the chronicles of a bum tummy

a bum tummy forced me to the hospital last thursday. i think it was a combination of not having eaten anything for breakfast because i had to go very early to the doctor, and then eating something bad for lunch. big mistake. by afternoon of thursday i was already puking my guts out. this lost me much of the fluids in my system that i became so dehydrated and my arms, legs, and abdomen started to go numb. the doctor said if i had lasted a bit longer in that state without having been taken to the hospital, i would have suffered kidney damage. panic started setting in. i was so weak physically that i didn't have an ounce of strength to stand up, and my officemates had to carry me out of the building and drive me to the hospital. humiliating experience. i have a bad feeling that everytime my officemates see me they'd think, "hey, that's the loser who puked his guts out and had to be taken to the hospital". oh, the horror.

when we reached the ER of chong hua hospital, it took their staff a full twenty minutes before they arranged a doctor to see me. twenty excruciating minutes. they had to take their sweet time just to make sure that i would be able to pay for the hospitalization. if i wasn't so weak i would have punched the nurse in the gut to make him feel just a tenth of the pain i had so he could get me a doctor quickly. the first thing their nurse asked when i got there was if i had insurance. insurance?! watdapak!!! i'm about to suffer kidney damage here and your asking for insurance?! ironically, the free calendar chong hua gives to admitted patients claims that chong hua was a "non-profit" organization. "non-profit" my ass. if chong hua is "non-profit" then gloria arroyo won the elections fair and square without cheating.

the ER people finally took me inside. one of the ER doctors comes up to me and starts asking me questions, what happened, how many times i vomited, when i started vomiting, what i had eaten, etc., while writing down her notes in an index card. after she finished her questioning she goes to a table at the back. a few minutes later another doctor comes up to me and asks the same set of questions. i thought, "what the hell do these people want to do to me, question me to death?" i had to point out to the new doctor that i had already been asked those questions just to make him shut up, which he mercifully did.

afterwards a nurse comes up to me to attach the needle for the IV fluid on my left hand. the nurse was in his late 20s, and he seemed to be an experienced nurse, so i thought, this shouldn't be that painful. but suddenly he calls out to the interns at the other side of the ER, then asks, "who of you wants to insert the needle?" "you have got to be kidding me...", i thought. unluckily for me, he wasn't. three young looking interns who seem to have just gotten out of puberty come up to me with very eager looks on their faces, as if they were looking at the frog they would be soon be dissecting in their anatomy class. the older nurse then gives the needle to one the interns, who seemed just a bit too excited, so i braced myself for the coming pain. the whole process lasted two very painful minutes. a friendly word of advise to you dear readers, if anyone of you is going to be admitted to a hospital, ask for a more experienced nurse to attach the IV needle. it'll save you from a lot of pain.

and i sure hope that that intern won't be taking what she learned from her anatomy lesson with me abroad. nurses and doctors leaving is the last thing this country needs. but if we also consider how poorly they're being paid here, can we actually blame them? and so, the current dillema.

i was finally taken to my hospital room in chong hua's new building. i have to give it to them, the new building was pretty impressive. it's very big and modern looking, you can actually see that a huge amount was spent for its construction. the new building's lobby looked like a hotel lobby.

my officemate turned ambulance driver nilo and our company nurse grace accompanied me for the night while they waited for my mother. it was already late when my mom arrived, but i was too exhausted from the pain to even talk so i slept through the whole night.

i woke up the next morning eager to see what shows were on cable tv. let's just say i was pretty grateful we didn't have cable tv installed at home. so many channels showing nothing else but crap. they didn't even have discovery channel, only its more boring counterpart, national geographic. there were the news channels (boring...), the sports channels showing a golf tournament (boring..), movie channels showing old or unknown movies (boring...), home shopping networks (getting sleepy...), chinese, indian, french, german channels (zzzzz...), business ads (snore...), and a crazy televangelist declaring that he is the second coming of Jesus Christ and asking for donations for their "kingdom" (you've got to be kidding...). the sports channels didn't even show a single game of the nba playoffs that day. i was starting to get convinced that universe was out to ruin my weekend.

good thing there was axn though, because they had the amazing race on at around noon. i'm rooting for the hippies bj and tyler to win, as they're more fun to watch than the other teams. they kinda' remind me of the clowns of amazing race 6 (or was it 5?). too bad those guys lost, it was weird seeing a grown up man who made everyone laugh just break down and cry on tv.

some officemates also came by to visit around lunchtime, which lifted my spirits a bit, although their visit also reminded me of the office party i was going to miss later that night. so much for the anticipation i had the whole week. i spent the rest of friday desperately trying to find a decent show to watch through all that crap on cable and wondering what everybody at the office was doing and how the party was going. it was purgatory on earth.

my doctor finally gave his discharge orders on the morning of saturday. it felt like a twenty year prison sentence was finally over. i was so happy to finally get out, stretch my legs, and breathe the polluted air of cebu city, considering that i was either lying down or sitting down on my ass about 97% of the time for the last 2 days. freedom at last!

so to all of you boys and girls out there, here's another friendly word of advice: BAWAL MAGKASAKIT!!!