My sister Cynthia was rushed to the hospital last Sunday.
It started with the chronic migraine, bad bad migraine. Too bad that she would throw up like it was the end of the world and that throwing up was her only salvation. She would throw up until there was nothing to throw out of her body. Nothing from her stomach, not even air, not even gas, if that was possible.
Sunday morning, we sent her to the clinic across the street. The doctor said it had something to do with her eyes. She gave some pain reliever which we would soon realize was nothing to the mercurial pain my sister felt. She recommended that we send her to an opthalmologist. Around 3 PM in the afternoon, we decided to send her to an opthalmologist for the way she writhed in pain had become unbearable to witness. Then the scariest thing happened, scarier than when the late Tio Sio was fighting for his last breath (which reminds me I have to blog about that, too.). The length of Cynthia's arms to her hands and her lower body from the waist down went numb and yet painful all at once. How does one reconcile numbness and pain happening at the same time? And the word hit me! Paralysis! Cynthia was crying and my mother trying not to. My nephew Khristian was giggling innocently at what was happening to us adults. He must have thought it was a game we were playing to amuse him. And he was simply an angel playing the part of the amused. There were only the four of us that time and the only male in the company was Khristian. No way can an eleven-month old child carry his aunt to the clinic. I called Bengbeng, our neighbor, who was playing mahjong at their house to help us. Given that she is on the heavier side, I thought she could help. But then she, too, could not carry Cynthia. Instead, she went to the clinic just across the street to fetch the doctor. But the doctor wouldn't come. Imagine that! So I was forced to go back to the mahjong players and ask the males to help. Two men came. However, only one of them had the guts and courage to get inside the house and get past the three snarling adult dogs we have. Mang Val, short and thin, carried Cynthia, a 35-lb, 4'11" petite girl-woman, to the clinic. There was no way he could have carried her in a normal circumstance.
Mother and Bengbeng followed them to the clinic while I stayed behind to mind Khristian, the house and the dogs. About a couple of minutes later, I felt I couldn't stay put. I had to be there, too. I locked the house to keep the dogs in and carried Khristian to the clinic. I was already at the door when my mother called to tell me the doctor wanted to talk to me.
I found Cynthia lying on what looked like an operating table. She had a brown bag stuck on her mouth and nose, conscious but not moving.
My mother didn't want to hear the bad news so she volunteered me to talk to the doctor. After running some blood tests on my sister, the doctor told me to take my sister to a bigger hospital immediately because she had very low hemoglobin and she needed blood transfusion (if she had to live, the doctor wanted to say but chose not to, to avoid putting us all in panic, I reckon.). She then asked me to sign a disclaimer indicating what she had just instructed me to do.
Just right on time, my brother and sister-in-law, Khristian's parents, arrived. My brother Lilet carried Cynthia to the car and took the back seat with her. I drove the car while my mother was doubtlessly praying beside me at the passenger seat.
We decided to take her to a hospital at the nearby village. We didn't want to waste time sending her to a bigger hospital in the city. Evangelista Specialty Hospital, according to my friend Joan who is a nurse, is a decent private hospital, the most decent we could ever have during emergencies like this.
Not even half-way through the next village, Cynthia was already shouting in agony caused by the pain in her limbs. It was a searing pain coming from the bones of her legs down to her feet. Her flesh couldn't protect her. The flesh that was supposed to shield the bones from harm had became useless. The bones were causing the inhuman torture, nay, an invisible round metal with mutiple sharp edges hammering the bones endlessly with unexplicable anguish were causing the pain. Cynthia was shouting, crying, begging! Then suddenly - silence... That minute silence took hold of our heartbeat - mine, my mother's and Lilet's.
Lilet shook Cynthia to consciousness, telling her to keep awake and not to pass out. I blew the horn like a madwoman, cursing in my mind vindictives I couldn't let my mother hear! My mother joined Lilet in shaking Cynthia to wakefulness. A few seconds later, Cynthia opened her eyes and mouth to speak: "Ate, hindi naka-lock mga pinto mo." WHAT?!
A few minutes later, we reached the emergency room of the hospital. With a thermometer in hand, one of the nurses approached us. I told him my sister didn't have fever (Are all emergency cases now related to AH1N1?), but that she had her lower limbs paralyzed! That took everyone to their toes to carry my sister in. Cynthia appeared to be in the worst condition among those in the emergency ward that almost everyone else left their patients and tended to her.
A few tests later, the hospital coordinator told us that Cynthia had to be admitted into the hospital. She was in that bad a state. The first attempt to puncture her vein with a needle to carry out the intravenous water solution infusion (Dextrose, as most of us know it) broke the vein in her right hand. The nurse had to do it the second time with Cynthia's left. She then was given Valium to sleep.
Because of the AH1N1 scare, all private rooms in the hospital were occupied. (This is just an assumption, of course.) We took Cynthia to one of the wards at the fourth floor. There were three other patients occupying three of the six beds when we got there. Cynthia was given the bed closest to the door.
A lot of things happened in between definitely but the scare of a lifetime was over. The next two nights and days were spent learning more lessons about life.
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