Blood is Always Thicker

While most businesses thrive on transactions focusing on money, materials and services, health institutions have more than that. What patients (their ‘clients’) have at stake are their health, and eventually, their lives. Money, materials and services may be undone in case of miscalculations and mishaps, but a life may not. I just can’t imagine how doctors can thrive on medical prescriptions to their weary but brave patients, with the hope of recovering even at the most impossible stature.

To work in a health institution, one should be at most, emotionally prepared. Most doctors should treat every patient with utmost courtesy, intergrity and professionalism. Patients should be treated not as some business partner, but a family member. In this way, medication would be given at its best to the patient. Money and services would not be the fulfilling rewards for the physician, but the recovery and the betterment of the needy.

I’m proud to be working (for the meantime) on a highly-sophisticated eye clinic. I’m looking at the medical technologists operate technologically advanced ophthalmic machines, like the eye laser, the perimeter (cataract examiner) and the retina (inside of the eye) camera. I’m at the command of the best ophthalmologists, having finished their residency training in their respective field of specialization from different medical institutions in and out of the country.

It is always a tough job having everyday inside the clinic. Every now and then, errands have to be run through. I have to go this place to buy something, go to this bank to deposit or encash checks(bad thing is, there are three banks of different locations!), create vouchers and letters, collect all receipts for accounting, and so much more. When having mishaps, there goes the sermon from the bosses. Times have come that I have take lunch 3 pm and dinner 12 midnight.

But to be honest, its not the job that makes life hard in the clinic. I’ve been in these situations back in the college days. Might as well say ‘been there; done that’. Its more than that…

On the second floor of the building, there’s the hemodialysis center. It is where patients with malfunctioning kidneys are brought to have their blood cleansed with the use of machines. Its like having blood transfusion, only that the old blood comes out of the body and then machine filtered and then it goes back to the body. There are at least a hundred hemo patients a day, which is not a big surprise, since the hospital is an excellent place for kidney disorders and ailments.

The hemo patients came from all walks of life. Mostly older people, and all are weak. Some are rich enough to have a car for transport and some on taxis. Some borrow wheelchairs from the hospital while some have their customized contraptions.

I once had a chance to take a look at the surroundings of the hemo center. It is a big room, like a hospital ward, with all the machines and the patients at the side and a control center of some sort at the center. Looking through the place, I saw all the patients helplessly rely on machines as their love ones stand beside them, cheering them up, giving hope.

These patients are the ones that’s giving me a hard time staying at the hospital.

Years ago, my mother was also a hemo patient. Her kidneys failed to function due to complications of diabetes. She had her dialysis at a clinic in Marikina. She had to go there through our majestic coach, the blue FHNAPICOTODA tricycle, with my father as the chauffer. He would carry my mom to the hemo room as they arrive there. Two 4-inch needles have to be pierced through the arms for the dialysis to start. It took four hours for a complete hemo routine. Once I witnessed the routine, and I can see the pain from my mom’s face as blood came coming in and out of her body. Worse, she had to endure that twice a week, not to mention the cost it takes every session.

However, it didn’t save her.

She passed away eventually, and her last moments are the most painful memories I have. It was my birthday then when she felt delirious we all though she’d died that day. Three days later, it was most unfortunate of me not to be beside her when she closed her eyes.

Until now, all birthdays that I had never felt happy, for three days after, another commemoration has to be done. Losing her is just far worse than not celebrating any birthday at all.

Though it’s been almost seven years ago, there is still the pain and bitterness, especially when I see those patients and their love ones drawing hope out of thin air undergoing those hemo sessions. Its just like lengthening the suffering of the patient, like torture. Although sessions through the machine are constantly done, the toxins in the blood may have been starting to poison the body, as the constant cleaner of the blood, the kidney, has refused to do its job. Its having false hopes of a full recovery. It’s a waste of money and time. I’d like to scream all the hurt and hopelessness to them but I refuse to; I’m never in the position.

After my mom’s death, there are lots of changes in the family. My father refuses to believe in doctors, blaming them why mom has to suffer further. He’s always on guard with my sister and me against diabetes, controlled intakes of sugars and carbohydrates. He will be furious with packs of sweets he sees in the fridge. He would always iterate mom’s suffering when he’s getting angry, defying the thought of having passing that situation and oathed never again will we witness another suffering like that. My sister works with doctors who specializes in the eye, which was one of the defects mom underwent in her hard times. She even worked for a diabetes awareness campaign in her early years in the research business. As for me, the horror of those delirious days, the trauma of her lengthened pains and the regret of not being at her side when she needed me the most will haunt me forever.

Yet again, I must face through the ghost of my past to see what’s ahead, other that getting terrified of the ghost that shaped the man I am today.

Sacrificial and martyr for those who I care for…

That will be the ME for the rest of my days…