In real life

Some of you are probably asking why I have not been as active as before in blogging my thoughts. Well, an incident happened a few nights ago that made me lose my appetite for words. It was too horrific to write about. Even now, I still shudder each time I close my eyes and remember …

It was the night my 23-year old computer geek nephew was shot. Fort and I just stepped out from watching the X-men use their powers to save the child who was The Cure. My cellphone registered several messages. It was about Carlo. The first message said we should hurry to Philippine Heart Center because they, my brother and sister-in-law, would be bringing my bleeding nephew there. Second message: the Heart Center turned away Carlo so my brother, Raul, decided to bring his son next door, to East Avenue Medical Center. My partner and I rushed to the hospital’s emergency ward. It was a mess.

The doctor had jabbed a gloved finger into my nephew’s side to probe for the embedded bullet. Carlo’s shouts of pain were muffled by the oxygen mask that covered his nose and mouth. I could see from the way his eyes widened and nostrils flared that the pain was unspeakable. No anesthesia was applied, not a single painkiller tablet was given to dull the pain. The bullet was found, and the doctor who was, by the way, also attending to three other patients, said that X-Rays needed to be taken of his patient’s lungs and stomach. Because there were no nurses and orderlies, my brother, my other nephew, Carlo’s friend, and Fort pushed the gurney from the emergency ward to the X-Ray Room. Because there were no nurses and no orderlies, the same people lifted Carlo’s body so that the X-Ray film could be placed underneath him. Because there were no nurses and no orderlies, the technician ordered my friend, Fort, to ask around for gauze to place on the open gunshot wounds.

The X-Rays were taken and Carlo was wheeled back to the emergency room. By that time, his space was taken by someone else. The ward was full. We lined up his gurney along the corridor and waited for the doctor to once again check on his wounds. An intern said that Carlo should sit up so that she could take a look at his wounds. He did, once again, with the help of family members and friends. The intern said, she will suture the wounds. Again, without the benefit of painkillers or anesthesia, the intern sewed his wounds shut. Someone asked her if Carlo could be given anesthesia. She answered back, “Why, did you bring any?” My sister-in-law was too stunned to venture a reply. I watched this with a million questions running through my mind, and while trying to dodge the gurneys and wheelchairs that travel the length of the corridor. “Is this still the Philippines?,” I thought. There were just no words to describe the blood, the pain, the chaos, and the poor patients who had nowhere else to go.

Carlo’s mother, herself a registered nurse, asked the doctor about tetanus shots. The doctor quickly wrote out a prescription for one. I lined up at the pharmacy to buy the precious vials. After the anti-tetanus shot, the doctor said we could move Carlo out to a private hospital. We asked for an ambulance to bring my poor nephew to Medical City.

I volunteered to be his advance party. Fort and I went to Medical City’s emergency ward and informed them that a patient was on the way. The lady doctor on duty looked at our bedraggled state (it was nearly 3 am, I looked tired and Fort still had blood on his hands), and gently said, “Baka di po ninyo alam. Mahal ho dito, ha?” I assured them that we knew how expensive a private hospital can be. “Dito ako inoperahan ng hysterectomy at ang nanay ko dito din ginawa ang kanyang angioplasty,” I told her, while ticking off the names of the doctors who treated my mom and I. I called up my sister-in-law and asked her to pass the phone over to the doctor tending to Carlo so that he could explain to our lady doctor what needed to be done to help my nephew. I overheard bits and pieces of their lengthy conversation. “So nakuhanan niyo ba ng blood test?,” the lady doctor asked. I was too tired to even snicker.

An hour or so, Carlo finally arrived at Medical City’s emergency ward. He was met by an orderly and was quickly attended to by the lady doctor with the help of several nurses. After examining him, the doctor said, “We need to stick a tube to drain your lungs.” Carlo whispered, “Doc, may anesthesia ba?” She said,”Yes, meron.” Weakly, my nephew smiled and said, “Okay, go.” Tired and hurting, Carlo finally could let down his guard and go to sleep.

This is real life – not in Darfur, not in Baghdad, not in Patikul, Jolo — but peacetime in the metropolis that we all know, in a republic where majority of the poor live, in real pain, in real time.

Tomorrow, Carlo will undergo surgery to remove the third and final bullet from his body. He will be placed under general anesthesia. My family and I made sure of that. And as I write this entry, I feel my heart turn heavy with grief and sadness and outrage because I know we could be better than this. Spare me the spin and empty rhetoric. In real life, everything hurts. I call on our political leaders to spend even just one night helping out or getting treated in the emergency ward of East Avenue Medical Center or any other government hospital. Then perhaps, like me, they would lose their appetite for words in favor of meaningful and urgent action.