Fahim’s mom landed in the hospital.
Luckily, they had a soft enough bed so the landing didn’t hurt. :p
She had an asthma attack starting last night. We went to visit her after Fahim finished work, so this would be my second time at the Apollo hospital. Some quick notes on it…
The lobby for the Apollo Hospital is huge, airy, and very nice looking. It is the only part of the hostpital that is huge, airy, and very nice looking. I’m guessing they were assuming that first impressions would carry over into everything else. How wrong they were.
I will give it credit for being clean and in pretty good condition, and it didn’t have that overpowering hospital smell. I don’t know if that last part is good or bad – do they use enough disinfectant? No idea.
There are two sets of elevators, one for patients, and one for visitors. Huh. There’s also a sign requesting that people please not bring in flowers or outside food as they could be carrying germs and whatnot that could make patients more ill. That sounds fairly wise, to be honest. They also gave the visiting hours, which we ignored in that we stayed way past when they were over. But Fahim’s brother came over after they were over, so Fahim had to go down with the visiting pass that their dad had to let brother in.
Fahim’s mom was on the fourth floor, so we head over there (the signs were actually reasonably decent – surprise, surprise!) and found her with little difficulty. Her room was shared with one other patient and was small. Smaller than Canadian hospital rooms by a long shot. There was enough room for the two beds and not much else. Fahim’s mom was provided with one chair for visiting purposes. Anyone else would have to either stand or sit on her bed, which she invited us to do.
And in all honestly, if there had been more chairs, there wouldn’t have been enough room to use them anyway.
The paint job, like all paint jobs I’ve seen here, was terrible. One wall was a pale blue, the other a pale green, and where it met at the corner was a sloppy wandering wavy line. If it could even be called a line.
And there were ants. Big surprise. Those critters are everywhere. EVERYWHERE, I TELL YOU!!!!!!
While we were there, she was given dinner – a couple of different curries and three slices of sad white bread. Oh, and a small bowl of something that Fahim, his brother, mother, and dad all said was wattalapam and I thought was a, um, version of tapioca pudding that I thought should never have seen the light of day. Since no one actually ate it, we’ll never know who was right and who was wrong. :p Other than the cooks, that is. :p
Fahim’s mom was kept overnight for observation – her breathing was still pretty bad.
And while we were there, Fahim’s brother’s intended – that is, his fiance and her parents – came by the hospital to visit, so now they’ve seen me. They were nice, and Malli’s intended seems to have a decent sense of humour, which she’ll need with Malli, so that’s all good. :p
