a secret place that i know

Today is a good day. A really good day.

My parents and Ben dropped me off at Annie's house on Capitol Hill after our weekend in Bothell. I'll just be in town for a few days to take care of some things on campus and, you know what they say, 'kick it.'

My return to Seattle is barely at the 3 hour mark and I'm already elated and on the verge of stupid-giddy. I've been to Stumptown, I've gotten hugs from Chris, Borges and Laurie Om and now I'm sitting at Vita with Annie and Mike having a laptop party. Two coffee shops and a handful of really good friends feels like the opposite of a slap in the face. Whatever that is.

And, just in case you were wondering, the fog is so thick on the Hill right now I can't even see across the street. It's magic.

Thanksgiving goes something like this

I eat a lot of this...


...and hang out with my cousins

In America

A few days after I got back from India I went to the grocery store with my mom. I counted 15 different kinds of orange juice. I ended up buying the pulpy one with extra calcium.

Bathrooms in America have toilet paper. They all do, even the grungy gas station ones. No more hoses or buckets of water for me.

I'm in the United States of Toilet Paper and Huge Grocery Stores.

Transitioning back into non-travel, non-India, non-volunteering, non-hospital life has been bumpy. Comfy, but bumpy. I basically live the life of my dog, Monty. I sleep, I eat, I'm not allowed to cook any food (thank you, typhoid) and I go for walks. Then I nap again. My first few days back were spent eating home cooking and going to doctors appointments. I'm still in the midst of copious doctor visits and tests. As far as I can tell, I'm well on my way to being fully recovered. No more fevers, I'm slowly gaining some of my lost weight back and my stomach/liver isn't hurting as much anymore.

My home doctors have decided it is necessary for me to be tested for typhoid once a week for the next month. This news didn't surprise me. My typical doctor appointment usually starts with a prep nurse coming in to take my temperature and such. She kindly and politely asks, "And why are you here today?" "I got typhoid fever in India." "Ohh..." She is dumbfounded and her response is more of a gasp than a word. Then they call the Kaiser Infectious Disease Specialist...

This mysterious doctor is a man I've come to imagine fully, but have never actually met. My doctors usually consult this man when they find out I had typhoid. The t-word is something of concern, to say the least, of medical people of the Western world. I like to think this specialist is a guy who is immensely talented and yet immensely bored and useless in a country far far away from deadly mosquitoes and unsanitary water. He watches reruns of Lost and reads Michael Crichton novels all day. Framed photos of spider bites and tropical rashes line the walls his office. A little red phone sits on the edge of his desk. Then, one day, the phone rings and a bewildered nurse is on the other end. "Yes, Doctor, Ms. Reardon has... typhoid." The phone drops from his shaking hands...his eyes stare dreamily off into the distance, off into a world of gi-hugeous killer bugs and poopy water. He composes himself and orders dozens of tests on the poor, jet lagged girl. "It's game time."

There has been nothing drastically new found on any of the tests so far. I eagerly await my bill of clean health and the day when Mr. Infectious Disease Specialist goes back to being bored.

I've been home for two weeks now. These two weeks, though vacant of my lonely hospital time woes, have been very unsettling. It has been really amazing to be home with my family and friends. It's just odd to be pulled away from my life in Kolkata so quick. I'm still on Kolkata time. I don't go to sleep at night until I know all the Prem Dan volunteers are on their chai break. I wake up in the morning thinking about who's hanging out on the roof Hotel Maria as the sun finally goes away after a long day in the smoggy, sweaty heat.

There have been very loud reminders of why it is best that I am here at home. My first week back I got news that a friend of mine from high school had died in an accident on the Oregon Coast. Sokhak is an amazingly vibrant, loud, insane friend. His memorial service was absolutely absurd--exactly as Sokhak would have liked it. A Portland bar was filled with his open mic poet and musician friends (covered in tattoos and dripping in dreadlocks) alongside Hillsboro's cleanest and sweetest suburban families. The event was very sad, but I felt like there was this feeling in the room of joy and thankfulness at the same time. Everyone was happy to have an impromptu high school reunion and the message that rang loud as people went on the stage was one of loving life aggressively and passionately just like Sokhak. Sokhak worked a lot in community development and was someone I was friends with from day 1 freshmen year of high school. His next tattoo was going to read, "Yay, life!" He was weird and crazy and I'm so sad he's gone. It was nice to be able to introduce Ben to a lot of my high school friends and I'm glad I was home to be at the service. The whole thing made for an interesting first week back.

And now it is the end of week two in America, capped off with a horribly tragic terrorist attack in India and...Thanksgiving. When I first heard about the attacks in Mumbai I was most certainly in disbelief. I sat and stared at my computer screen, more specifically at the words 'targeted at tourists.' I didn't have plans to travel anywhere near Mumbai, nor have I heard of any of my volunteer friends being near there now, but nonetheless the news shook me. I stayed up all night watching live news on the bombings. Oh, and there are protesters at the Bangkok airport I was suppose to fly out of in a couple weeks. Gosh. I am glad to be home... but, it's hard not to feel weird eating a turkey dinner when catastrophic events are unfolding elsewhere in the world. Part of me just wishes I was somewhere that cared a little bit more about these issues, somewhere that didn't put stories of the attacks on page four behind the Black Friday shopping ads and Rose Bowl predictions.

I'm thankful for family, friends (old and new), overprotective doctors, a boy we all called Silk, artistic people, stuffing, milk from cows, peaceful democratic protests, cousins to stay up late with watching bad B movies, warm socks, canned cranberry sauce, hostages that were released and my dog.

Prem Dan

this is what i did. this is where i was.

i have some stories

After years and years of playing The Oregon Trail computer game in elementary school, you'd think I'd be well equipped to avoid typhoid fever. You'd think. Kolkata had different plans for this Oregonian girl and I in fact did contract typhoid fever. And I didn't even ford the freakin river.


I have a lot of stories to share with you, dear blog readers. I don't really know where to start. As you could probably tell from my dad's previous post comment and from my two plus weeks of blog silence, something went wrong with my trip. I spent 10 fun filled nights in an Indian hospital recovering from what we now know was typhoid fever and a bad, bad parasite. All is well now. I am currently sitting on my bed in Hillsboro, Oregon at 5 in the morning, attempting to combat jet lag. I figured now was as good of time as any to start to sift through what has happened.

The whole story, obviously, wasn't being shared on the internet. Over the course of my last 5 blog posts I had been feeling increasingly sick. Being the incredibly stubborn and self sufficient person I am, I decided to work through my spiking temperatures and bouts with painful stomach cramping. For nearly three weeks I had an on and off temperature of over 103 degrees. When I hit my fifth layer of clothing and near delirium, Traci decided it was time for me to go to the hospital. Did I mention I love and am forever indebted to my amazing medicine-bound roommate? And so I went in a taxi all bundled up and found myself two hospitals and multiple dizzy spells later being admitted to Belle Vue Clinic under the care of Dr. Singh.

Despite what images you may conjure up when you think of a medical adventure in a third world country, I can assure you my time at Belle Vue Clinic was very comfortable (all things considered). By sheer luck, Dr. Singh ended up being the local physician for the American Embassy and to Traci's and my relief, we found a large sign outside the front entrance that declared a hefty donation to the hospital had been made by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Oh, Seattle.

After being admitted, I found myself under an onslaught of tests and more tests. This was a product of the combination of the fact that not only did my illness have very vague, very intense symptoms, but also that I was in India where it is very customary to fuss over your guests. The few weeks prior to my hospital stay, Kolkata had a horrible outbreak of malaria and dengue fever that had plagued the slums of the city. I had diligently been taking my malaria pills and yet I still found myself ridiculously freaked out that I might have one of those two bad boys. I was relieved (??!!!) come day 3 in the hospital when I was finally diagnosed with typhoid fever. I had taken a typhoid vaccination before I left for my trip, but I guess I got the shitty end of the deal (pun intended) of the 80% effective rate. The next 7 days were spent on the phone with people I love from home, battling my insurance company and being pumped full of copious amounts of IV antibiotics. And so it was, my India trip was irrevocably changed.

I tried to stay positive about the situation--I even named my parasite, Perry the Parasite. Regardless, my experience of being in the hospital was a terrible blow to my self esteem. I felt entirely defeated. Those first few days in the hospital were riddled with anger and tears and disbelief. The best way I can think to describe it all is comparing it to a bad break up.

I'm pissed.

India and I are not on good speaking terms right now.

I feel like I got dumped by India, this place I had fallen so madly in love with. What did I do wrong? I loved and loved and gave so much of myself and you hurt me. "It's not you, it's me," I could hear India say as I lay lonely in my hospital bed with only my IV line to hold my hand. I most certainly hit what can only be described as the lowest of lows.

Above all else, I was overwhelmed by the thought of never getting to see my patients at Prem Dan again. I gradually came to terms with the fact that my travel plans post-Kolkata would be replaced with an early return ticket home, but still I was terrified I wasn't going to be allowed back to work. I was devastated and worried my intense experiences volunteering would never have even a hint of closure. All I could really think about while in the hospital was how guilty I felt leaving everyone uncared for at Prem Dan. Here I was with a disease that a lot of the women at my work have, coping with the guilt that while they lay sock-less and blanket-less with their fevers, I was carted off to the most posh hospital in Kolkata at a moment's notice. I had the money to make my typhoid go away and the help to make every OK in the end. I came here to help others with illnesses like this. The full weight of the dichotomy of our world I was beginning to see through India was punching me in the gut and not easing up. I urgently wanted out and to get back to Prem Dan.

Going back to work wasn't going to be an easy feat, however. My doctor gave me a further diagnosis; the good news, my typhoid was the non-contagious strand. The bad news, I had fluid on my bladder and in my intestines and there was a possibility I had liver damage. On top of that, my veins are apparently pretty weak and my wrists had swollen under the stress of all my IVs. My discharge date was pushed out another couple days. I major consolation with this extension came when I found out my travel insurance I had purchased through my school had a Bedside Companion claim--if I was in a foreign hospital for longer than seven days they would pay for a person of my choice to come be with me. The thought being, a person from home will be good at holding your hand and comforting you and they can help you navigate your flight home. Good thing for me my boyfriend, Ben, is the best hand holder I know and he's a veteran India traveler. Day seven came and went, I was still hooked up to IVs and a plane ticket was purchased for Ben. After the amazing help of my University advisor, Fr. Cobb and my study abroad director, Robin Craggs, Ben had an expedited Indian visa, malaria pills and a one way flight to India. PDX to Kolkata with only a few days notice. He's a pretty cool guy.

I was so thankful for Ben taking this crazy trip to come be with me. I can only begin to imagine what it felt like for him to not only process having a girlfriend in the hospital, but to take in Kolkata in only 5 days time. Ben is truly an amazing person and pro world traveler. He arrived safe and sound the morning of my day-10 discharge, just in time to carry my bag and force me to sit down when I got dizzy. There's so much to say about the five days that followed my discharge. I did make it back to Prem Dan where I even had Ben volunteer in the men's ward, Ben and I lived with an incredibly kind and generous Indian family (Dhruv's family I mentioned before), I got to show Ben all the amazing places I called home for the last month and I attempted to cram as many of my undone Kolkata agenda items as I could before I had to fly home. It was an insane couple of days made only that much more absurd by the fact that I was functioning on a post-typhoid level of energy. This wasn't the way Ben and I had hoped our first trip abroad together would be, but so much of it felt like a very cleverly disguised blessing that I am now so very thankful for. We've officially dubbed his time with me in Kolkata as "Rescue 9-1-fun." I'll write about more stories from my final Prem Dan visit and Ben's and my Indian adventures in another blog post. So much to say.

It all feels surreal now, sitting here in my parents house. I always told myself that the best trait for a traveler to have is flexibility. Always be ready to change your plans. Regardless, I am still in disbelief at the level to which my trip was thrown to the wind. According to my unfinished travel schedule, today I was suppose to be in Rishikesh about to head out for the ashram. Thinking of the ashram or Nepal or my last week in Thailand is still really hard. I get hot in the face and close to tears when I remember how certain I was a few weeks ago that I was a good traveler. I felt so confident I was making people proud back home, I was justifying my award of the Sullivan scholarship and I was reassuring everyone who worried back home that the world is a generally safe place outside of Hillsboro, Oregon. All that feels like lie now...I'm really uncertain what is genuine and what is false in all I felt before I went into the hospital. It's overwhelming.

I'm trying to deal right now with these feelings of failure--by my standards a far harsher ailment than typhoid. I know I'll come to terms with this all at some point. There will be a time when the consolations outweigh the desolations and I can comprehend a purpose to this whole ordeal. Right now, though, I don't feel like I belong in my bed at home and I'm missing India in a really heavy way.

I think Fr. Cobb consoled me best during one of our overseas phone calls in my hospital room. He said, "India needs you in the long run, not the short run. You need to be healthy." This has been my personal mantra the last two weeks. I have a little calendar tucked away in my travel journal that is covered in scribbled train times, hostel addresses and what was my tentative travel plans for the next two months. I can't tell you how long it'll take me to feel better about what has happened or when I will feel completely healthy again. I can, however, tell you that I have every intention of unfolding that calendar sometime in my life and finishing my trip.