Is this chicken pox or not?

OK, Doctors, Nurses, PA's, NP's, other allied Health Personal and any other interested voices...

Is this Chicken Pox or is it not?

A thirty year old male, born and raised in India, presents with a rash. The rash has a characteristic "dewdrop on a rose petal" appearence. So one would think chickenpox.

However, he denied any respiratory symptoms in recent weeks. No cough, no runny nose at all. Doesn't all chicken pox have a prodrome?

Also, the statistical odds of an Indian adult getting through childhood without chicken pox are very, very, very small. And you can never get chickenpox again (though you can get other viris' with a rash similar to chickenpox).

And he feels fine. No itchiness, feels just fine. Doesn't chicken pox give you other symptoms?

So anyways, the patient saw myself, and he saw an interist, and both of us told him it was not chicken pox. So then he went to a Paediatrician who told him it was.

Well, is it or isn't it?

And the patient was tickled pink to have his rash posted on my blog.

24

"24" is the number of glasses of fluid I consumed yesterday.

It includes water, lemon water, ginger water, electrolyte solution, kool-aid, tang and one cup of tea. Mostly it was water.

And I still feel dehydrated.

Amy's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Last Wednesday, Amy had a bad day.

I was in Delhi fetching, which makes dealing with four young children more difficult. Then the AC broke.

Awhile after that, Sam got into the laundry room, grabbed the spray bottle of stain remover, pointed it straight at his face, and squeezed. His eyes were full of Stain Remover. She called me, and then immediately hung up to take Sam to the shower to wash out his eyes.

After washing out Sam's eyes, she was comforting him in a chair, when she noticed that the diamond in her wedding ring had fallen out. She searched for a couple of hours, and did not find it.

I got a few more phone calls, and did my best to comfort at 500 miles away.

The good news? Sam does not appear to have any lasting damage, and the diamond was found two days later, but the AC is still at the shop.

Such is life, or such we have made it.

Brief Update...

Staying busy.

I was in Delhi to pick up a Medical Student, and met with a couple friends for lunch while there. Had a good time. The train rides there and back were reasonable... no one smoking or staying up all night talking, the AC was working, only an hour or two late.

I actually got a free upgrade... got onto my regular third class seat, and here was a patient of mine who wanted to sit with her friends, and offered me her seat in second class... nice.

Elections went off well here. THis is only the first phase of five, so there is more to come, but this was the biggest day for our fair city. A complete closure of all wheeled vehicles meant we had to walk from the train station home, but that was just fine.

Off to clinic today again, staying busy.

It is hot.

The Most Important Prayer Request in the World

A Good Word from JP:

The most important prayer is that the most important person in the universe do the most important act in the universe.That's why Jesus put this request at the beginning of the Lord's prayer: "Hallowed be your name." God is the most important person in the universe. More important than all others put together.

"All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness" (Isaiah 40:17).

The whole-souled act of hallowing God's name is the most important act in the universe. To "hallow" means to "sanctify" which in God's case means to set apart inyour mind and heart as supremely great and beautiful and valuable. "Hallowed be your name" means, "See to it that your name is hallowed. Use your infinite power and wisdom and love to stir up billions of hearts and minds to admire you and prize you above all things." We ask him to fulfill this promise:

"I will sanctify [hallow] my great name, which was profaned among the nations.... And the nations shall know that I am the Lord...when I shall besanctified [hallowed] in you before their eyes." (Ezekiel 36:23)

"For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." (Isaiah 48:11)

Ask the Lord to help you make the most important prayer your most commonprayer. And the one you desire most to see answered.

Some Days I Feel Like Crawling into a Corner and Reading

Again, LM took this photo...
I just like it...
In a place with so many people and so much noise, how is a gentleman supposed to get a few quiet moments of study?
As so...

The Long Sought After Ladder Photo

Ladders are in short supply in Our Fair City, so they often get transported around for various uses. The most common way to transport a ladder -- as pictured -- is to balence it on the shoulders of two men who ride their bikes through mad traffic.
This strikes me as verging on the miraculous.

When a good reputation makes for a lot more work...

I see lots of patients in the Muslim Charity Hospital, for many different reasons.

Some months ago, I saw a patient who had been diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB) by an outside doctor, and the patient was seeing me for a second opinion. I did a bit more of a work up and concluded that the patient did not have TB. (I don't fault the original doctor, TB can be a very tricky thing to diagnose sometimes.)

The patient was very happy, and has been symptom free since seeing me.

But now some people are thinking that I am the doctor who can tell them they don't have to take their TB meds. (TB medications are fameous for their side effects.)

So each week I am seeing another patient or two who comes in and asks if they have have to take their TB meds. But it seems clear to me that they DO have TB and desparately need to finish their six month course of medications.

Takes a lot of work to convince them to keep taking their meds.

"Natural Herbal"

"Natural Herbal" clearly has different meanings to different people.

"Malathion," which is listed in the ingredient list, is a pesticide.

What to do when it is hot outside...

Political Rally's equal Traffic Jams

We have had several different political rallys go past our house in the past week, in preparation for the upcoming month of elections. Makes for major traffic jams.

Another photo from a friend

This still makes me smile.

I dreamed that I was taking a nap...

I usually don't remember my dreams. I wake up in the morning and have no idea what all happened last night. I often comfort children and other "Dad" activities, with no recollection in the morning.

But this morning when I woke up, I distinctly remember that I had a dream that I was taking a nap.

Does that count?

It's just a great photo... thanks Lindsey

Amish meets Urdu

Pathway publishers prints books for Amish schools. They tend to be simple, straightforword stories that encourage reading. And the illustrations do not have figures of people (something that both good Amish and good Muslims disapprove of).

We often get visitors who like to peruse our bookshelves. One gentleman recently saw our first grade reader pictured above, got quite excited and has decided to translate this into Urdu.

We do not yet know what the Amish think of the idea. Any of you Amish want to give an opinion? I know you are reading this...

So What is an Honest Muslim to do?

A friend of mine had a dilemma. Should he insist the police do their job or not?

To back up a little bit… the other morning, his cousin called him and said that a thief had broken into their house and stolen two cell phones and a thousand dollars worth of product. His cousin wanted my friend (TT) to go to the police. Obviously, TT’s cousin was afraid to go to the police himself, but my friend TT was educated, and maybe he would go.

So TT called a friend of his from his University days, who was now in the police in a different city, and asked, “What should I do?’ His friend told him, “Go to the police.”

So TT went to the police to tell them what had happened.

In India, whenever you go to the police, for whatever reason, you have to fill out an FIR (First Information Report). This FIR is VERY important. TT told the local police officer what had happened, and requested an FIR.

The policeman leaned back and thought for a minute and then made a suggestion: Don’t file the FIR, because if we recover the stuff, you will have to go through the courts to get it back and that could take months. (“This is true,” thought my friend TT.) Instead, give us a bit of time, and see if we can recover the stuff for you without the FIR, and when we catch the guy, he is probably a serial thief anyways, and we can still send him to jail on other charges. (“That is probably also true,” thought my friend.)

So what should he do? If he fills out the FIR, it might take months to get the stuff back if it gets recovered.

On the other hand, if he doesn’t fill out the FIR, the policeman is likely to demand a percentage of the stuff, or a bit of cash, before he will give the stuff back.

What is an honest Muslim to do?

We lost the use of our small veranda for a couple of months

A couple of months ago, Amy noticed that a bird had built a nest in one of her potted plants on our little 4 foot by 5 foot veranda. Two eggs were dutifully warmed for about six weeks.

And then one morning we woke up to this.

This does not appear to be helping the situation

We had some civil unrest last week, with a few people killed and quite a few others hurt in communal rioting. Troubles started when some members of the majority community threw some colored water and dye on a mosque of the members of the minority community, and offence was taken.

The police eventually showed up and did some shooting and things quieted down.

Next day, the paper had this photo listed above. When folks are agrieved in India, they sometimes take to "Brickbatting", which means they gather up whatever bricks and stones they can find and throw them at the opposing side.

THe part of the photo that is so striking is that the police are throwing stones back.

I just can't see that this is going to help a whole lot.

We all got our problems...

Every country has its problems... the newspapers are filled with some of the problems of the country of my birth.

India also has both assets and problems. Some problems pointed out by a recent issue of the Economist include:

1. Half of Indian school teachers do not come to school on any given school day.

2. 120 of India's current 522 members of Parliament are facing criminal charges.

3. One thousand Indian children die of diarrhea each day. (I saw one a few days ago).

4. 130,000 people die on Indian roads every year.

Doing a Thriving Business

The Hindus of India celebrated a holiday called, "Holi" on Wednesday. Of unclear origins, it is most widely known for the colored water they throw on each other. Also, Hindus are allowed to do things on this day, that they are normally not allowed to do... such as eat meat.

Our neighborhood being largely Muslim, it remained largely quiet on Holi, with most people staying inside and shops closed.

The exception was the goat shop across the street, which did a thriving business from Hindus stopping by to get some meat to eat.