On hospital watch

October 3, 2007 in Personals

Coming from a 122-hour hospital watch, one can understand how exhausted I was. It wasn’t the lack of sleep or nourishment that got the better of me. I think it was the thinking, lots of it, within the eery silent, cold, disinfectant-smelling hospital ward, that drained the life out of me.

We rushed my mother to the hospital at three in the morning. Nanay had lots of complaints– coughing, panting, arthritis, stomachache, fatigue, loss of appetite– but we never imagined that what really ails was her heart.

Her voice was hoarse, almost sounded like somebody else’s, when she said she can’t breathe. When the ambulance got there, her extremities were turning violet and she no longer responded to my call.

“May asthma ba siya? Sakit sa puso?” the resident doctor asked us as he wheeled Nanay inside the emergency room. We shook our heads. What we knew is that she has high blood pressure. Other than that, we don’t know that she have something serious.

The cardiologist said Nanay had unstable angina. Subsequent web surfing on the subject made me understand her condition more. Unstable angina occurs when there was increased blockage in a coronary artery, restricting the flow of blood and oxygen to the heart. It occurs even at rest. To treat it, the doctor recommended that she undergoes angiography.

Nanay is 54. To everybody’s opinion, she is too young to have something this serious. To the ones who saw how she ran her little sari-sari store, she is too active to suffer a heart problem. But the tests– ECG, 2D Echo, blood chemistry, etc.– say otherwise.

What happened to Nanay made me appreciate what I am and what I can still do. Whenever I made it to the top of the staircase leading to the MRT and after finishing three badminton sets, I thank God that my heart is doing well. At meal time, I thank God that I can still eat and fill my heart’s content.

Nanay is now at home, at bed rest. She is taking eight different kinds of medicines and is on a strict low-fat, low-salt, low-sugar diet. It is expected that she loses weight due to these restrictions. This calls for a lifestyle change not only for Nanay but for all of us as well.