Let it Die

There was an infection. It started with a simple wound, which spread like wildfire and started cultivating a dangerous kind of fear. It then began eating the flesh and dug deeper into the muscles and bones. They tried to freeze the arm for a while hoping it would stop the spread, that freezing will make the bacteria cold and let itself die. But the thing with freezing... is that it just slows, if not stop, the infection. It doesn't kill them. It's just there, lingering. Waiting for further insult that will exponentiate their spread.

And there was another spread. And another. Until the body cannot war with it anymore. They tried antibiotics with the widest coverage to catch up with the spread, realizing they cannot catch up to the overwhelming infection and the fear it made. The body panicked, and trembled. The heart raced, the lungs hazed, the blood was leaking everywhere.

And then they had to cut the limb. The limb that was desperately holding on for blood supply yet ended up poisoning the whole body. The limb that was once hopeful and capable of anything it could ever imagine doing. No matter how desperate they tried to fix it, it just added further damage, depleting the stocks of hope until it was left desperate and empty. They were left with no choice. They had to cut the limb.

Now the limb is gone.

The mind thinks it's still there and kept on sending synapses, waiting for a response. It kept on going with his life, thinking it's still there. Thinking it will be there. The Phantom Limb that used to wave a second wind. The limb that used to hold hands, the limb that used to hold her. The limb who went to different avenues of her that only a few had explored.

But one day he has to Let the limb Die. Or else the Whole will suffer because it will put the heart into a shock that will not be saved even by the most potent vasoconstrictor or the most aggressive fluid resuscitation.

For now, let it think that it's just there where it used to be. Let it be stubborn enough to realize it all by himself, he won't listen to others anyway. Let it think that it's still there. Until one day it will realize that that limb really has to die. That it's gone.

Let it die. The plans and the hopes and what ifs and would be's. The might have beens and could have beens. The what should have been, and to the infinitude of what that limb could do. To the promises sworn by that hand, and warmth it has given. Let it die.

Let it die. To the widespread invasion of the infection, for the prevention of a grander scale invasion. To all the attempts to save the limb yet it was the saving that made it worse. Let it die.

Let it die. To give way to the growth a new one. A better one. Wherein it knows more where to go and not to go. One that knows when to push and when to pull. The one who will be controlled by the same brain whose learned the hard way. That brain who had undergone painful conditioning, which at this time, must know when to hold on and when to let go. With respect to what is yet to come.

To the better story it will tell.
The that one story they will one day tell.
Give way.
Let it Die.

Dance

I never learned how to dance. I'd like to think it's not for me since I know now that everything is not for everyone. And not everyone could do anything. But this specific talent, is really something I always wanted to try but failed. Many times. Maybe because I look silly, or I try too hard, or I give too much, or over think every step, every move, every flicker and sometimes get distracted with the music.

I'm choosy with what music to dance on. I want it loud but most of those loud sounds doesn't make sense. And I don't want it too soft that you can't feel it. I don't want the music to be too simple, for what till the challenge be? Yet I don't want it to be too complicated for my feet knots while chasing the music. Sometimes I wait too much for that perfect song, and at the end of the night realizing that song already passed without me even knowing it.

So I wait for another song. And a chance for another dance. I wait.

And when a dance comes, I grab it with too much conviction
I stride too wide, and wrap too hard,
that whoever dances with me gets tangled in a trap.
Maybe my feet are just too big, or my groove is simply off.
Or maybe they're just raw, untamed, fires of synapses due to a highly unstable cranium.
I've kept many moves to be given, but forgot the art of delivering it.

What I need to realize is that I must not over think this art. What I should do is to just let go. Take the music in and let it flow through these veins as my limbs will flow with the sound of whatever music is playing. I need to breathe it like oxygen and let it mix with my blood and life will spontaneously give meaning to each beat. Let if flow. And let it go.

Unfortunately, when I give in to too much music, when I dance in euphoria, it harms the one I'm nearest to, hurting even myself.

And it shouldn't be.
And so, I should stop trying.

The Revalida

And there I was.

At the "Light of the End of the Tunnel", sitting in front of three respected doctors in the Academe. Tachycardic, devoid of REM, dangerous levels of cortisol flowing, record breaking eye bags almost as big as Kung Fu Panda's, speaking like a Neophyte reciting Medical Doctrines.

Beside my Tribunal is a Golden Letter. The sweetest Love letter to the Reverend Father Rector, asking him to attach the title, "Doctor of Medicine" to our names.  Outside was a luggage full of medical artillery. All clinical books and some basics. Medical Guidelines, Notes, and A Med Bag prepared for all possibilities (head mirror, DRE, Ophtalmoscope). No samplexes.

So there I was.

The Dreaded day of Revalida.

While walking that 50+ pound luggage, it made me realize that we bring all our books on Revalida day, well in fact, it was they, too who brought us there. All of those books inside my artillery had a hand in what kind of doctors we've become and will become. As I walked in the wards of the hospital, there were the patients who taught us real manifestations of not just pathophysiologies of the ones we've read, but the realities of their finances, families, and most of all, their stories.

There are a lot of things you will realize during Revalida season.

Alam na agad namin ang ibig sabihin at isasagot sa mga tanong na, "Kelan ka?", "Sino ba sayo?", "Ilan na daw? Meron daw kanina?", "Tapos ka na?" - pag may nakita kaming naglalakad na may dalang maleta, kapag hindi pa ngumingiti yung may dala, magsasabi ka ng "uy goodluck" kahit di mo masyadong kilala, at "congrats" kapag nakita mong masaya na sya dala ang maleta.

When you hear other people talking about cases, you will think, "Hala bat di ko alam yun" and scramble for it.  When people ask about "what's your top ten?", or "ano mga alas mo?" we know that theyre asking about which emergencies are we most confident with.

There are a lot of opinions about Revalida. Some people are against because it decides whether you will be graduating or extending.  For some, there's an additional pressure because they need to impress their tribunals to get a Benemeritus or Meritissimus because they need it to get their honors. Yes, it is tribe dependent, and luck dependent.

but I am Pro-Revalida for 3 reasons.

1. Before they let us loose, we are forced to review EVERYTHING. From Anatomy, to Histology, to Ethics, to Epidemiology. We recap how we hated Pharmacology. We realize our weak points and we're forced to look back: we realize the subjects that we took for granted, and the subjects we samplexed our way through. We even thought, "how the hell did I pass this subject before?!" - in the entire process, some people might have been pissed because they think the agony is unnecessary. But for me, it was an assessment of how equipped I am for the outside Universe.

2. We get to be humbled. We are forced to know everything, and in the process we realize how much we don't know. We realize that no matter how vast we've covered during our entire stay in Medschool, it is an infinitely wider and ever-expanding art that takes an infinity to master. That the more we know, the more we realize how much more we do not know. Revalida was an assessment on how un-equipped I am for the outside Universe. And from that standpoint, I was humbled.


3. And my most favorite reason why I am Pro-Revalida: Because I already passed it and there is no way I will agree that the ones after me will get a more lenient pass to graduation. Haha. They should suffer the way we suffered. Become anxious the way we did, and prayed to all the Saints and Dead Relatives and invoke Heaven and the stars and ask the Universe to conspire with you. I want them to feel the fear that we've felt,. Because after they pass... the feeling is unf*ck*ngbelievable. It's as if God has lifted the cross you've been bearing for months. As if you've been relieved from ambubagging for 5 hours. As if UST has won the Basketball Championship again. The moment you're walking out with the Golden Ticket, signing the Graduation Records, you feel like you're on top of the world. You'll feel like the clouds are lifting your 50 pound luggage and you feel like hugging everyone. You'll call your parents and tell them, "Doktor na po ako", you will call all your loved ones even your dog to tell them that. Then you will run to the clerks room and share gratitude to the ones you have shared the same battlefield. I am Pro-Revalida because I want them to feel the Glorious Gratitude of that day. Of the day God will attach the MD to our names.

Yes, Revalida is tribe dependent, and luck dependent. But I believe it is also Faith dependent.

Few days before that, you will rest your faith into His hands. You will come face to face with your fears, of what-if-I-get-a-Pelvic-Organ-Prolapse, or what-if-I-get-NearDrowning, or what-if-my-Tribe-eats-me-for-Lunch. And beyond those fears, you will be left with one thing to hold on to: your Faith. That God will give you what you can, and if ever you've failed, it is not time. Yet. In God's time. It would be a sweet surrender of Lord-Ikaw-na-bahala-sakin-ha?, and you will feel God in nevery answer you throw with conviction, with every differentials you've confidently ruled out, and you'll feel His presence the moment they tell you, "Congratulations, you are now a Doctor"

....

So there I was At the "Light of the End of the Tunnel", sitting in front of three respected doctors in the Academe. Tachycardic, devoid of REM, dangerous levels of cortisol flowing, record breaking eye bags almost as big as Kung Fu Panda's, speaking like a Neophyte reciting Medical Doctrines. Beside them is a letter that I know was mine for the taking ever since I entered medschool.

This is the day I claimed to be mine ever since grade school when I told my dad I wanted to become a doctor.

And now, finally, even it took me a long time, I'm still proud that I made it.

+Basta Ikaw, Lord.

Congratulations, UST Medicine Batch 2013!

Lessons you cold learn from the Ovarian Cycle

Lesson Number One

You are governed by a higher being. A system so strong that a nanogram of its secretion yields drastic changes on you. It triggers a cascade of reactions that controls not just your cycle but your entire body. Your clock, you metabolism, your flight mechanisms, your diuresis. What makes you more male, more female, more objective, more emotional. And He does it ever so graceful and in such perfection that in times we question how he does it, and in the long run realize the bigger plan. The bigger picture. Why He did this, and stopped that. Why he tapered this, and dammed that. (Well, excluding Adenomas, which is a different story)

Lesson Number Two

The tug of war between Estrogen and Progesterone is a war that has been fought since female Homo sapiens has ever existed. It is a battle that has shed blood every 28 (+/-  7 days) , and some takes longer, some shorter, some none and some over. You build up walls of endometrium and pride, just to prepare the coming of a Queen Egg that will sit around and wait for a worthy being that will penetrate her walls and complete her haploid emptiness. But the Queen cannot stand there for long, for the walls will erode after a few days and outgrow their blood supplies and ultimately shed away and gets defeated and washed into a river of menstrual chaos. This Estrogen-Progesterone war has been going on to tell us that one sometimes has to give way for the other. They tell us that we must know when to retreat, and when to push more. When to step up and when to taper. The walls we set up are heightened just to protect the Eggs or Egos, and sometimes we have to put them down and just let them flow to where the uterus will lead them. It's actually not a battle, but a Promise. Like the sun has to set for the moon, knowing that tomorrow, there is hope that he will come back and rule once again.

Lesson Number Three

One day, a foreign object will come knocking on the cervix. Wait, not just knock but batter it in thrusts with penetrating persistence. It will send its best warriors to embark on an environment so hostile that almost all the time, everyone dies trying. But come the right timing, and the right moment, and the right amount of serendipity, despite the walls and maze and acidic obstacles, that Warrior will find the Queen she has long been waiting for. And in that chromosomal union, the Higher Being will bless them and sends the best hormones to nurture them. It will be 38 week story of how the Estrogen-Progesterone war will come into peace. Of how the Higher Centers will command all other organs to celebrate. The cervix will be colored, The abdomen will be decorated with a line, the breasts will be robust, the body will exert the best efforts, even if it meant an increase in its demands. All for Life, within a Life.



So long, Gynecology Rotation.

Look back and move forward

I was 25. It was my birthday and I was supposed to be happy. I was on a church waiting for someone. It was getting dark and scary and gloomy, and I cannot decipher whether the waving trees were shooing me away or greeting me a happy birthday. Each minute became gloomier and wind was getting thicker, and the next thing I knew, I realized I was in a murder scene. It was that night when my Beleif was unmecifully massacred over and over again. She stabbed through my hopes, cut through my passions, and selfishly sucking ever hope I ever had, stealing all the air I could breathe and savagely kept it all to herself. Even though the killer was sure the victim was dead, she kept on stabbing him to rule out the possibility that someone might and could resuscitate him.

The police report was a total lie. The killer pretended to be a victim. She reported that it was the heart who killed her, leaving nothing but an awestruck deathscene whom I knew will haunt me over and over. and fucking over and over again. From then on, my beleif in love, soulmates, happy every afters, destinies were just complete and utter motherfucking bullshit... and so I thought.

I was 19. She told me to grow up and be a man. I understood exactly what she meant, but it doesn't mean it didn't hurt. We sat there in the same car, beside the same bus station. She still wore the same half smile and sweet scent  which started as "thanks sa paghatid" and ended up as, "I have to go, bus is leaving"

It was then I learned that Love grows. The jokes a year ago didnt sound as funny now, the giggles and smiles after all was not as perfect as I thought it was, we grew up but not at the same pace and same route. I learned that priorities and expectations will not always meet. It was then I learned the word 'compromise'. And knew what 'benefit of the doubt' means. learned that there are things that friends see that you don't.  I learned that sometimes, I leave not because I wanted to, but because we have to. Because I got what I needed to learn and she gave everything she could offer. And so did I. It was just that both of you needed to get enough space to grow, and that means growing up apart. From then on, I knew Love is evolving. Is a process. Love is a living breathing being that has demands, needs, likes and dislikes that changes year after year...

I was 17. I've just seen Moulin Rouge for the 8th time. It was then I fell in Love with the concept of Love against all odds, chances and gravity. Add Wicker Park and Mula sa Puso and Maging sino ka man and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind to the stirring pot of moviegenic love beleifs and I knew I have the formula to how to make myself an Oscar Award Film. It was then I learned, Love makes sacrifices. and sometimes one also has to gamble to win big. or lose big.

I was 14. I was asked to change schools because Dad will be practicing in Olongapo and my answer was a resounding no. I gave all the reasons known to man. All excuses I could invent, all names of friends I could mention. But they didnt knew it was because of one special girl. They didn't know it was because of her. But neither did she. It was then I learned conviction. And false hopes.

I was 11. I was reading the book, Conversations with God. I've always thought that that book was too heavy and too technical even for me until now. So I just made it a hypnotic ritual to read every insomniac night until I drown in the words and fall asleep. But at the end of the first chapter, I knew I was living this life for a reason. For it said it was not mere coincidence that I was here reading that page, for God has heard my questions about God and Life and Love and School and People, and made all the serendipities in sync to that moment. It was then I learned that there are no coincidences, that there is a plan, that God always sends saviors whenever I get lost from too much exploring.

I was 5. Dad and I were standing at the Balcony of the third floor of our old P.Noval apartment. We were looking across the skyline, just him and I. Then he taught me how to whistle. He first pushed air from his mouth and a few moments later a gush of wind passed by in response. It was pure magic. I thought he was God who can summon the air by just whistling. And when it was my turn, a few tries and a few saliva later, the wind was kissing my cheek. It was pure magic, and I thought I was God. It was then I learned I was made in the image and likeness of God. I tried again, but this time, no air responded back. And again. And again, until I heard Dad's whistle backed me up. Together we whistled and his loud tweet perfectly matched my high pitched immature sound. The wind answered back with a loud, comforting push strong enough to deliver a message... that no matter how alone I might feel, someone will always back my whistle up and get the things I ask for. It was then, too, I learned that I will always be loved. It was then I was reminded the power of wishful dreaming and getting those dreams. It may cost a try or two, but I know I will get there. All I have to do is to Believe.


Now I am about to turn 26. What have I learned thus far?

The word out there will hand you fliers of malice and slip doubt under your doorstep. They will look down on you and render you incapable of being who you are and what you are destined. Let them be. I am a man way too big to be belittled, a I have a curiosity farther than any space probe can explore, and an ego too stubborn from any bullying, pushing and shoving.

I learned, like in Surgery, that sometimes one has to hurt before one heals. And that wound healing is a process. Some wounds take longer than others, and there are wounds that leave scars to remind you of what mistakes not to do again.

I learned that we are a summation of everything that we've learned when we were 25, 19, 17, 14, 11, 5 and everything in between. And as years will come, I'll embrace all the good things that life will throw at me and all the shit that comes with it.

And when the time comes that I will again forget what I am here for, when people will try to murder my beleifs, when failure comes laughing at the car window, and when the wind comes dry in the third floor balcony, I have to look back, 26 years, and 9 months ago....

I was a sperm. I was on a mission. But I didn't know what I was there for, and didn't know where to go. All I knew back then was that I was brought there out of Love. Pure chromosomal love brought by passionate thrusts and burning conviction. I was the strongest and the most able among millions and millions that raced beside me. I survived a hostile environment that designed to reject me. I was in a dark uterine labyrinth of pointing down on me. I was on a journey with an unknown timeframe and uncertainty...
but despite the darkness and bullying and competition and pointing down and fatigue and the millionth of probabilities...

I lived. 
And I am here

and until now, I am on a Mission.

21st December

something died.
they used to call it a heart.

and it need not a sad song, or even closure to shut all thoughts out. it needed no words to say good bye, or a dramatic crying scene. nor a tribute video.
all it needed was silence. no audience. no visitors. no eulogies.it was just pure dim light, and all i could hear were useless breaths for a useless lung because of a dead heart.
all it needed was solitude. and peace. and time. and wait for the air to thin out because it has been coughing all the smoke it could inhale, this drug that's killing ,e, this pain that's seering, the crescendo pain that elevates every minute, but i dont do anything to relieve it, it consumed all the space in the mediastinum, leaving no space for breathing. no space of for fleeting.and because of that, the heart died. it stopped. it had enough.

there were no stories left to tell. and it did not need excuses. nor expanation. she said she wanted to talk it all out, but for someone like me who never runs out of profanities and curses to say, i was speechless. maybe it was too much to be told, and too much to be processed. maybe it was much too tiring that there was no point in being mad. it was all pure acceptance and setting adrift. it was dying in the most subtle way, burying all the questions i never want to be answered. maybe she was never really for me. and why is there a maybe in the first place. with all this chasing and bargaining, and blindly hoping, and hopeless praying this, will have to come to an end.

and it was that night.

the day a heart died.

There was a ring on my hand: on the finger fated for vows.
It was there when I ate and slept and dreamt; the sweet chain of shining gold embracing the finger on my hand.
It was there when tears soaked up my cupped palms. When I shoved my shaken heart so it won't miss a pulse.
This finger fated for vows, now naked, now longing for my beloved, still suspects the ring is still there.
The vow is gone. The touch is gone. Only this finger thinks its still warm: the thin line that bound the flesh to the chain; the penumbra of stain.
Sometimes my hand suspects the finger is no longer there.

Someone tried to cut the finger thinking my hand will gain its reason back, and finding it persisting, tried to cut my whole hand.