Day 19

I told Kalyani I wanted to see what her kids looked like so she brought me photos! Shermilla, Parmilla, and Navyasri, in height order. 

I moved up to the MDR Culture lab for the day to see how they determine which patients are resistant to which drugs. I was super impressed with how nice the lab was. It may as well have been straight from a Western country. The view outside the window (a septic tank, some rubble, and a dirt field littered with pigs and cows) reminded me that I was in India. 

2/7 patients were MDR. Super cool biotech process. Dr. Santosh wants me to make a booklet documenting the whole lab process of determining resistance from sputum samples. 

Her surgery hand has shrunk a lot. 

I went to a seminar at the end of the day about leprosy reaction patients. Peter gave a presentation on how to recognize and treat leprosy reactions. Dr. Santosh brought in a new in patient that day. Her name is Suma and she's part of a caste which frequently gets leprosy, apparently. Dr. Santosh recognized that she was a reaction patient and thought it best to bring her to Damien for treatment. Peter claims the best treatment for reaction is bed rest, for both its physical and mental benefits. If reaction patients don't come in for bed rest, they continue doing their daylabor and subject themselves to a lot of immune-suppressing psychological stress, hindering their progress. The breakfast club told me that she got leprosy 17 days ago and her husband left her immediately because of it. I don't think the Damien staff knew this because during the meeting they were talking about how it was a good thing that she "wasn't married," because it avoids complications with a potential pregnancy and undergoing treatment.