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By Beth Randles

Created: 01 November 2019

Cricket highlights are buzzing in my left ear, as I peel apart crinkling, plastic sleeves of a wedding album. My patient’s fourteen-year-old son splits his attention between the static screen and his sister’s wedding photos, dutifully providing me with descriptions of each face’s relation to the family.

“Mother’s big sister’s husband.”

“New husband’s mother’s big mother.”

Overhead, two occupied bird’s nests are harmoniously integrated into the wooden beams and cool clay of this traditional Newari home. An ornately carved shutter is open, shedding warm sunlight on my lap to compliment the sticky-sweet, masala tea in my hand. I am beginning to feel more healed than healer, the boundaries dissolving between myself, the soft, fleece couch cover beneath me, and the mother and son flanking my sides.

My patient’s charm is contagious. A muscular woman in pink who doesn’t rise past my breast, she pulled me in from the street, scythe in hand. She is beaming at her doctor’s compliments of her daughter’s beauty, which are completely sincere. The twenty-two year old bride’s smile outcompetes a heavy red tika, layers of bright cloth, and grass, glass, and metallic adornments. Her son tells me she lives in Baltimore, and I am excited to convey that I share a coast with his sister, as we three sit atop each other on the small couch.

I hear heavy footsteps below, and quite suddenly the television’s light is extinguished and the photo album stowed away. I greet my patient’s husband, “Namaste”, and receive a stoic acknowledgement. My patient is bringing her fingers to her mouth, offering me to join their morning meal. Feeling as though a storm has moved in, I enthusiastically thank them and take my leave. My thoughts wander to the metronome of my footsteps… is my patient seeking relief for more than her inflamed elbow?

Read more: Nepali Women

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By Chelsea Leander ND

Created: 26 October 2019

Four years ago I fell in love with the most impoverished district of Nepal called Humla.  Though I was there to research malnutrition, I quickly realized the desperate need of doctors in these vast Himalayan mountaintops…where ironically most doctors, even from Nepal, refuse to venture.  But it seemed unpractical to be a conventional medical doctor where x-ray machines and pharmaceuticals were unaccessible.  Enter naturopathic medicine.  These past four years, I have dedicated to learning herbal therapy, water therapy, nutrition, spinal adjustments, counseling, homeopathy, acupuncture, and lifestyle modifications.  And now, it is time to find out if all these skills I have accumulated can touch the medical aliments that Nepal faces.

This venture back to Nepal is through Acupuncture Relief Project - an amazing non-profit in Nepal that utilizes acupuncture in the delivery of primary medicine in the Makwanpur District.  Though I’m not an “acupuncturist” the organization hosts many medical providers of other disciplines. I’m using this experience as a stepping stone to doctoring in Humla in the future (a longterm goal that I am quickly realizing is much more difficult to achieve than I anticipated). 

Read more: Naturopathy in Nepal

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By Sarah Maiden

Created: 23 October 2019

Yesterday, I saw an 80 year old patient whose oxygen saturation read 75. In America, anyone under 90% gets an immediate oxygen cannula in their nose. When I first encountered this woman in her village, about 2 & ½ miles away over hills and valleys, I tried checking her vitals. During that encounter, I assumed the machine was malfunctioning due to sunlight or lack of proper circulation because it was reading 67. In my Western ignorance, I assumed anyone with a 67 percent oxygen saturation would clearly be dead – as opposed to squatting on the roadside chatting with me, discussing walking miles to the clinic, and leisurely watching the rolling clouds flow over the gorgeous valley. However, on the following day, she stayed true to her promise and hiked the giant hill 2 &½ miles to our clinic seeking help with her breathing. Her blood pressure had dropped to 85/60 at this point, her biceps so tiny they barely filled the cuff. She kept repeating that she wasn’t sure about being in the clinic because she’s just going to die soon anyway. I gave her my typical response, “I understand. Maybe we can make this time easier for you.” I was able to stall her for two hours. First I gave acupuncture. Then, I put the Albuterol inhaler to her lips and pushed it twice because she didn’t have the strength to do it herself. She had walked the distance uphill to the clinic alone, like any typical badass Tamang 80 year old with advanced COPD would, of course!

I told her to get her son to push the button at home and gave instructions for using the medication, unsure if it got through to her seemingly alert oxygen-deprived brain. Finally, the healthpost staff showed up, late, and gave her an Albuterol nebulizer. Considering her state, I assumed they would keep her there while I returned to my waiting tent full of a dozen patients and relatives. An hour later, I spotted her tiny figure out of the corner of my eye, making a run for it down the lane. I had my interpreter yell out, “Hey grandma!,” before we realized that she wasn’t suddenly pausing for a breath (why would she do that?), but was standing at the edge of the road urinating straight down onto the ground, clearly wearing nothing under her long colorful patterned skirt. “Hey grandma!,” we tried again. She turned around. I couldn’t bear to force the tough old mountain lady into anything she didn’t want. “You want to go home now, don’t you?” “Yes,” she replied, perhaps with a few comments about the importance of feeding the goats or playing with her grandchildren. “Okay I understand if you have to leave now but we might have some other medicine that will help. Do you feel better now?” “Yes, much better.” “Can you please come back on Friday?,” I ask, with a sigh as I sincerely respect her patient autonomy, as this relationship was built on the trust established by chatting her up on the roadside. “Yes,” she answers, as if the uphill hike with advanced COPD and oxygen saturation at 67 is a complete walk in the park. She gives me the little sideways headshake implying Nepali agreement, and takes off at a pace that would startle any 80 year old American. 

Read more: Human Suffering