Two Thumbs Down

One death in a 24-hour duty is almost an ordinary thing at the time when I was working as the only doctor in a 50-bed secondary hospital in a province south of the metro. Adult deaths are more common and tolerable. The death of a young patient, however, is vigorously stirring. The death of two babies in a row shatters me to pieces.

Two years ago this week, I spent the second half of 72-hour shift resuscitating newborns. One, a premature baby boy, had been intubated for a day after developing pneumonia. He kept me awake for most of my shift due to decreasing oxygen saturation every two hours or so, but he was a fighter. A little tap on the foot to make him cry usually did the trick, but at 9 am the following day he didn't even grimace. He kept his eyes closed and maintained bluish-gray skin despite all our efforts to make him go pink again. The parents themselves told us to stop; they've finally realized it was time to let go. It was a pain to even look at the clock to document the time of the baby's death.

After a few tears, I got back to seeing other patients. In the afternoon, a pregnant lady was rushed to the ED complaining that her baby was moving a lot less since that morning. We did a stat C-section, and out came a lifeless baby with a familiar facies - that of one with Down's Syndrome. This baby girl never let out a cry; she was plump and weighed appropriately for her age, but she was practically lifeless. Since she was a niece of a friend, I tried my very best to resuscitate her even when my thumbs hurt very badly from pumping two hearts - hers & of the baby boy who died earlier. After an hour, we stopped our futile efforts. I stared at the clock in disbelief - an hour ago we were recording her time of birth; now we're writing down the time of her death.

photo from Touching Souls

There it was again, the cold feeling on my palms and soles. My sore thumbs went numb and my legs felt like jelly. I was tired and sleepy and hungry - I do not another emotion or status, least of all sad or devastated or frustrated.

I sat slumped at the OR floor and cried. Really hard.

What I Need Right Now

There are days when I feel bad without me knowing why. There are days when I feel bad AND I absolutely know why. And then there are days when I don't feel bad but I'm not happy either, and usually it happens on a rainy day like this.

Typhoon Juan is slowly moving its way out of the country but it was so hard to get up this morning because it's cold and the bed looks so invitingly warm. This isn't even my bed I'm talking about since I spent Monday nights in the apartment in Tondo where I grew up. Why I do is another blog-worthy subject I'm writing about soon.

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Speaking of Tondo, it's great to reminisce about rainy days when we'd wake up early and wait for the am radio announcer to say that classes have been suspended. Then, my brother and I would hop in my parent's bed, bury ourselves in the thick sheets and go back to sleep. Mama would whip up a breakfast of sardines with misua and daing na bangus. The smell of the frying fish would wake us up so Mama didn't have to call us to eat.

I know it's a weird combination, but it tastes really good anyway that I find myself trying to cook both dishes whenever it rains and I have bangus in the fridge. I like my daing na bangus cooked a little bit more than in the photo here so that it's crispy. I like anything fried crispy for that matter.

The rest of the rainy day was spent in bed still, where we'd play board games or watch a scary movie. It's quite sad that I don't remember Papa in this childhood memory. He worked in a hospital and it didn't matter if Storm Signal Number 3 was hoisted over Metro Manila; he had to go to work. Papa was a hardworking man.

Anyways, he'd usually be home in the afternoon, just in time for Mama to serve either Chicken Sopas or Arroz Caldo or Champorado.

Usually it's Arroz Caldo since it's the easiest to cook in terms of ingredient availability. We like ours a little thin and unadulterated - just chicken and lots of kasubha.


Mama makes the best sopas using native chicken these days. Back when we were kids, it wasn't so bad with regular chicken either. She cooks the shell macaroni in the water where the chicken was boiled in. Mama puts just the right amount of cabbage and carrots, with a little butter, so that the vegetables float in the soup. Each bite and sip was heaven - no chicken cubes attached!

Champorado wasn't always present in our rainy day specials, but when Mama made a pot it was always a delight. She was fond of Ricoa powder, which tastes just as great as the tablea. She didn't serve it with tuyo or dilis so I personally prefer to have my champorado without anything on the side until now. A big swirl of evaporated milk is all it takes to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.


So today that I'm neither happy or sad, I'm deciding to have any of the above, preferably in Tondo where I grew up, where cold rainy days are embraced by good simple food, smothered by my family's love and care.

photo credits:

http://tigabaluarte.blogspot.com/2010/03/daing-na-bangus.html
http://www.mykitchencooking.com/2008/03/misua-recipe.html
http://www.filipino-food-lovers.com/?p=88
http://www.shaicoggins.com/chicken_sopas_recipe/
http://www.maxschicken.com/index.php?/menus/31

Charging is Rewarding

This Citibank Promo has been going on for sometime now. Noy and I have used our charge slips mostly at Shell, but it was only this afternoon that we realized how wonderfully practical it is.

We headed over to the newly re-launched Rustan's Supermarket in Shangri La Mall after learning that SM Supermarket isn't putting Colgate Palmolive products in its shelves anymore.

We needed just a few items really because we've done some shopping at SM already. Not being so familiar with the promo mechanics, we gingerly asked the checkout girl if we could use one of our older charge slips. The ink fades in these charge slips, and it's wise to use them as soon as possible. It turns out checkout girl Joan is very accommodating one. She told us not to be shy about using these slips because it helps a lot. She even encouraged us to use one more charge slip, so much so that we paid for these

with just this-


- a staggering Php3.25 for two loaves of bread, lettuce, and a big tube of Colgate professional clean toothpaste.


Some things do live up to their words.

photos from 1)the Citibank Philippines website and 2) taken by my|phone t23 duo.

p.s.

Come visit the new Rustan's Supermarket in Shangri La Mall after it was hit by

fire in April. It now has a deli and hot dishes area which serves a lot of delicious meals on the go or for dining in. There are a lot of other new food stalls too!

photo from heart 2 heart online.

my|new|phone

I swore I'd never buy anything on impulse again. Ever. Unfortunately my husband hasn't made that promise yet. So when he saw this ad somewhere last week -

- we ran to the nearest store that had one still on stock at around 7 pm, and he bought the phone for me. Apparently a lot of people have queued up just to buy this phone. Actually, they just took 500 pesos off its SRP. But it's still cheap, considering that most touch phones sell for Php 5000 up.

It's packed with features for its price. I am most happy with the fact that it's dual SIM, because I have been wanting to have a Globe SIM (Im currently locked to Smart) because my work people use Globe. My Smart plan offers free calls, but not texts, to Globe and I always exceed the monthly cost of my plan because of the huge amount of Globe texts I make everyday.

The my|phone T23 duo is a full touch phone, and it takes some getting used to. Im not a touch phone fan but I believe I just need to get the hang of it before I fully enjoy it. The T23 duo has all the usual, useful stuff - camera, bluetooth, music player and FM radio. It has room for an 8 GB SD card, which I'm really hoping I'd be able to buy pronto.

What sets this apart from the other phones I think is the Pinoy feature, which includes services like my|faith, my|country, my|love, my|negosyo, and my|java. I am loving the my|faith feature because it sets a reminder for the angelus, morning and evening prayers, and the rosary. I can even upload all entries of the 365 Days with the Lord! I've never seen a phone which gives so much emphasis on faith. my|country has fun stuff like mga bugtong, salawikain, pinoy trivia. all these can be enjoyed if one has a memory card installed already. the phone comes with a CD containing all these great fun accessories.

Usability wise, I'm feeling this phone will not give me much of a headache. While first time touch phone users like me will find scrolling up and down quite annoying at first, finding the right amount of pressure and flick is key to efficiency. Everything else is easy to find and use. Battery life is admirable and charging is USB-based so I could bring just the wire when traveling.

I just do not like being asked when I'll send a text or call using what SIM every single time, but I guess it comes with the fact that I am using two numbers from a single phone. The T23 duo is also not wifi ready so internet surfing for me remains confined to the laptop. Other than these, I am enjoying this fruit of self-containment which has luckily has resulted to a lot of husband pity. I just love Noy =)

p.s. my|phone Q19i duo will be on sale on october 8th only. check it out here.