He is spoken for

The Fray - How To Save a Life

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I wish I could talk about how lovely the Philippine weather is. How alive I feel every time the sun touches my skin. How I love everything about this place. But I can’t talk about it. I wish I could say I recovered from jet lag by having a masseuse pour tropical oils on my tired body.

Truth be told, there was no such thing as resting from jet lag. I spent last night in a hospital, at the Emergency Room and see my nephew succumb to comatose. There is a big difference between weeping and crying. Last night, I wept.

I wept because for all the knowledge I gained, I cannot save the life of the person I love.

I wept because it hurt so much to see someone succumb to asthma because his parents did not have enough money to seek immediate medical attention. I could only hold my cousin’s hands. I could only hug them. I could only cry with them. What kind of doctor am I if I couldn’t save someone?

My nephew started having difficulty of breathing early that day and when it got worse, they decided to rush him to the hospital. About five minutes away from the hospital, the car apparently ran out of gas and my nephew turned blue. He was clinically dead when they reached the hospital and the doctors there did CPR for 15 to 20 minutes. The brain could not tolerate that time without oxygen. I knew brain damage was the diagnosis here.

I rushed to the hospital when I found out about it, and to the sight of my nephew intubated, in the worse possible coma scale, having seizures and all. Heart being maintained by drugs. This was a familiar scene. Two years ago, his grandfather suffered from massive stroke which also left him comatose. I would always be called in to look at them because my cousins couldn’t take the scene, and they needed my medical background to give them some sort of comfort maybe.

Let me tell you a secret – I am never comfortable. In between my duty as a doctor, I am also one hundred percent a loved one. But the difference is, I couldn’t show them I was weak. I couldn’t show them I was as scared as them. I was, and should be, it will always be my obligation to put up a brave front. I swallowed hard when they asked me what the prognosis was. They weren’t really asking for it. The doctors in charge already told them already it was a bad prognosis. They were really asking me, is there any chance that they could be wrong? Could you lie to us? Could you give us false hopes?

How can I say that mortality is 20 percent on first day and 64 percent by the 1st week? Do I quote numbers coldly? Do I hug them and just cry with them? In the end, I did the latter.

Chris came by along with some of our friends to check in on me. He is always sweet like that. He asked me whether I was okay. And I just smiled, and said I’m okay, my nephew is clinically dead but he is revived. I left out the details. If I talked too much, then the false smile might turn into honest tears and I cannot afford to break down. Not when my cousin needs me to be strong. Not when my nephew needs to have an aunt with a clear mind. The one hour coffee was a nice break from the reality of it all.

I fished my pocket and saw the money I have left from my trip, money given to me by angels in the US. I was blessed enough, I couldn’t ask for anything more. Funny how about a week ago, Big J kinda told me to get ready to help their family. It wasn’t clear why, but I made a mental note of it. Then this happened.

I fished out the greens in my wallet and handed it to my cousin. I shouldn’t have bought all those shoes. I could have given more.

When I went home, I wept again. I wept and bargained. I felt so incapable. I was suppose to know how to save a life. But I was too late. Big J, this is where you come in. On my knees and confessing incapability, this doctor handed the chart over the only person capable of turning this thing around.