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Ear infection in Mumbai

This is the first of a series of travel reports I’m writing about our trip to India with our daughter who was then 1 1/2 years old. We went for a month, and went to Mumbai and Goa.

As you can tell from the title, she got an ear infection. A pretty bad one too. She didn’t get it in Mumbai, she got sick on the plane. She was in fact already sick before we left, and the ear infection just really kicked in while we were on the plane, so it really had nothing to do with India, just with us not being careful enough.

Anyways, so while we were on the plane, ear infection kicks in and she gets a fever. Lesson 1: always take pain medication on the plane. We didn’t bring any. Luckily, they gave us some on the plane, but that involved filling in forms etcetera.

Amelia on the plane, looking a little sick:

Luckily we got a baby cot (they also call it a bassinet) reserved on the plane, so she could get some sleep. These are great, if your baby is less than 2 years old, try to get one. Call the airline in advance.

The next morning we landed in Mumbai and went to the hotel (which we reserved in advance). The room was tiny, but we went to sleep. Amelia was pretty tired, so she slept too.

The next day we were still in Mumbai, and still underestimating this ear infection. Amelia is a strong kid, so she didn’t cry all the time, we didn’t know yet it was an ear infection and we figured she’d be fine. We staid in the Residency Hotel, which was fine.

When she started to get worse again and cry, we called a doctor. He came to the hotel, came to the room, pulled out a cheap plastic flashlight, shone it into her ear and declared “she has an ear infection”. Yes, we knew that by then. Our confidence in this doctor wasn’t very high, and the cheapo flashlight didn’t help (although we learnt later that this is standard practice. In Belgium, regular doctors have the ear thingie to look into your ear, in India, only specialists have something like that, regular doctors have plastic flashlights).

We went to get some medicine in one of the many pharmacies (which are ok for regular medicine and the medicines are very cheap in general) for her ear, and we thought that should fix it.

This is a picture of Amelia and me in Mumbai:

Still doesn’t look very happy. The thing is: we didn’t really know if she was sick or just jetlagged (as we were pretty jetlagged ourselves). The sling helped a lot though, it’s very comfy.

Read the next part of this story in Sick on the Konkan Express.

By Peter (Moderator) (Trustee board) (Dev team) on May 4, 2009, 04:46 in India Talkzone.

babygirl says on May 4, 2009, 05:22:

Yikes! I've been prone to ear infections my entire life and even have memories as a young child of horrible earaches. NOT FUN at all. Poor little thing. She's probably loving the sling at that point because your body heat will sooth and dull the pain a bit for her. I've been told you're not supposed to use hot water bottles, heating pads etc... because adding heat promotes breeding bacteria, BUT when you're in that much pain sometimes you just want some relief until your pain meds kick in.

I once grabbed my cat and attempted to use her as a pillow. I had just done a research project in school and remembered hearing something about how in the 'olden' days they used animals in lieu of hot water bottles. The cat was not amused.

You should post this in travel with kids!

Best quote of the week... "should I be taking this pill with wine?" Canadian Girls Kick Ass!

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Peter (Moderator) (Trustee board) (Dev team) (☼Travelguide writer) says on May 4, 2009, 05:27:

:) Maybe I should.. but then again it's also about India.. mmm.... problems!

Poor but snappy

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