Or, shall we call this post a rush to conclusion? I’ve been amiss with many things, blogging most specially. From the last post, I left off the hospital drama - a life-altering spectacle in my own little world - with me about to conclude my stay in the emergency room, and was about to advance to the next level, getting admitted into the hospital.
I said it was time for me to make calls. I had to, so the nurses said. I was in a semi-denial state, thinking I could still submit my body, now crippled with massive abdominal pain, to the process of checking in the hospital myself. The nurses had to correct me: “baka meron naman pong iba na pwedeng mag-asikaso n’yan para sa inyo.”
I called my parent’s house, despite knowing already the answer to my first question. I knew my mom was out of town. I think I was practicing how to sound normal on the phone inspite of all the pain (and also of all the fear of what this pancreatitis could all mean.) Mom out of town, check. Dad in town? Check. But out with his friends for a weekend pleasure of golf. I was speaking with my brother. I didn’t tell him why I was calling. I tried sounding chirpy. He greeted happy birthday.
I called my hunny next. He was more up-to-date on my predicament, through SMS, all throughout the day I was in the emergency room. This latest update though I had to make the call. He was still at work. After the talk, he was almost instantly out of the office.
I called my dad. “Hi, hello. Thanks for the greet. Kamusta? Kamusta ang golf? Saan ka na ngayon?” I don’t know why it felt important for me to pose my predicament this way. Why did I feel to put up this facade of casual coolness? I thought of myself as never the family member who would create a undue stress to others; I was quite comfortable in my role as the relatively silent middle son/nephew/grandson. (I was exactly that for a long time in my family.) “Anyway, Daddy, I called actually to ask for your help…” My dad is always cool in many situations, this one too. He calmly suggested I call someone else also, someone nearer my location; he was stuck in traffic.
I’m left with that one other person that I knew I have to push my best chirpy, casual performance to the hilt. My aunt. She attends to our family’s needs in situations like this with gusto. But she could also be quite the hysterical sort. She could sometimes need an emergency dose of tranquilizers first, before the others. So the same round of kamustahan for her, but more deliberately happy-sounding. I knew I was a failed actor the minute she arrived in the emergency room’s cubicle: she looked dishevelled, not so unlike how I imagined how she could have less considered herself before bolting out the door.
Now, Act II of this hospital drama was something I was already familiar with. I’ve been familiarized with this, courtesy of my grandfather’s so many hospitalizations. I used to accompany my mom in doing this - my mom and I, the “events organizing” tandem of the family. As film, admission into the hospital is a repeating contrast cut-to-cut of scenes - the admissions office filled with a maddening crowd vying for the last ticket to heaven, and the patient tunneling through pain and hopelessness, in and out of consciousness. You could score the whole act with heart-beat sound effects.
“Glenn, nasan daw yung healthcard mo?” “Wala akong HMO.” “Philhealth? Wala pa yung ID ko.” [Fade to black. Cut to next scene.] “Glenn, kailangan mo daw mag-deposit para sa room.” “Eto ang wallet ko, may cash ako dyan, ATM at credit card… ang PIN ko sa ATM ay –” “Wag na, baka pwede na to.” [Fade to black. Cut to next scene.] “Naku, Glenn, ano ba to?? Hindi kasya yung cash mo. 8,000 daw ang kailangang pang-deposit.” “Pakitanong naman kung pwede yung credit card. Better kung cash at credit card combined. May binili ako sa credit card eh, konti lang ang laman nyan.” [Fade to black. Cut to next scene.] My aunt comes back now in near tears: “Glenn, ayaw nila eh. Ano ba to, para namang hindi emergency to, parang eto pa ang ikamamatay mo…” “Teka, teka, easy lang tayo. Can you see if we can borrow a wheelchair? Ako na magtatanong. (I wonder if they’ve got EPS.)” I was also about to suggest to wait for my hunny also; I asked him to bring the money I loaned him a few days before. “Sobra na sila… teka, kakausapin ko ulit. Hindi pwedeng ganito na lang,” my aunt in Gabriela Silang mode. [No fade, heartbeat SFX]. She comes back: “Okay na. Sinabi ko na lang, parating na daddy mo; siya na ang aasikaso, pero dapat i-check-in ka muna.”
Prophetic words? Almost instantly, like an almost divine, but all too human, intervention comes: my dad arrives.
Again, I’m not in the mood for writing. Yes, even for this one, I’m actually pushing myself. As usual, since I’ve returned from my short “recovery” hiatus, writing at work has again demanded so much of my time. Yan talagang trabaho, kiljoy sa pagliliwaliw.
I’m also kinda miffed with i.ph. It has resurrected something I’ve thought was long considered an irritainment - pop-up advertising. And for some time now, I’ve been quite a nagger at the i.ph forums, reporting and asking assistance for hiccups in posting and (most specially) modifying sidebar items.
But *sigh” beggars cannot be choosers. It’s a free service after all. I.ph used to be so convenient, lots of fun and held a lot of promise for my blogging hobby. I’m not quite so sure now.
Anyway, I’ve never really been off the blogs. Blogger seemed to have fixed something, and its interface and performance have improved so much better. Even better, I’d say, when I first started blogging there.
And since I still consider myself your most faithful contributor to Blogosphere (even though, it doesn’t seem that way), I’ve yet opened another blog - The Liwaliw Inbox. An explanation of what it’s supposed to be about is found here, my first entry.
Some would rather dismiss the kind of blogging Liwaliw Inbox portrays - the cut-and-paste blogging sub-culture, the only affordable blogging skill for the inarticulate and non-literary. Well, right now, I’m enjoying rediscovering my inbox, so, uhm, I really don’t care.
…on my way to celebrating my 35th birthday.
[It’s almost 12 midnight and I’m still wide awake. Which since recovering from my latest “birthday surprise,” had been less often than usual. So maybe it’s fine time to finally write what happened.]
May 17th, my birthday. It all really started only a few minutes after I’ve arrived home. I’ve just checked out of a hotel in Makati. I was checked in since Monday of that week. I attended the very arduous five-day project implementation review among implementers of the GFATM - HIV and AIDS projects.
Morning of check-out day I woke up with my tummy feeling all bloated. Not to worry, I thought. I’ve had days like this. I went down to take my last complimentary buffet breakfast as usual. I wasn’t even two spoonfuls of my “first plate” when I began to feel pain. Still I thought it was just either gas or GERD of a worse kind since I experienced it last.
I texted my hunny, he suggested that I take antacid. I went out and bought some, went back to my room, drank the a tablet, filled an empty PET bottle with hot tap, laid down and rolled the bottle on my tummy. My tummy pain wasn’t abating. Drank the complimentary room tea. Still no relief. I was almost sure it must’ve been GERD. I couldn’t remember the meds I took for GERD.
When I checked out and got home, I immediately texted hunny again if he remembered the GERD meds I took (which I seemed to remember he also had been given a prescription before). He texted back a brand name, I didn’t recognize it. He also thought maybe I should try drinking Alka Seltzer. That I did and soon enough the pain worsened. It hurt lying down on my back. It also hurt standing up straight.
I was already finding better comfort in fetal pose lying, sitting, even standing. Then I had to run to the lavatory. I felt like vomiting. After a few “scandalous” heaves, nothing came out, my head was spinning. Still in some form of denial mode, I was convinced it was GERD. I decided to go to Makati Med and get prescriptions for those meds I couldn’t remember.
I was walking slight hulking style towards where I usually hail for cabs, my arms cradling my tummy. “Jusko, buntis na ba ko?” I was trying to kid myself. It’s not easy to get a cab where I live, especially on a Saturday, pay-day weekend. But I got one immediately. I attribute it for looking like a definite medical emergency case.
Arriving at Makati Med’s E.R., I went straight to the triage, ignored the queue. I think other people in queue sympathized, no one complained at my brusqueness, seemed to have helped that I was all groaning like the drama queen that I was. As with the nurse’s pain index question, I rated a nine out of ten - one less the “ultimate, unbearable pain” considering I was still able to walk/limp/hulk about without assistance.
Then I went to primary care. I said I was sure this was a bad case of GERD and meds were as immediately administered intravenously. Then the wait began, the wait for the meds to take effect. I was confined in a small cubicle with a tall stretcher that I couldn’t use. It was really painful to lie down. I had nothing to sit on, which I could also comfortably rest by back. I was all woozy with the pain, standing up was hard to keep. So standing, semi-squatting, I put my head down on the tall stretcher bed.
Time flew and mostly unaccounted for, half dozing, I was nearly complaining to myself for all the groaning that I was making. Still, I was convinced that it will be all over soon. Then I could go back planning what I want to do for my birthday. I didn’t bother to call anybody else to accompany me. It felt pointless. I remember thinking that anyway, I have enough money in my wallet to pay for this E.R. drama when it’s over. And that, it will be over soon.
I also remember I was checked on from time to time, pain index interview a repeating script. My best estimate was eight. Apparently, that wasn’t enough for the nurses. At some point I was given paracetamol because my temperature was rising as well. At some other point, I was asked to lie down (torture! torture!) and they pressed points on my abdomen (more torture!). Then the bloodworks. Then I had to be brought to radiology for x-ray. Then more wait.
It was some time after 1:00 in the afternoon when this E.R. scene started. After the x-ray deal, I was already scolding myself for wasting my precious birthday time in the E.R. I don’t know how, but apparently I was able to doze off lying down. A nurse woke me up. She said that I was being advised to have myself admitted to the hospital. “Ha? Bakit?”
The bloodworks were showing that my triglycerides (whatever they were) were in population boom… “saka, namamaga po ang pancreas n’yo,” she quickly followed up before I could begin clarifying what the tri-something-something meant. Pancreas - one of those organs that I wasn’t able to answer what it signified in my high school Biology class exam on the digestive system - I have heard it’s something not to be considered lightly.
It was emphasized that it was important to find out what’s causing this acute pancreatitis. I had to agree. It had the word acute, not really a cutesy word. It also had the -itis suffix, which might mean not only painful but deadly serious. All in all a definite spelling-bee challenger word, I really have to agree getting admitted.
It must have been somewhat dusk time outside. (I don’t like the dusk… it makes me feel sad or something… but let’s explore that some other time.) I knew it was time to make calls.
[To be continued]
Yes, taken last Saturday night, 17th May, supposedly my 35th birthday. Just got home from the hospital, as of this blogging. You’d want the details, yes? Well, okay…
Maganda ang follow up question, sabi ko sa sarili. Habang eto, nasa computer ako, YM sa friends paminsan-minsan, sa likod ko, umaandar ang cable TV. ANC was interviewing someone from the business community, who together with others started an advocacy group committed to bring to justice those responsible for one, some or all scandals, the number of which now seems to rival yung mga VCD "scandals" na binebenta sa bangketa. These businessmen apparently were coming up with an advocacy campaign "for the public to get mad enough." "Mad enough to do what?" ang follow-up question. Yun na! Tumpak! Palanggana at garapon!
Nakakalurkey na kasi, pakiramdam ko. Hindi lang sa pagka-gahaman sa kickback money. Hindi lang sa pambabastos sa democratic processes. Hindi lang sa mga nawawala at namatay. Pati rin ang pagkamanhid ng publiko.
Hindi rin matanggal sa utak ko yung weird discussion I had over dinner with friends. (Special dinner pa man din sana yun; kumain kami sa Estero sa Binondo bilang isa simpleng pa-despedida sa kaibigan naming nag-bakasyon sandali mula sa kanyang pagyayaya sa isang miyembro ng Saudi royalty.) Napag-usapan ang traffic na idinulot nung napakalaking rally sa Ayala Avenue. May indignant sa so-called insensitivity ng mga aktibista for those na "tunay" na naghihikahos para ibangon ang bansa.
Bumuwelta naman yung isa pa, who actually attended the protest, who actually mobilized others to attend (i.e., dahil titser sya, lubos na encouragement sa mga estudyante nya na makilahok).
At may statement pa na nabitawan: mas may reason daw yung isa na magalit dahil if the issues were true at all, mas dehado sya dahil sa laki ng buwis na pinapataw sa kanya ng gobyerno bilang isang senior executive. Nervous laughter around; ako nag-iisip while maintaining a plastic smile. Eh, hindi ka pa pala galit sa lagay na yan? Anger tempered with resignation to the tune of "let’s just get on with our lives."
Sadya nga sigurong napakahirap i-commit ang sarili towards an action regarding this. Maybe we’ve surrendered all hope for better days. Maybe we’ve grown cynical about the common citizen’s power to put things right. (Or maybe, there are really some of us who don’t believe the accusations at all.)
Personally, every now and then, kina-clarify ko rin sa sarili ko to: on the basis of what we know now, naniniwala ba talaga ako na totoo ang mga akusasyong ito? (At least, reason enough to believe they could.) If yes, follow-up: do these issues anger me?
Mas mahihirap yung mga susunod na tanong: ano ang pwedeng gawin, at sinu-sino tayong gagawa nito. With whom do I put my trust? Yun yata ang nagpapalabo ng sitwasyon. Nowadays, walang package deal na available for us to totally rest our convictions on. Ang hirap bang paniwalaan may potential ang alternative options? The binary nature of placing ourselves in opposing sides, does this put us in a dangerous situation of a sell-out again? Kaya ba yung iba sa tin na kahit discerning sa mga issues, equally, nagagalit na rin sa ingay na ginagawa ng dissenters? Some could be quite vociferous: "mga pasaway kayo!"
Hay naku, have we, people of the post-People Power age, just entered into a twilight zone? Somehow, have we found ourselves in a darker, murkier, hardly distinguishable side of a postmodern age? One that’s premised on nothing ever really worked and nothing could now? Yun ang mas nakakalurkey.
