“I was hospitalized…”

For abruptly swallowing at lunch a Cebuano-mayamaya-but-Ilonggo-pezugo fish bone while taking in spoons of brownish soup last Sunday December 01. Because of the soup’s color I did not see it. But I did feel the irritance as it entered. I thought it would be drained down by water and morsels of food. It didn’t. One inch long and light, It looked like an anchor with a sharp point.

The fish bone got stuck in my esophagus. With its sharp point it shot into the side of the esophagus like an arrow and remained there embedded like a passage barrier. Because of the wound it created the pain growing slowly radiated throughout the front and back of my body. The pain was tolerable though as I travelled alone.

The incident happened in our house in Iloilo when I was having lunch with my sisters Gloria, Blanca and Elisea, and nephew Michael with his wife Anne.. At 3pm my nephew brought me to the airport where I waited in pain till the Cebu Pacific plane flew back to Davao at past 5.

My secretary Lou Q. Solijon picked me up and my luggage. When I reached our residence I told Dr. Mary Grace B Alestante about the pain in my body. Alarmed she and Lou immediately decided to rush me to San Pedro Hospital where I was admitted. Both women are consecrated persons and members of the Institute of the Secular Daughters of the Congregation of St. Anne. They live with me at the Casa Emerito in the College Seminary Heights, Catalunan Grande.

On Monday and Tuesday December 2 and 3 Dr. Marilyn Lim, my attending physician, and a pulmonologist, ordered tests to be made to determine where the fish bone was and how to get it out. She led the team of assisting doctors composed of Dr. Dennis Quitain, EENT specialist, Dr. Gemma Otero, gastroenterologist and Dr. Paulita Licayan, cardiologist, with their respective resident doctors.

The tests and procedures were ECG, CT-SCAN, X-RAY, BARIUM SWALLOW, ULTRASOUND, 2DECHO, ENDOSCOPY and ESOPHAGOSCOPY.

Like many of us former hospital patients I don’t know much about medical science and practices. Neither do I know much about hospital services.

But I can say that the process the medical staff went through was Serious, Difficult and Delicate, just to find the hurting fish bone and get it out of my body.

By saying Serious, I observed how the doctors and the hospital staff were taking care of the pain-affected parts of my body so they could facilitate the search and removal of the bone. All these are related to the heart and I thought this would be attended to in general by Dr. Licayan the cardiologist. By the use of Difficult I am referring to Dr. Otero who, faced with a dilemma of using or not her endoscopic instruments, prevented a further damage by not pulling the bone out. By saying Delicate I am referring to how Dr. Quitain finally pulled it out in 20 minutes. Dr. Lim dancingly regretted not having a camera to record the EENT specialist’s delicate performance. Deafening shouts of success filled the operating room, something I have never heard before. I could hear this because I was already awakening from sedated sleep. Anyway I am impressed and touched by the way the doctors handled a serious, difficult and delicate situation.

Here I must admit my weakness and difficulty even at 85 years! In utter humility and shamed-faced I must repeat from now on to myself before every meal the lessons I learned in my youth:

SLOW DOWN! CHEW MUCH! MASTICATE MORE!

That evening of December 4 I was brought into the operating room. From December 1 till evening of the December 8 I was prevented from moving around, talking, eating and drinking. The reason? To prevent the fish bone from moving around and creating perforations which could possibly receive harmful materials.

No movements? No meals? Painfully for 8 days? What a cross that was!

And yet as a Christian thanks must be said.

Yes, thanks to the doctors, nurses, aides, offices, priests chaplains, Sisters pastoral team and general services. Thanks for the SILENCE.

Paradoxically, thanks for the opportunity to carry the cross and to offer it for the healing of special persons, the sick in the hospital, in society and in the world!

No one, nothing matures to perfection without pain or something similar to pain. Amen.