isn't it all so glamorous?

Remember that time I had dysentery? What about that time when it was actually giardia? Well, I've got a story to top either of those two.

I told you about my new living accommodations in Malviya Nagar. Part of the appeal was the kitchen and the opportunity to cook my own food, which I've been doing. I've also been eating a lot of fruit, which I know is a little bit risky, but I've been doing a good job at washing the fruit with filtered water. That is, there is a water filter above the sink at the PG, and I've only been drinking and cooking and washing utensils with that water.

Well, that water may not have been the cleanest or that filter may not have been entirely working or I may have just picked up a bug from somewhere else. All I can tell you is that I got sick. Really sick. Worse than dysentery. Worse than giardia. Like, I went to see Housefull 2 at the movie theatre on Friday night and I had to leave during intermission because I felt like I was going to pass out. We're talking Delhi belly to the maximum, combined with a high-grade fever of 103.6°F and severe dehydration. I mean, that's what the doctor told me when I went to see him on Saturday morning. It was so severe that they admitted me, and I've been chilling in this hospital bed ever since.

I'm hooked up to an IV, which has been pumping me full of fluids and antibiotics for the past 36 hours. The doctor says that it's definitely a bacterial infection, hence the antibiotics. His exact words were along the lines of, "There is lots of bacteria in your stools. Lots of bacteria."

On the bright side, I'm feeling a lot better now. My fever broke yesterday, after a couple of injections and a sponge bath of cold water. (Didn't know that was a thing you did to treat fevers.) I'm also using the clinic's wireless, which is much faster than the Internet from my Tata Internet stick. I can eat again, per the doctor's orders, and I've gotten a lot of reading done and some ISP writing in. But I still have to go to the bathroom a lot, and I still don't know exactly what kind of bacteria has invaded my stomach and GI tract. I'm bound to make a full recovery, though, and I'll probably be out of here tomorrow.

It's funny that even while I'm in this hospital room, it's hard to forget that I'm in India. Take, for example, the chai that was just delivered to my bed. Even when you're suffering from severe intestinal distress, you still get chai.

Oh, man. Isn't studying abroad super glamorous?