Ah, it’s been a while blog. I
think I owe a lot of stories by now. The last time I was here, I was a nursing
a terrible heartbreak. And now that I am back, I still am nursing a big, fat
heartbreak, which luckily and unluckily at the same time, is different from
that of before.
“How was the first quarter of my
2013?”, I asked myself today. Let’s see.
My sister and my niece visited
the country after not seeing them for almost 3 years and I spent very little
time with them because I was away from home for a training I was always
hesitant of taking part in. A few days
before they left, I got sick, caught a flu, and didn't see a doctor to be
checked until it is nearly Pneumonia. They left with a promise that my parents
are due to follow them to the States soon. I still am not well despite the meds
and had a TB scare because I lost weight, lost my appetite, and had blood in my
phlegm which I eventually realized was due to a chicken bone I swallowed that
nicked my throat. The doctor doesn’t know what to make out of what is happening
to me. Flu then what? Pneumonia? No. Lungs are clear. Allergies? Maybe. Until
he said it may be Tracheobronchitis. Practically, I drowned my liver and
kidneys with antibiotics which don’t seem to work. Impractically, those medications
are damn expensive and they didn’t work or they aren’t for me to begin with. Finally,
I got better and gained all the weight I lost back. Color is back on my cheeks
and so are the unnecessary and unwelcomed fats. I, too, joined a sport’s team –
a dragonboat rowing team and if you know me at all, you’d just laugh at me and dubiously
look me with equal questioning eyes. People from the team probably thought I won’t
make it out there alive, that I will quit, but I am still in the team and on my
way to my 2nd race.
Amidst all these, I was with the
best hospital in the country and was about to be deployed in the area by April.
Despite having other plans and another preferred hospital at that – even if this
is the best hospital in the country – I did all my best. I aced every exam,
every oral revalida, every recitation. I was in my A game. The once timid and
mediocre girl in the corner is back on the tracks. I was then ‘highly
recommended for hiring’, my preceptor’s own words. I was ridiculed by the
nurse in the employee’s health clinic for being fat. The doctor had to send me
back to my gynecologist for more series of tests because of my Polycystic
Ovaries, which shouldn’t be a matter of concern because it is just not. They
say I might bleed when the problem is I do not bleed regularly. They say they
don’t want me taking my meds or anyone who is taking meds but what if that is
what keeping them from any further harm? The doctor said I might have bigger
and more cysts somewhere in my system when in fact, the TRS / UTZ is conclusive
that I have less than 1 millimeter (YES, that minute things) cysts that my gyne
characterized as dot-like. In the end, he didn’t give me clearance because I am
on hormonal pills to help me with my PCOS and menstrual irregularity. He – a doctor
– wanted me to stop taking my meds, the only thing which hinders more cysts
from growing. He isn’t a gynecologist and he doesn’t have the say for me to do
that. My gynecologist, who by the way, is affiliated in that same hospital, is
furious. My family and friends cry foul – it is discrimination, they tell me,
and I believe it is. After all, what does my ovaries got to do with my job? My ovaries
won’t hold a dying patient’s hands. My ovaries won’t care for sick people. My ovaries
sure as hell won’t talk to patients and
make them feel better. Should I stop taking my meds so I won't have any chance of bearing children in the future? So I just let it go. Not because I am letting myself
get victimized by the fucked up system, not because I am a coward to change the
system. You just know that things are not worth it when you see it eye to eye.
Do I have any regret or sense of
waste as to what happened? No. Because my heart – and my caring hands, are with
somewhere else. It always has been. So after a year of my training at another hospital, I had my
papers followed up because that’s where I always wanted to be. That’s where I felt
I am indeed a nurse and that I am appreciated as one. I checked with the
Nursing Service Office and Human Resource Division only to be told that the
reason that they have not contacted me for further evaluation is because I have
not submitted my requirements in the first place. How is it possible when a
month after my training, I submitted my complete requirements, on the first day
when they already allowed us to do so, with the people who are now scheduled to
start their jobs there as a Staff Nurses? A cousin of mine told me that we have
an aunt who is working there. Do not get me wrong. I know I said before how I
hate the backer system that this country is so sought at for. I told my parents
about this and they confirmed that I, indeed, have an aunt who has been there
for a long time now. We knew a lot of doctors from there but we didn’t sought
help for me to be employed, not once. But I figured, she’s my aunt, I am more
than deserving and qualified so I owe no fucking explanation to anybody. We then
found that my application has been sleeping there at the bottom pile because no
one’s giving a little push to it. I have always known that that is how it is
here so it wouldn’t really hurt if I use my linkages, too. After all, I know to
myself that I owe nobody a goddamn explanation and I fucking deserve this this time.
On that same day that we visited
her and submitted a new set of application, our house helper called my mom, who
was in the city for their check-up in the same hospital, and to fetch me, to
say that our dog, Pretty, passed away. My niece couldn’t help but tell me the ill news
right away even if my dad told her not to tell me until we got home (which I would have been mad about) and we are in the middle of a hospital where real human beings die every
time. I didn’t even know she was sick. It doesn’t make any sense. It has been
more than a month since I saw her – alive and well. As expected, I cried almost
as instantaneously like how people just die one minute after you see them alive
– and I felt that, I , too, have died. A big part of me has died. I cried and
cried and the 4-5 hours of ride back home to the province has been the longest
and most painful trip of my life. I loved – love – Pretty so much, almost to a
fault. She is my constant companion, my pull, my one true bestfriend – which
are all understatements if I have to be very honest. We arrived home to see her
covered in her old spot. I asked for her not to be buried until we got home,
breaking more than a dozen health and sanitation rules but I don’t give a crap,
until I see her for one last time. She lay there, like her sleeping old self. She
obviously lost a lot of weight, I’ve been told she has not eaten in 4 days, and
I felt a pang of grief and pain that we may have neglected her and that no one
is around until her last dying breath and worse, I didn’t see her and she didn’t
see me through her wonderful, big doe eyes I have always grown too fond of. We are
all there, family, Dad, Mom, my brother, Nicole, crying – bawling, speaking to
her, thinking maybe she still can hear us. Even our other 3 dogs are in despair. Apologies and gratitude are said to
this lovely furry creature we have been for 8 long years. She died young but I’d
like to think she didn’t die with her life’s purpose unfulfilled. She changed
us. She changed ME. She made me my best possible humble and compassionate self.
She made me peaceful and warm and loving to every breathing being. She deserved
a separate post than this, which by the way will take time because one cannot
help but cry when one speaks of such wonderful living form that she is. To say
that she is the best dog is truly an understatement. We are forever in debt of
her goodness to our family and I face each day with both joy and pain – joy because
she is in a happier place now and pain because I can no longer share that happiness
with her. I miss her yesterday, today, and will always miss her tomorrow and
for the many years and dog years to come.
In the middle of all these, my
parents are due to leave in 5 days and only God knows how long we will have to
see them again. Visas are not freely and easily given to people like me – a nurse,
and an unemployed and inexperienced one at that. This, too, deserves a other
post, in another time, because I don’t think I have an ounce of courage nor strength
to break through my denial and sadness of being left behind with tons of
responsibilities and independence I do not like. But I am a big girl now and
one must continue living not just for oneself but for others – for Nicole, my
brother, my family in the States, our dogs, and other many dogs out there who
need saving.
Also, to make myself even more despondent,
as if it is not enough to be this despondent for too long, I missed my job
interview at the Philippine Institute of Development Studies. They e-mailed
me last Monday for a scheduled interview the next day (I frankly didn't expect to be considered) and I read the email the
next day after that. As much as I would like to regret and feel ashamed for not
being able to check and be prepared for this, I chose not to. It isn’t living
and sure it won’t be the death of me. At least, not today.
So...
5 days, mom and dad will fly to
the States.
I am left with so much responsibilities
and I will become a mother overnight because I need to care for my niece and
our dogs and myself all at the same time.
I need to get into UST. I need to
pass my exam. I may need to go to Law School. I need to lose weight. I need to
learn how to be independent and how to not get victimized and absorbed into by
this country’s dirty system. I need to see the light beyond the tunnel.
God save me.
x Nin
