next post). I even managed to eat a bowl of oatmeal (I hadn't had any dinner the previous night and couldn't keep down any Sprite either). But by the early afternoon I was vomiting worse than I had on Saturday and my fever had hit 102. I tried to take the antibiotic that I normally take for GI bugs, but it just came back up. At this point I think that Eric had had enough of my barfing and said that it was time to go to the hospital and I was feeling too crappy to put up much of a fight. We arrived at the hospital (same place that I am having my braces done at and that Eric had his finger taken care of, one of the best and most expensive in Bangalore) at around 4:30 PM and went directly to the ER. We waited maybe 15-20 minutes until I was brought in and seen by a Dr. who concluded that I most likely had acute gastroenteritis (bad-ass GI bug) and that I should be admitted due to severe dehydration. After conferring with Eric (who had to wait outside of the ER) it was decided that I would be admitted and they set about readying a room for me. I was in my bed at the hospital at around 5:30, just one hour after having arrived in the ER, not bad, eh?


The rest of the story isn't that interesting, IV fluids and antibiotics, blah blah blah, was released the next day. But there are a few things that I found funny. First, nurses are called sisters. A lab tech asked me to give a sheet of paper to the sister and I was absolutely befuddled. Uh, all of my sisters are around, say 4,000 miles away. Second, female patients are presumed to be absolutely stupid. When I first arrived a nurse came in and showed me the call button which is on a little corded remote thingy just like at every hospital in the world I presume. Another nurse came in a few minutes later and explained to me that this thing was the nurses' call button and I only need press it if I need anything and I politely told her that yes, I knew what it was. Her response, "Oh, did your husband tell you?" Right, without a husband a lowly female could never figure out a thing. This happened several times where I felt that Eric was being spoken to instead of me. Oh well. Another note on the call button, in India that thing WORKS!!! I was admitted a few years ago while we were still living in Streamwood for a kidney infection so I think that I have a pretty good comparison between Indian and American hospital care and India wins big time. I could pound on that blessed call button when I was in the hospital in the US and I swear that sometimes the nurse wouldn't come for over an hour. Here, it was almost like one of those electrified dog collars with remote, I had the remote and the nurses ran into the room no more than 2 minutes after I pressed it as if I had given them a shock. It was awesome to feel like they actually gave a crap how I was feeling and cared about what I needed. Maybe I just had a bad experience but in the hospital in the US I had to beg and argue for even a Tylenol to help keep my fever down and I remember being left alone in a room in the ER while I was experiencing fever of 104 degrees with horrible chills and no nurse would respond to my pressing the call button and all I wanted was a blessed blanket. Best care in the world my ass. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Okay, the nurses were good, the Drs. were good, my room was nicer even than I one that I had in the States with a shower in room and even a futon for Eric to sleep on (he only had a chair in the US) though there was only one TV for both me and my roomie to share (bummer since she is an old Indian woman who doesn't speak English). The food sucked, but doesn't all hospital food suck? Oh, and when I was discharged I got ALL of the results of my labs, every test that was done and all of the readings, I am sure I have never got those in the States, let alone official copies. So, the bottom line, the cost. I am going to basically give you the exact cost (in dollars, using 40 rupees=$1) of everything and then let you know how much it cost when I was in the US in 2005.


Pharmacy items (this includes a two week course of antibiotics to be taken after I was discharged)


Vasofix $2

Tegaderm- Quantity 2 $1.17

Pantodac IV $1.42

Scalp Vein Set $.21

IV set- Quantity 2 $3.90

Dolo 650 mg tab- Quantity 4 $.16

Ciprox 200 mg/100 ml- Quantity 2 $.93

Metris 500 mg/100 ml- Quantity 2 $.77

Normal Saline- Quantity 2 $.89

Thermometer $1.63

5 cc syringe-Quantity 1 $.12

non-sterile gloves- Quantity 4 $1.65

Sterile water- Quantity 4 $.40

Electrical Powder $.32

Metrogyl 400mg tab- Quantity 39 $.67

Ciplox 500mg tab- Quantity 26 $5.63

Pantodac 40mg tab- Quantity 13 $2.27

Emeset 4mg tab- Quantity 4 $.98

Room Charges $40.50

Labs

Blood count $6.25

Urea $1.75

Creatine $1.75

Serum electrolytes $6.25

Urine $1.88

Urine-pregnancy test $3.13

Potassium $1.88

Stool $1.88

Potassium $1.88

Dr. Charges

Kiran K $7.50

Chandrika K $7.50

Daily nursing charges $8.75

Nurses injection charges $.38

GRAND TOTAL: $116.38

That's right, $116 for everything including the ER and 2 weeks of antibiotics. It's ridiculous.


Let's just do a little comparison for fun. I have already told you that the standard of care is better than in the US, but for the sake of argument let's pretend that it is equal. My three day stay at Central DuPage hospital cost $12,950.75 (that is minus the additional tests that I had to have done there like CT and ultrasound but does not include after-care prescriptions). That comes to $4,316.91 a day, only 37 times more expensive than in India. Trust me, I do not make 37 times what I did when I was paid an Indian salary, not even close. Sound equitable to you? Now for some real fun, let's compare a few specifics that the 2 hospital stays had in common (remember also that my stay in the US was more than 2 years ago and I am going to guess that costs have not come down at all, call me crazy). First the cost of the room, in the US in 2005 a 2 bedded room would run you $1230. Let's see, how much is the same (actually better) room in India in 2008? Oh, it is actually 1620, oops, I forgot that is rupees so divide by 40, you get $40.50?!?!? That can't be right! But it is, and it just goes on and on and on. Standard saline, $10.38 in the US, $0.44 in India. Is salt water really that hard to come by in the US? Okay, the labs: CBC in the US- $79.75, in India $6.25, Creatine lab- $18.25 in the US, $1.75 in India, Potassium reading, $28.50 in the US versus $1.75 in India. Dr. Charges for one day in India $15 for 2 Drs., $144 in the US for 1 Dr. You get the picture, I need not go on.


Anyway, I am back home now, feeling much better and everything is fine. Too bad the same can't be said for the American health care system, it is sick, it is broken and it is just wrong that the American citizenry is having the wool pulled over their eyes. Has any person reading this who has gone to the ER been seen in 15 minutes? I remember going to the ER at 3 or 4 in the AM a few years back and I still had to wait around an hour to see anyone. Isn't the big fear that ooohhhh, scary phrase here, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE will be horrible, that the quality will be bad, that people will have to wait to see a Dr.? Isn't it that way ALREADY!!! Of course it is! WAKE UP PEOPLE, socialized medicine is not a dirty word, it is simply a BETTER WAY!!! I have met a few Europeans here who rave about the health care systems of Spain and France, they have used these systems and THEY WORK!!! The BS that you hear about socialized medicine being evil is just not true! We need to stand up and DEMAND better, why does the rest of the world deserve it but not us? Tirade over, I'm exhausted.

Sick and Tired of being Sick and Tired

Tomorrow marks our first full month back in India since our Christmas holiday in the US. India apparently missed me as it had a gift waiting for me and despite my polite attempts at refusal it continues to give this gift again and again. Over the past month I have endured at least four bouts of Delhi Belly, Montezuma's Revenge, Karachi Crouch, call it what you will, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I take my antibiotics, it clears up, and a few days after coming off of the treatment, it returns. It is awesome; really, it is.


I was not surprised when we returned to India to learn that I had gained 3 pounds as a result of stuffing my pie-hole for three weeks straight. With the help of Delhi Belly, the weight is gone! Maybe I can try to market this a weight-loss regime.


Gained a few pounds? Tired of going to the gym and not getting results? Your troubles are over: introducing a simple weight loss treatment that works with just one dose! For just two easy payments of $19.99 you will receive via mail a bottle of fresh Indian water. Simply drink and wait for results! Just call 1-800-E COLI 4 U to receive your bottle in the mail immediately and weight loss will be on its way! (Side effects include headaches, body aches, fever, vomiting, lethargy, explosive diarrhea, dehydration, malnutrition and possibly death. Users should not operate heavy machinery unless the machinery is equipped with an on-board toilet, in fact users should not be more than 6 feet away from a toilet at any time during the treatment. Toilet paper not included.)