Today we just dropped into a small exhibition and lazed around the stalls. It also had plenty of games and there was a Magic Show in one corner. The show was brilliant – about 20 minutes of eye-candy that left you baffled. The magician had just a rickety stage and curtains and a squeaky music system but pulled off the tricks really well. And to top it all the entrance fee was just 10 rupees (25 cents!!).I was also impressed with what he said at the start of the show.“Magic is an art – like cinema, music and painting. Its not a mantra”.Mantra is an Indian word which denotes a supernatural occurrence. Even in modern society people believe in ‘Godmen’…

K had a nightmare of a time. She came to our hospital with an undiagnosed fever and during her stay delivered a preterm baby. K had to be shifted to CMC to sort out her fever and the baby struggled to survive in our nursery. She had mild HMD and needed CPAP (oxygen under pressure). Just when her tiny lungs seemed to have recovered she blew a pneumothorax – a hole in her lungs that caused air to leak into her chest. I quickly put in a chest tube and luckily she improved. A few days later the tube was removed and she was started on nasogastric feeds. All seemed well till one day I noticed she seemed to be…

We treat patients who have all kinds of backgrounds. Today we admitted a boy with suspected Dengue fever who was a little sick. He needed a few blood transfusions and a lot of monitoring. His father was a political worker from the Municipality office and wanted a guarantee that the treatment would be successful. Unfortunately I could only tell him the truth – that there was a possible danger to life. He didn’t seem happy about it. Out of the blue i found that he was a close friend to G annan and this made him feel better as G annan knows us well. While the father was convinced some of his friends were unfortunately goondas and they were overheard…

You can read the story of Balaji in these two blog entries.Entry 1Entry 2Its been well over a year now and Balaji is doing extremely well. He popped into OPD today with a cold and it was great seeing him play around, pulling at the toys, wishing me, saying his name and attempting to say a nursery rhyme! This is one of the best parts of being a doctor – seeing a child recover from near death and then coma back healthy!!You can see a video of Balaji here.

I actually noticed it on the Chennai trip, but it started becoming more obvious now even inside the city. The car tended to drag to the left and I had to consciously keep the steering a little to the right to keep it straight. I rechecked tire pressures and they seemed OK. On New Year when we parked for lunch I realized that the front left tire showed some uneven wear and it dawned that the car probably had a serious problem. I checked with the GM guys and then left the car at the service center for a thorough check up. Within 24 hours the diagnosis was finalized – the front left suspension strut was stuck and damaged for…

This is one of the best perk in being a doctor – when you get a thank you note from one of your patients. And when the thank you note is attached to a large pineapple cream cake, the joy is enormous. Ananthara came to us more than a year ago for a simple check up when I found out she also had delayed developmental milestones and a squint. Since then she has made immense progress and the mother has been faithfully bringing her for therapy and they have made a couple of visits to CMC.Today was her second birthday and she came and gave us this beautiful (and delicious) cake.Incidents like these really encourage me to continue to be…

Although I was on duty on Jan 1st we managed to go to church in the morning. The speaker was Freddy Joseph (I’ve already blogged about him a couple of times).For the sermon he had chosen the story of Jesus calming the storm while his disciples were in the ship.One of the highlights of his message was his thoughts on this verseThe men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”He said, ” You can see the waves but cannot see the wind. Both of these obeyed Jesus – Jesus had control over both these elements. Similarly in our lives Jesus has control over the seen and unseen problems in…

You’re never too old to go to the zoo. A visit to the zoo re-ignited the child in me and brought back memories of us singing a cool song in Sunday School – ‘If I were a Butterfly’ So here is a collage of the animals we saw at the zoo to that familiar tune!Enjoy Gods creation!! Zoo: The Arignar Anna Zoological park, Vandalur, Chennai, India.

We’d just reached Chennai after the long drive from Trichy and just as we were cleaning up and taking some rest it started. My dad’s tummy suddenly did a flip and he literally collapsed vomiting recurrently probably due to food poisoning. He could not even take any tablets or a sip of water and within an hour his blood pressure crashed to 60 systolic. My father-in-law and I decided to treat him at home and within a few minutes set up an IV line and rushed in some IV fluids and gave him some injections while the others rigged up a make-shift IV stand, etc. The BP improved to 100 systolic and after several hours the vomiting subsided after which…

Trichy is not as boring as you think it is. It has some neat places you can hang out in. I thought I’ll blog about a few of these places once in a while.Christmas is just round the corner and a good Christian bookstore is a boon for some shopping.OM bookhouse near Puthur junction is a great place for some Christian shopping. It’s right opposite KMC hospital, but is tucked in a little so you may miss it. The place is not very large but well maintained, clean and the stuff is neatly arranged. Its got a HUGE collection of books, LOTS of music and some art, wall hangings, keychains etc. We had a pretty good time browsing through the…