JUL-B-4
ARRIVAL IN
THE LINEUP
OF THE
After an all night vigil in the
domestic terminal following the suspicious agents on arrival in
We flew up the Karakorum on a very pretty clear day to see the Gasherbrun’s and K-2 and then had a very bobbing and weaving approach to the narrow Leh Valley for a hard, almost crash, landing in full engine thrust reverse to stop the plane at this, the world’s highest jet port. I gathered the gang on the apron and suggested they just look about for a bit to absorb what they could of this exotic environment, to do NOTHING exertional and to wait until we could later make introductions all around of what sounds like an unmanageably large group of over thirty mostly very junior not yet clinicians. We will run the dramatis personnae
Californians:
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Canadians:
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5
6
Scots—Dental:
7
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9 Sujata Tipnis: a pediatrician, born in Puna India, last visiting eight years ago when she had been a third year medical student, just finishing family visits in Delhi, and at Baylor Children’s’ Hospital looking to move and start up an international children’s practice—perhaps in DC, the only other MD on the trip with a license, but has never done anything like this
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GWU Affiliation:
15 Megan Morris: an MPH student at
GWUMC who is half Japanese and comes from Utah where she graduated from BYU
where a medical anthropologist accompanied her to Ghana last year to which she
is returning for three months after this trip to write her GWU MPH project on
local village attitudes toward malaria.
She has carried with her a shell casing in her pocket to remind her of
her grandfather who had a military career, and who died with a military funeral
complete with a 21 gun salute, the brass shells of which were distributed to
the family. Despite abundant tears and
sentimental attachment, the security guards at
16 Lee Dutton: my GWU medical advisee and fellow runner, who had a career in genetics before his buddy and he jumped from a plane to parachute and Joe’s parachute did not open; he married Joe’s widow MJ and they consolidated the “Brady Bunch” of kids who were married and had kids of their own by the time he entered as a 40+ year old medical student, the only freshman med student grandfather. He graduated and went to an Ob residency at Brown in Providence, where I visited them enroute to the Boston Marathon three and two years ago, but he ran afoul of the program directors because of recently diagnosed ADD, and transferred to Geisinger, where he is now also having some administrative difficulty finishing, though that is the only place where he might have any job prospect. He does not have a license, but is at least the only other medical school graduate, and as such is being given a break by HHE and also his OB residency to attend this program, of which he has long wanted to go, but has never done anything like this.
He is also my Hotel Kangri roommate and will likely run with me during the first exertional periods after he is over jet lag and altitude increase.
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19 Dvora Levkovich: a completely non-medical woman who is a diamond merchant in Chicago, but her best friend Bima, a lawyer, had come to my last year’s Ladakh excursion and so she signed up for Dharamsala in this spring (where she acted as pharmacist, never having known of any drugs before) and this Ladakh trip, talking about doing Lingshed next year
Eastern non-NJ medical students
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22 Jonathon
Snyder: I know nothing about him, since
he missed the flight, is apparently still in Paris, and rumor has it that he
was turning around and going back rather than coming on,, after it was his
mother’s phone call that had canceled the flights from Delhi to Leh of those
with him on Air France who had to shuttle to an Indian Airways flight to catch
up with us here in Leh. I have later
learned that this tall fellow is a not yet completed freshman medical student
from the
23
24 Deborah
Hunter: She is a law school graduate who
would have gone to medical school except that her fiancé had gone to Columbia
law school, yet he took a job in Frankfurt Germany and she did not follow him,
and wanted to test whther she was stil
interested in medicine and health, so she went through the MPH program at Johns
Hopkikns and for the last fourteen months has been
working in Medicare office with a number of MD/JD types, and hopes to apply to
medical school. She was also stranded,
but got picked up by Aeroflot after a luxurious overnighting
in
Relatives and assistants of HHE
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26 Hayden Woollen: a senior PT student who had been with my last year’s excursion in Nepal, and who picked up Chris Tait, the NGS photographer I had met on the way back down from Everest’s “Summit of the Three Sons” to go home to Toronto to his three-times recurrent meningioma mother who is apparently still alive
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28 Hem Thakur: the gentle, now married meditation instructor who arranges al the details of transport and logistics and is an indispensable man to the pulling off of such an excursion
29 Anuj: the highest caste Hindi helper who does it all when assigned and is one of the “go-to” people in making the trip work.
30 Ravi—the owner/organizer of HHE, who has packed along at least double what would be a comfortable number on this very popular trip which fits well in the summer schedule of the freshmen medical students that heavily populate its numbers.
31—38 A half dozen drivers and assistants, who are packing the supplies and sorting out accommodations.
ARRIVAL DO AND DON’TS EXPLAINED
We have had brief arrival introductions and explanations on the orientation to the Ladakh-03 mission, and I have spelled out some rules on the arrival at the Leh airport, where already the group was overwhelmed by the exotic location in the alpine desert and noting that they were short of breath just standing in the high overhead sun. We got slowly to the Hotel Kangri where all the staff is familiar with me and welcomes the gang. I had to reinforce the embargo on NO Exertion today, since it is apparent already that her are headaches and shortness of breath and decreased appetite with the ground swell for pre-medication for almost everyone who has even a first year introduction to any kind of medicines. I am lying low, and since the electricity has come and gone seve3ral times, I am plugging in the laptop to get it charged up, even thought there is no hot water. I took a brief cold water shower, and will put together a few birthday cards to be mailed out, and will restrain the jet-lagged and altitude-fagged group of all naïve first timers in this area and start reading out the rules of the expeditions’ behavior when we gather for a curtailed dinner preceding a sleepless night, since the jet lag, long naps today, and the muezzins’ call to prayer will awaken the large pack of stray curs to start yapping all night In other words, the usual sights, smells, sounds and customary introduction to group efforts in Leh Ladakh, our staging area for still more remote excursions from this base as we plug in to a very remote place and exotic culture across disorienting time and space.
After everyone had slept off their jet lag and high altitude shortness of breath, we gathered for my orientation lecture on what to be expected and how to go about the kinds of help we were intending to give, along with a postponement of that which would come with the medical nitty gritty to be outlined later. I also gathered with a group on the roof to which I had taken them to show them the Stok Kangri which a few of them may climb later, also to show them how three flights of stairs can be enough to put someone into breathlessness on arrival. We watched the Milky Way and shooting stars later after dinner, and I listened to each of the overwhelmed students who will shortly be getting quite cocky after a few successes. They are already getting sick with some diarrhea and sniffles, and I have been discouraging them from starting out on a handful of medications for their transient complaints. So, it is :Another Opening of Another Show!