August 27, 2005

AdOption

Exactly 2 months ago, adoption brought into my life a bundle of joy who has become my source of fulfillment and contentment.

I walked into the shelter that day apprehensive and unsure about what I was about to do. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing... if it was financially viable... if I was emotionally ready to handle it... But I was already there inside the door with this helpful doctor smiling at me.

She brought to a small room where "they" all were-- tiny, abandoned, and unwanted by the people whom fate had entrusted them to. As I scanned the little bundles, my eyes came to rest on one who was shy, quiet, and reserved. The doctor smiled and told me all about him.

She and the rest of the staff had taken to calling him "Walk-In." About a year prior, they saw him in the heap of rubbish a short walking distance from the shelter. They took him in, gave him a bath, and fed him. He was skinny and had all sorts of sores all over his tiny body. They gave him medicines and cleansed his wounds.

Others had come and gone, but he remained unclaimed and unadopted. He seemed to have accepted that he was to remain in the shelter for the rest of his life. He kept to himself and basically blended into the shadows. No one before me had ever shown any interest in adopting him.

At that moment I knew that he was "The One" I was meant to find, love and care for. I was meant to find him and give him a home. It seemed that on that day, two lost souls looking for validation found each other. It was fate. It was kismet. It was meant to be.

I took him home on that cloudy June day and named him "Tiger." He may only be a stray dog but whoever he was in his past life... wherever he may have come from... whatever it is he might have done... he now has a home with me.

August 24, 2005

Reader's Digest and Me

Last week, I got unexpected good news in my email. The Asian edition editor informed me they were interested in printing an article I wrote and sent to them last year. He said they wanted to use it for their December 2005 issue. It was about an unforgettable experience I had while I was still a doctor in training (FYI: you may read it in my blog http://faygloria.blogspot.com). I had to deliver an infant that ultrasound and obstetricians told me was stillborn. The baby turned out to be alive and lustily cried his lungs out as soon as I got him out.

Needless to say, it was great and exciting news for me. Aside from the financial windfall (which isn’t much but is still additional money in the bank… hehehe), I get to see something I have written in a magazine that has a large following all over the world, with the added bonus of sharing a wonderful experience I had with the rest of humanity.

This isn’t the first time I will be seeing my name in the Reader’s Digest. Back in December 1997 (yes, the December issue again!), a funny family anecdote I sent in was printed as filler just before the book section. In 2004, and last July 2005, my letters to the editor regarding medical articles they had printed. However, this is the first time that a full-length article (which will run about 2 to 3 pages) of mine will see the light of day in an international magazine.

I’ve been asked, “Is this the beginning of a new career path?” Of course not. My vocation will always be the practice of emergency medicine. There is a certain sense of achievement in seeing one’s “literary” efforts rewarded. But nothing will ever replace the indescribable sense of fulfillment that saving lives brings.

August 14, 2005

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

As the months become colder and the rains become more frequent, I can’t help but remember the greatest love of my young life… The source of my most intense bliss and the reason for my most paralyzing heart break.

He was my first in many ways… The first guy I brought home to my parents… The first guy I had a deep and passionate love for… The first guy I would give up anything and anyone for… The first guy I seriously considered spending the rest of my life with… The first guy I stood up for… The first guy for whom I would willingly subordinate my ambitions and my dreams… It was for him that I truly felt the Song of Ruth: “Wherever you go, I shall go… Wherever you live, so shall I live. Your people will be my people. And your God will be my God”

It was on a month as cold as this that I made him a solemn promise. I promised him that I would never leave him.

It was actually on a late June afternoon that I spoke those words with my lips and made him that promise with my whole heart. We had gone to the mall that afternoon, looking at techie stuff-- digital cameras, laptop computers, PDAs… While he was checking out one store, I walked over to a nearby bookstore and got him a card.

I was blissfully unaware that by then he was out of his mind, looking for me throughout the mall, wondering how he would explain to my parents how he had “lost” me in a mall. He had left his cellular phone in his dorm and couldn’t call me. He was worried sick because that was a mall I wasn’t familiar with and chances are I wouldn’t know how to get home on my own if he couldn’t find me.

I walked out of the bookstore, and went back to the shop where I had last seen him. I didn’t see him but I figured he was just at another shop looking around. I wasn’t worried because I felt pretty sure that he would find me. So I just walked around and window shopped.

I was right. In the middle of my window shopping, I felt grateful arms embrace me and was amused to hear him tell me never to walk away from him. As he poured out his worry and his concern, I felt an overflowing love for this wonderful guy—a love I still nurture in a corner of my heart. It was on that day that I told him, I would never leave him... That he would always have me.

Months later, he left me. There were a myriad reasons, the most basic of which was that he realized that the woman he truly loved was someone else and not me.

When the weather is cold and it’s raining outside, I am filled with a longing so great, it consumes my very soul.

It isn’t that I am lonely for him. I am mutilated because he was a part of me.

August 5, 2005

"Thank You" Is Enough

I suppose that is merely the nature of the work that I do.

As an Emergency Room doctor, I rarely get to find out how the cases I see turn out. I go home each day either feeling giddy about a spectacular save or exhausted by the sheer number of patients I had to see. It was enough to know that when it mattered most-- when life and limb were on the line, I was an integral part of the medical team that made the difference. But I generally don't get find out if this patient went home in a wheelchair or a coffin.

Then one day, in midst of the controlled chaos we call the "ER," I was approached by a middle-aged woman who gave me a mysterious smile and said "Naaalala mo pa ba ako, doktor? ("Do you still remember me, doctor?)." I had to say I was so sorry but I was poor with names and faces at times.

She pointed to her forehead and I saw the curvilinear scar about 9 cm in length, practically invisible unless one looked closely. It suddenly dawned upon me. This woman was my patient two years ago when she was physically abused by her husband who grabbed her hair and shoved her face into the marble counter in their kitchen. She was crying silently the whole time I examined her and started treating her. It took me close to an hour to stitch her up. I had felt boundless sympathy for this woman because of what she went through. I closed her wound "plastic surgery-style," taking my time and matching up the skin as meticulously as I could.

Now, here she was, smiling at me, seemingly happy in whatever it was she was now doing. She told me her friends had repeatedly asked her the name of the "Plastic Surgeon" who sewed her up, hinting at the possibility that she might refer them to "him." She proudly told them it was done by a young female doctor in the emergency room. Then she said two words that made all the difference, "Thank You."

I had to smile inspite of the chaos around me-- the many patients waiting to be seen, the children crying, and the nurses verifying orders.

This is what emergency medicine is all about-- the sense of fulfillment one gets when a patient takes time to seek you out just to say two important words that can uplift the human spirit: THANK YOU.