ciaobao @ FOE.com

I just watched Fall Out Boy's new video for "Me & You": extremely powerful, eye-opening and moving. I salute and respect them for it. It's not everyday you see celebrities doing that nowadays. So kudos to them for making it. :) Shortly after watching it though, I also decided to share something about my own country, The Philippines, and an aspect that most foreigners probably don't know about.


I found this entry buried in one of my journals, and I thought it'd be cool to share it. It gives a tiny glimpse of the Philippines that you don’t normally see in the news or in those fancy travel brochures. However, it is my own PERSONAL entry so it may have some PERSONAL stuff in it as well. Haha. Before this entry, I was extremely angsty about myself and my life. XD Uk, I still can't understand why, but this is why I treasure the experience I had in this entry so much. It really changed me.

Hehe, this is a little out of the ordinary, especially on a music community. But after watching the new Fall Out Boy video, I'm compelled to share this experience as well. Also, it’s quite long, so only read it if you’re really curious. Or if you’re insanely bored. Haha.


“
September 18, 2005
Mood: Overwhelmed
Song:  Michael Buble - Put Your Head On My Shoulder

I just came back from a small tour of the Philippine General Hospital today... I’m speechless, but I just have to write this all down. Ok let me start from the beginning:


It was a whole weekend devoted to hanging out with my sister. Ever since she became a med student at UP (University of the Philippines), I had been seeing less and less of her due to the insanely demanding work load of PGH; in my opinion, more work than that of a regular doctor any where else in the world. But then again, due to the increase in qualified and experienced doctors leaving the Philippines to seek better work opportunities abroad, it’s only expected that they’d be needing all the help they can get to man the national hospital.

Anyway, my sister had a patient in the Orthopedic ward she needed to visit one day, and she asked me if I wanted to come. I’d never seen my sister in action, so I was pretty psyched with the idea. Plus, I had only been to PGH only once before when I was a kid, so I thought it’d be cool to go again.


The Cadaver Room
My sister opened the gate and led me to the hospital area. We passed by a tall building and she asked me, "You smell that?”
It smelt of glue from those small squeeze tubes; like the ones I used back in nursery. "Yeah," I answered. "What is it?"
She laughed and said, "That's the smell of cadavers! There's a whole floor of them!" And she pointed at one of the floors of the building. Note to self: smell of glue = dead person.


The Psych Ward
When we passed the run down basketball court, she gasped and asked me with excitement, "You want to pass by the Psychiatric Ward?! It'll be fun!"
Obviously, I had never been in one so I was a bit curious, but at the same time a bit freaked out. But I was psyched more than anything so I agreed. We took a peep at the hallway and saw a couple of patients pacing back and forth. I realized I really wasn't ready to go inside yet. So I asked if I could come by later.


The Ortho Ward
The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelt of sweat, blood, fatigue, desperation, and poverty, among other things. I was so overwhelmed…I can't pick out a single word to describe the smell. Whatever it was, it was heavy.

My sister looked at the charts at the desk and went to one of the rooms. Inside the medium-sized room were about 9 patients: 9 beds. I looked around and saw all of them. Each one in casts, or as my sister explained, Lazarus Devices: Metal rods horizontally bound to the lower leg through a pulley to hold up the whole leg. It’s weighed down on the other end by a weight of some sort. I assume it to should be a metal weight, judging by the device but in this case, they weren’t held down by metal weights but by anything the hospital could find: containers of water and old cleaners, each filled with water. Then I looked at what was keeping the bed from completely falling apart. I saw that each bed was securely tied together with rope on each joint.

I must’ve stared at the beds alone for a couple of minutes. Then something else caught my attention: the patients, each with their families beside them. Here are some things that caught my attention:
1) Each of the patients were fed a cup of rice and 3 pieces of beef, served on a steel plate
2) A patient, a young boy, who instead of eating his meal ate instant noodles. His mother kept his food in a tuperware which appeared to be a week's collection of the boy’s hospital rice.
3) The look of satisfaction in their faces with what they were given.

I wanted to cry at this point, mind you, but I didn't want to show my ignorance. I didn't want to show them that it was my first time to be exposed to this; that I was a weak, middle-class adolescent who had never seen such conditions. But I am. And I didn’t know whether to blame myself for it or not.

I walked back to my sister and listened to her conversation with her patient. She was an old woman in her 70s. Apparently she had been sick for decades, but none of her family members wanted to take her to the hospital. They knew it would cost some amount of money, which none of them were willing to provide. So one day, she decided to go and take herself to the hospital.  She walked all the way from the province to the very heart of Manila by herself in her conditioned and finally when she got to PGH, she had to wait another couple of days before she was admitted. So while waiting, she slept outside the walls of PGH. What struck me was that she wasn't crying as she was telling this story. In fact, she was smiling. Because she was so thankful that she finally made it into the hospital and is seeking the care that she needed decades ago.

I then looked at my sister, and she herself was not crying. I asked her if she was at all moved by this, she smiled and just said, "You meet all sorts of patients, each with a different story. I'm just glad she made the right move to finally seek medical attention."

She then shared a story of one of her patients at the Pediatric ward and how the child was so optimistic and happy despite her life-threatening condition. She had had this disease since she was a child, and it was only then, when she was already an adolescent that they took her to PGH.  The only family member she had with her was her father, who himself didn't seem to care much for her at all. Unfortunately one day, she fell under cardiac arrest and as my sister was trying to revive her, the father simply said, "Doc, pabayaan mo na lang. May 5 pa akong anak sa bahay. Pabayaan mo na lang siyang mamatay. (Doctor, just let her go. I still have 5 other children at home. Just let her die already.)"

I didn't know how to react. I knew this was only one among many stories of my sister's patients in PGH, but I didn't want to ask her to tell me any more. It just made me wonder how people can afford to just keep having children without thinking if they can support them.


The Pedia Ward
After she was done with her patient, my sister and I walked out. We peeped into the Psych ward one last time and she offered again to take me inside. Then she held back and said, "Oh wait, the 'happy ones' may get over excited to see you."
I was like, "Uh, why is that?"
She laughed and said, "Well, they're happy if anyone new comes. They might say things like, "Magpapakasal ako bukas, ha? Balik po kayo, ha? (I’m going to get married tomorrow, ok? Be sure to come back tomorrow, ok?)" and if you ask who they'll marry, they say, "Si Hesus! (Jesus)"
I laughed at her experience with the happy patients, but at the same time completely freaked out. So I declined her offer and said, “Maybe next time.” She smiled but then it quickly became a frown. She then held my hand and said, "I wanna show you something."

The pediatric ward. It wasn’t half bad; compared to the wards I had just seen anyway. It was newly painted with bright colors and shapes. But it was the babies that were in there that terrified me. It smelt of baby sweat and blood. I walked through two wards and briefly glanced at the innumerable number of premature babies in incubators, children with birth defects wrapped in bandages, family members fanning them, everything. Then I saw the faces of the parents. Some were happy to be eating and watching from the only TV in the whole ward. Others were too distracted caring for their ailing children. As I walked through the ward, all I could do then was take a sigh, finish the path, and exit the hospital.

So here I am right now, typing this entry. The whole trip home was dead silent on my part. I was completely speechless, and yet I had so much to say. So instead I decided to write it all down.


My feelings are mixed right now: sympathetic, overwhelmed but guilty, most of all… And I guess also ashamed of myself. I feel guilty being recently hospitalized in Asian Hospital, in an air-conditioned, fully furnished room when there are families right now in PGH sharing one room with nothing but a plastic chair to sit on to fan and comfort their ailing loved ones. I feel ashamed for all the times I was so unhappy and disappointed with what I now realize to be extremely trivial things when that little boy, so content with his cup of instant noodles, looked up and smiled at me. But most of all I feel guilty that I am here, pondering about this experience on a comfortable bed in a warm home while there are kids out there sleeping on the sidewalks, afraid to go home to their parents empty-handed.


But despite all the guilt this experience has brought, I am, more than anything, thankful; thankful with what I have, my family, my friends, my life, and also for the experience. But most importantly, to God for giving me all of the above. And I hate how I managed to take all of them for granted.


Right now, I’m going to make a promise to myself: I am going to return to PGH. And hopefully, by then, I’ll be able to do more than just to take a look around.

”

:)