Wow! What a long and busy day! Brayden woke very early this morning, and Laura followed a little while after. We hung out in our room for a while, cleaned up, took our time getting ready, talked, and it was still just 7 am! We then went to the outside porch where we joined Granda Sinha and Dr Sinha. It was a calm morning, where we sat and talked. Grandma Sihna is very talkative and likes to talk about lots of different subjects, we went from a homely looking girl to racism to her teaching in the UK to a professor wanting to watch her to surgery and then he messed it up and then many stories about her children. We then ate a delicious breakfast and headed off to the clinic.
Today was a busy day at the clinic, Brayden took over patient history and visual acuity tests and Laura ran the autorefractor. It got very busy and Brayden felt like he was back at work! We are lucky to have Abishick, the head optometrist, with us to help Brayden with his research project. As you can see from the picture above, they get along great! Abishik was asking some questions about our marriage, and Brayden told him that we had met in high school. At this point, Abishik's eyes got wide, and he asked "arranged marriage?" We quickly told him no, that it was our choice, to which he said, "Ah, a love story!" He then continued to tell us that he had the option of having an arranged marriage or a "love story," but that a "love story seems much nicer."
After doing screenings at the AB Eye Institute, we went to a charitable clinic down the street to get some data collection for Brayden's research. While there, Abishick wrote the Hindi letters and their pronunciation so we could know for patients who cannot identify English letters.
We then returned to the AB Eye Institute where we did some further screenings. We were then told to change into our scrubs and head to the surgical theatre to observe cataract surgery. We were so impressed with the surgical team, right in the middle of surgery the power went out (for the 4th time that day, it is a regular occurrence there) and they didn't skip a beat. The surgery was completed with the assistance of a backup generator for the microscope, and flashlights. After surgery, we then went home for lunch (about 3:30) and then headed out to one of the charitable clinics. This clinic is outside of Patna, so we had a nice car ride to catch a break. It's amazing to look out the windows at the city, there is always so much going on. We've gotten used to seeing a lot of cows and dogs in the streets, but Laura was surprised to see a giant warthog running with pack of dogs and eating garbage. At the charitable clinic, it was very busy, 49 patients an hour! We did quick screenings, they were then seen by Dr Sinha and then we gave them glasses as prescribed. On the ride back, we were talking to Dr Sinha about some of the cases we had seen, and he described the tragedy of those being blind because they could not afford treatment. He stated, "even asking them to leave their village is like asking then to come to America, they just can't do it." After the clinic, we returned again to the AB Eye Institute, where we did further screenings, finishing up at 10:30. We then came home, ate a dinner of soup and vegetables, and are now hoping to fall asleep quickly! It has been a very long, very busy and very good day! We are excited for tomorrow, and hope that we can still wake up with the same energy we had today, but maybe not quite as early! :)
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