The Home for the Dying and Dispensary at Sealdah

The last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. It all started with Sunday after I had just gotten over another spell with Indian food, I was to lead a group of 25 to Nabo Jibon. Most days at Nabo Jibon we only have four or five volunteers but on Sundays we bathe, bandage and feed about 40 street children from the neighborhood in the area, Kadamtala. The street kids, surprise suprise, have alot more energy than the mentally and physically handicapped children we work with there on a daily basis. One kid would want up on my shoulders while the next would come and take my hands as if to say "entertain me." So I'd swing him around in a circle for a while, not getting dizzy at all, and put him down. Next thing you know 6 more kids showed up right by my side wanting to enjoy the same sensation! Mike ended up spinning so many kids that he felt nauseated after a while. There was another group of kids wanting me to throw them up in the air as high as I could...over and over and over again! It ended up being a bit of a tiring morning.

It being our last full week in Kolkatta, Mike and I decided to try and pick up a few more afternoon shifts. These days have been long and exhausting, but definitely worth every minute! Working the afternoon shifts ended up bringing me to an MC house known as Kalighat (the home for the seriously injured and dying) as well as a dispensary near the Sealdah train station wrapping wounds for people who otherwise could not afford medical care.

Kalighat in the afternoon is pretty low-key compared to the morning shift as most of the wound care takes place in the morning. So I visited with the patients, did some of their laundry, and fed one of the seriously ill patients. He can barely move and is almost on the verge of needing a feeding tube so the sisters blend up all of his food and serve it in more of a paste form. Apparently over the last few days he had still had a real problem eating this "mush" and tended to cough it up over the person feeding him. He ended up coughing up a bit at first but then another volunteer from Canada came over to help me feed him just to be with him as he struggled and prop him up a bit. It took us an hour and a half to feed him but at least this time he was consistently downing the food that we gave him. Thankfully, no blended rice and curry ended up in my face!

Yesterday Mike and I were at the Sealdah dispensary dressing wounds with a few medical students. Mike had worked here before so he guided me through the first few patients for 45 minutes until he had to leave. Here we are, a poly sci and engineering major cleaning and wrapping wounds from car accidents to dog bites to who knows what else. Many of the patients weren't able to communicate to us how they came to have gaping wounds but just came in with large amounts of skin missing, looking for us to change out their bandages.

The first patient I worked on was definitely the most difficult of the day. The back of his heel was badly disfigured. He had an open wound that looked to be healing up rather nicely but also had a black infected ball of fluid buried underneath a callus. I was told my one of the medial students that the goal is to let the fluid release as soon as possible so I scrapped away at the callus for some time, all the while making the patient reel in pain. Being my first patient, the obvious pain I was inflicting was a little hard to take but it had to be done so I just kept on going. It ended up getting to the point where he couldn't take it anymore so I wrapped the rest of his foot up and sent him on his way. On Monday he'll have to come back so the volunteers can have another go at it.

Today I worked another afternoon shift at Kalighat which ended up being a bit more difficult than the first time around. When it came time for food, I was helping out a one of the patients who had obvious trauma to his head. He's not there at all and apparently has a problem with people feeding him. I put one bite in his mouth and he proceeded to just let the food sit there, not chewing at all. After a few seconds he decided he'd had enough of my help and got up from his chair and went straight over to the table where one of the volunteers was distributing the pills. I ended up having to forcefully sit him back down in his chair multiple times while he had a mouthful of food. He was getting more and more angry with me so one of the other volunteers tried to spend some time with him and calm him down. Some other volunteers needed help elsewhere for a while so I left for I bit and found out a little later that this patient had physically went after one of the volunteers and Mike had to wrestle him off. We ended up heading out at a little after 5 with the patient still not having finished his food.

Tomorrow will be my second to last day volunteering with the MCs in Kolcatta. In the afternoon I'll head out to get my haircut which will come with a head massage for a few extra rupee! The whole thing, haircut and massage won't cost any more than 50 rupees, or just over $1.

Kyle