The People Of My 2015

"A Good Day to Say Thank You." This is the title of the last article I've contributed to the hospital's Thanksgiving celebration for our re-accreditation program. It is indeed possible for a man to go somewhere without looking back, but happier is the man who never forget where he had been.

I would pause once in a while upon scribbling this down. The city lights are distracting in radiance, glowing in different hues, adeptly assuming its tenure in the dark night. Do they sense that I am out here amusingly gazing at its glow? And who cares? Not everything around us deserves an explanation. Not everything but my gratitude.

I can't, for heaven's sake, start any article without looking back and writing it down to those people who inspired me to propel forward, to dream more, to expand the grasp of my horizon, to be a blessing, and turning my mess into a MESSage.

                                                               

 Dr. Safaa Al Essa

In the field of Medicine, you rarely find doctors who are vocal enough to incorporate Emotional Intelligence in their practice. It was my last remaining days before my vacation when I received a weird phone call from his office asking me to be a speaker. I thought it was just an honest mistake thinking that the previous speakers were all doctors. But because  you cannot be rude to the person you have high regards to, and though I felt that there was a gun pointing on my head to say yes, I was able to say yes that paved way to the creation of Is It Worth It article, my personal favorite (favoritism aside) as an underground blogger.

Sometimes, it takes someone to believe in you to realize what you've got.

Thank you Dr. for that little push, for always inspiring me of your humble journey and your stories of compassion. Your wisdom uplifts my spirit and encourages me to serve not just with the brain, but moreover, with a heart.

Ms. Dominga Pecdasen

And when you see the "5441" flashing right before your eyes, it's either you inhale deeply or bite your lower lip as you listen to the voice on the other line saying, "H e l l o,  K i m b e r l y...."
There's a profound veracity that diamonds are formed from tremendous heat before they shine its brilliance. My ATM (at the moment) kind-of-life can attests to that. And the struggle is real =)
To be great, we should create a space to say yes to teachings. To be great, there should be humility to accept that you need the tremendous heat to wake you up from mediocrity. I'm neither half of what she had been through, but for sure, she too was polished long and hard enough before she shines her brilliance.
Thank you for pushing us to bring out the "diamond" in us. Sure it's not easy, it will not be easy, and never will be. But as what they've said, all experts were once beginners. And we are lucky being trained by an expert who never stops learning to be one.

                                                                 

 Kim's Angels

I had a foretaste of what it is to lead a team early of January last year. 20 people, with different level of coping, with different personalities. It was a challenge for me, and still is everyday (but this is just between you and me) on how can I inspire them and motivate them to serve not by looking at our patients like a mere individual but seeing through their pains behind the incessant and inpatient calls. 

They say that you can manage assets fairly well. But people? Hell yeah!

My instinct, of which I trust most of the time, tells me that there must be something of this that I will one day thank heavens for. Sure it's not always a smooth day. I know I have so much more to learn when it comes to leading. I just hope that despite of all my inadequacies, God will give me more strength to develop more future leaders.

Thank you girls for roughing through the hard days and for being my extended family away from home.

(No excuse though for proper waste segregation. *eyebrows' up)

                                                                    Jessie Jayme

My respect for Sir Jayme since high school has never waned. Lots of things have changed. I traveled far and back. Discovered cities and the covetousness of men, yet, when I'm home, it seems like I always have a place where memories are as good anew.

Thank you Sir for reminding me how a giver's life should be. I am more rejuvenated to earn more so I, too, can give more. More wheelchairs to come!

And as what I've told you, when you find it difficult to walk anymore, I'll be glad to push the wheelchair for you.

  

                                                                            Robz Tan

How should I start honoring the person who complain less and gives more? Should I have one kidney left, you know I'll not think twice to sign a Do Not Resuscitate so you can have mine.

Thank you for being the wind beneath my wings. I will always be grateful to have you, my best friend, my all-wrap-up-into-one travel buddy. If you remain single by choice, I promise to make more nieces and nephews for you,LOL

I love you until sunset days.

Fr. Norbert Alvin Cañada

No one can deliver my Eulogy better than the one who is both a keeper of my worst and my best. For what I've been through and will be going through, where I'd been and where I am going, I always find true comfort to the giver of Time. Thank you for the whisper of prayers that have held me tight in my most trying times. Wherever life would take us, and no matter how fast your white hair sprouts, I'm keeping my share to treat you to Bench Fix Hair. ;)
I'm always grateful for the gift of repartee.

Maria Arlene Gelveson Tan

                                                                                 
I envy how she managed to have the composure and grace carrying the cross God had given her. I can only weep on this part knowing that at some point, I had been one of those who scratched her heart. Thank you Mama for always understanding your first born's indifference. I will be forever in debt to the example you set before me and my sister. One day, when I have a family of my own, your grandchildren will surely know where their mom took her good looks (ahem).

P.S.
Son-in-law to follow...

                                                                               

 To Kim

..whom I owe more love (and travel) this year.

 I may not tell you often, but you know I love you. #Love Yourself



To the best year yet!

Is It Worth It?

When I was in Grade school and still cute, I met my first love. I wanted to become a doctor. As days do changed man, so did my dream.

I then wanted to become an Accountant when I graduated from High School. I took qualifying exams in almost all schools offering Accountancy. But I ended up enrolling in the School of Nursing. 

My first exposure to ICU, I did my first ambubagging, my grandmother as my patient. 

Life was hard then that she keeps on being admitted to the hospital. During that time, the family is losing money from the vicious cycle of admission-discharge. Seeing the person who raised you undergoing a chronic  battle, you can't just sit in one corner waiting what will happen next. 

It was that time that I decided to pursue going out to a place that never crossed in one of my vivid dreams.

My mother objected my decision of leaving because that time, I already completed my exams for my US application. Ample bucks were spent just for me to acquire those hard-earned licenses. 

But I am rebellious in nature.

It was on winter of 2009 when I first set foot in Riyadh despite of my mother's objection of me leaving. But the eagerness to help the family prevailed. 

I received a weird phone call on my second month being far away from home. Two months after I left, we lost my grandmother to complications of Diabetes. Our Medical Director would always mention how to break bad news to the patient and relatives. How I wished there is also a way on how to break bad news to nurses.

That was my worst heartbreak being a nurse.

To be there with my patients while I can't be there to the person I dearly love.

Is it worth it? 

It was the first time I uttered this question.

How many parents are reading this article?

How many of you missed the milestones of your kids?

How many of you have seen how your bedridden patients were able to walk again and yet, you were not there to witness the first step of your children?

How many of us left home with complete family members and returned back home without one of them?

Perhaps, at one point in your profession, you've asked the same question...

Is it worth it?

I didn't come home for the next 3 years since I left. I don't want to give my mother an impression that I made the wrong decision, that I should have stayed instead, I should have listened instead. 

When you reached a certain level of pain in life, that pain could either  make you or it can  break you.

I was transferred to ICCU after my 3 years exposure in Surgical Ward, became the charge  nurse in 6 month's time until to this point of revealing secrets. And yes, tears.

Doing the ICU routines made me feel that God gave me a chance to do the things I wished I was able to do for her. Touching my patients' hands is like running my hand to the hands I never got the chance to hold. And seeing my patients' eyes is like watching the eyes I never be able to see again. 

And it feels like she's just so near.

In one of Paulo Coelho's books entitled "By The River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept", he mentioned that  it's very rare that you end up with your first love.

I've written this article which was later published in our hospital's Newsletter. 

I came to conclude that first love DOES die.

Because a greater form of love evolved.

I found it in doing morning care, in feeding my patients, in whispering good morning to them even if they are not responding. 

Those are the moments I thanked God I did not become a doctor.

Our life is like a dot in the face of the world. Nothing is so significant. Our patients will forget our name. They'll not remember who we are. But the thing is, we know who they are. 

Because It is in giving ourselves that we become significant.

Reciprocated or not.

In my recent vacation, 3 days before my flight, my mother was diagnosed to have a Type II Diabetes Mellitus. In ICU, we are checking our patients every 2-6 hours. But I can't do such for my mother who is living all by herself while her daughter, ironically, is the ICU In-Charge.

Last month, that turning point of my life turned 6 years.

Sometimes, when the sun beats down in one of the many windows of ICU, out of longing that somehow, how I wished that I can copy-paste myself so that I can do the same service I rendered to my patients and at the same time, to the people I loved most,  I would still ask the same question: 

Is it worth it?

But with God's unrelenting and stubborn grace, I would still get the same answer.

"You can't be successful in life without these two essential things: 

Giftedness and Godliness.

Giftedness is our ability to turn thoughts into things. 

Godliness is using that Giftedness to  S E R V E ".-Bo Sanchez

..Knock knock, Who's There..

I knocked at the entrance of her room's second door. With eyes rolling jubilantly sideways, I know she is hearing me. Knocking is my morning habit upon making rounds whenever she is awake. The first time I handled her, she was so thin and debilitated is a gross understatement. How many times we did compression to her heart to keep her alive, I could not count. Indeed, our time is controlled by only One hand. And that was not her time yet. Seeing her gained weight, and those cheeks that bloated to rosy ones made the air of despair shrink at the moment. With her body tiny enough to be cared by even one person, posture that limits her movement to only the rolling of eyeballs, limbs that bent to a curve that seemed to find solace, may God forgive me to question why good people has to suffer.

Introspectively, while the quest for the answer of human suffering left me in melancholic mood,  looking at her long lashes mildly soaked with tears from incessant laughing in the absence of voice and salivating mouth, it puzzled me what happiness looks like through her eyes being contained within the four corners of the room, being a prisoner by the machine to keep her breathing, and the moments wherein knocking is just another sound for "good morning, how are you, and goodbye".

As the sun beats down the arid air outside the window where I can see the reflection of my own image, having said this morning that I don't want to be a nurse anymore (thoughts like that occurs randomly), I was ashamed to the image staring back at me.

Everyone is having his battle.

We just differ in battlefield.

 Hers is inside the four-walled hospital bed.

Yours might be a failing health, a struggling relationship, a difficult boss, a challenging job, name it.

The thing is, no one is justifiably exempted.

Mine might be lighter than yours. Or yours, a little heavier than the others.

But does God let the sun shine to those who are only capable of carrying whatever loads He has given?

I stared back to her, saliva never stops drooling from the corner of her mouth.
Fluid is dripping to her convoluted, tiny hand.
Feeding is continuously attached to an abdominal hole in her deformed stomach.
I knock at her door once again and there the mouth that opened wide in joy.
There the eyes that glow in joy.

Life is still beautiful.

..Of Piled Boxes..

There's a song from a local commercial that says.."I love you Sabadoooo" (I love You Saturday).

In my case, I have some difficulty singing that song. Not just because I was on slumber when God sprinkled the gift of singing; Ahem, thank you Araneta Coliseum!

You see, my week starts on Saturday. 

It's the day of checking the whole Unit. And when I say the whole Unit, I'm talking of the 31 rooms, 31 monitors, from top to bottom, cords to plugs, doors to bathrooms, files down to the last Doctor's Orders, oxygen tanks to Emergency carts, reports after reports, meetings after meetings I feel like I was gone for a year. Saturday is also the day when our Stock Room is full of boxes piled after the other. Saturday is the day of taking off my Nurse's cap, rolling my sleeves up, and patiently solving the puzzled stock room of boxes to a more organize way. I guess Einstein hasn't done that.

Coming back and forth from room to the storage area, sitting and standing and bending, I wondered what was so good with Saturday's. My momentum was temporarily disrupted when a man from a product company approached me, "I'm looking for the In-Charge Nurse of the ICU."  How may I help you Sir? I put down the box I'm holding and unrolled my sleeves.  I realized how much  of Saturday's are making a toll on me. I helped him out with what he needed and I returned to my Saturday tasks left undone. 

As I was removing the contents from the box and arranging it neatly, I was in pensive mode as if a strand of memory flashed back when I was still a regular staff pushing stretchers, helping my patients have their slippers on or the mundane task as simple as turning on the remote of the television, being left by the bus because last minute call the patient wants you to help them ambulate. 

Those were humbling experiences that led me to this moment of blurry vision because tears got in the way. One cannot simply put greater value on success without having gone through an ample of circumstances that tested your patience, your own values, your determination towards your job, how you see the difficult situations as God's tools for making us better, and how much love you put into the thing which you believe you are good at.

I know that inevitably, I will still encounter boxes. Lots of them. 

But if the pile of boxes are God's way of keeping me grounded, I will still remove my cap and roll my sleeves. 

If Saturday's are my Class days with the Lord, then God, please, keep the boxes coming!

..A Dancer's Memory..

   

When I was still cute (my mom believes that to this moment of revelation), I was so envious watching my girl classmates wearing that flower top with flower head decors and flower anklets holding the thin pair of sticks to the tune of "hola hola" dance. I was so thin back then that I was a sickling chic my mother would rather want me not to get involve in rigorous school activities. 

My grade school teacher who happened to be our neighbor didn't looked at me that way. One rainy morning while I was about to prepare for school, she came to our house persuading my mom that I should join in her dance troop. And she was even determined to pay from her own pocket the expenses for the costumes. That's how much she believed in my potential. Not only in dancing, but for my love for arts.

We've been in different schools competing for different categories and levels. Not on a single occasion that she did not fixed my bobcut hair back then. And not on a single occasion that she complained paying for my costume. 

This year, she turned 75. I rarely dance now, except when my Unit is full. I seldom do paintings lately as my schedule cannot afford I can work on canvas. And for the longest time, I haven't seen her dancing just like the days she would on back stage so we'll never forget the steps.

Thank you for your feet that had taught mine to move in grace. Thank you for your hands that lovingly stroked my hair so I'll have an ounce of confidence to dance in the stage. 

Both of us may have been moving in our own rhythm of life, but I'll not forget the melody of love for that sickling child.

Happy Teacher's Day!

..The Cardiacinus Heart..

I'm on queue to pay my grocery bill. He was in front of the line waiting for his turn. Holding a bottle of water and a pack of sandwich, I was wondering if it will be his dinner for the day. Perhaps, he is saving for his son's birthday, or a ticket back home. He handed the items to the cashier and the amount appeared on the screen. He reached for his pocket and counted his bills. And recounted again. And again. I sense that it didn't reach the amount he needed, and the cashier started to be impatient.
I felt that my hand seemed to have brain of its own, taking some amount from my wallet and handed it to the cashier.
"Let him go."  He just stared at me and walked away.
Cardiacinus.


Early this morning when I made my rounds, I found out that the medicines in our stocks were not checked by the one I appointed the task with. Having an impression that she didn't seriously took the accountability at heart, I was disappointed. I felt my stress hormones overflowing my circulatory system at the start of my week that prompted me to ask from her an explanation letter. Sometimes, I hate the recent job I have for it teaches me the "tough love". Is it what she needed? Is it what I was called for? To render tough love? Or to love toughly?
I realized it when in she started to think of what she's supposed to write, eyebrows narrowing, as I keep passing by on her. "I need your letter before you go", and she just nodded. When I read it in secret, part of this hollow muscular organ about the size of a fist (yeah, I just defined the heart) seemed to ache in an instant. I kept the letter in my locker to remind me that people makes mistake, and  that I, too, is not perfect.
Cardiacinus.


Apart from being a nurse, my sister and I ventured in a small business that run roughly for 3 years now. I'm happy that despite the economic challenges, we are able to religiously pay our taxes (holler to the "giants" that are familiar with tax evasion!). Whenever I open my email and notices that the total amount of expenses exceeds with our net, I'm a little bit worried. Worried not because we will missed depositing to our account, or not able to have the return of investment. I'm worried because of the families that are dependent to the monthly salary our staffs receive. I'm worried that if we don't have enough, they might lost their jobs.  The hell should I care when I have a job other than our business. But the thing is, what about their kids? Their parents? And the people whose mouths are dependent on their minimum wage. I also have a parent. I also work to put decent meal to our table. If they work for us, we should work for them too. That's what "let's talk business" should be.
Cardiacinus.


There is one woman I know whose heart is anatomically soft, figuratively speaking. One day, a man came to her house to sell fire extinguisher. Since she is living in a humble abode, she refused to buy the item. Rather, she let the man and his companion rest in her house, prepared lunch for them and gave them money for transportation when they left. Her daughter was worried on how she easily trusts strangers. What she received back out of her cardiacinus heart? Honestly, nothing.


But her daughters, did! They are blessed being a Nurse and a Software Engineer. (Thanks Mom for your cardiacinus heart!)


Sometimes, I wonder if having a cardiacinus, or a "soft heart", is a blessing or a curse. But my mother proved to us that it is a blessing. That no one gets emptied by giving. No heart is broken to the one who doesn't count the costs and expect something in return. Sometimes, we may not directly receive the kindness that we give. But the universe has eyes that see what our soft heart can give.

And triple the pay =)


P.S. And I'm elated to be writing again! Happy Sunday!

.. Letting Go For Love..

In a world of so many parallels, what are you willing to give to make two opposite lines meet?

I have a dire appetite for wanderlust.  Be it home or abroad. I've come to terms that probably, I was something of a thing that constantly moves in my past life. I have high affinity to frivolous adventures, ruined places that stand in magnificence  despite the plethora of what time can actually do, and the roads less or [unlikely] traveled.  It's a thing that reconciles me to the world, me to my disparaging thoughts, and me to the kind of person willing  to ferment so the world can bring out the best in me: Alone or Not.

When I sit in the corner quaffing a cup of coffee, I must admit that part of my brain dies as  it lives somewhere else; where reality has a thin line with a dream. I always wish that the people I love would experience the same jolt, the same bouyancy when I close my eyes  and see myself in those somewhere. But only, if they have the same undeterred hunger for travel.

Having said so, I believe my sister has the same thirst to see the world.

I cancelled the budding thought of my second travel alone the moment she said she would want to cancel her Cambodian trip for a valid reason I cannot accept. I want her to experience the steeps and slippery paths. To appreciate heights even when the roads are flat. To trust her guts in a world of choices.

At any costs it will entail me.

I close my eyes for the love of a personal journey that did not come to pass, YET.

But overjoyed with my sister' smile as she was able to see what I've seen.

"Love entails sacrifice.

But it's worth it."