Digging Deep To Live

When I was in the hospital last May, one of the six patients I shared the ward with had this kidney problem.  The patient and his wife got admitted a day after me.  They told my mother that the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) didn't have any more rooms available so they got referred there (The Medical City).  It wasn't me or my mother's habit to eavesdrop, but you can hear anyone who speaks clearly inside the ward, even those on the other side.  One day the attending physician eplained the man's condition.  His creatinine was too high, which the doctor said was a clearsign that his kidneys were failing.  Creatinine, as I understood it, was a measure of the poision in the blood.  The doctors were recommending dialysis and inserting a catheter as initial steps, if the couple agreed.  Of course, like any ither normal Filipino availing of medical care, the problem was money.  The next afternoon there was the "council of elders" (family members and relatives) at his bedside, discussing what to do.  By evening, the couple said theywere going to check out, even if it was against the doctors' good judgment and they have to sign a waiver.  One doctor even said that the patient can die in a matter of weeks given his condition.  There was no talking the couple out it though.  Bahala na daw ang Diyos sa kanila.  Baka maibenta pa nila bahay nila pambayad pa lang sa ospital.  And it's true.  Dialysis costs are exorbitant.  Anaesthesiologist fees (for the catheter I think) are high.  Operating room rentals are expensive.  But then, if it's what you need to continue to live....

It raised a question in my mind, "how far would you go to have a few more days or weeks?".  When I got sick leading to my SLE diagnosis, I ran up bills in Manila Sanitarium and then in the PGH.  My mother was only a cook in my aunt's canteen, so it a natual consequence that we had to incur debt, lots of it.  And not only financial debt, there was lots of utang na loob.  The prognosis involved treatments and medications also and that didn't come cheap too.  If not for the assistance of my aunt, uncle, cousin, and nanay-nanayan, we wouldn't really have been able to afford it, and finish college at the same time.  Even after all the debts have been repaid, I guess one can never really repay utang na loob.  My mother had to eventually sell that small lot she saved up when she was a housemaid to finance the whole thing.  It was a sad thing to do, and is still a sad thing to remember.  But it had to be done.  I'm well into my 12th year with SLE so I guess all those thousands of pesos extended my life a few years more.  Now that I'm "reactivated", I'm starting to incur costs again to cope with it: medicine, airconditioning my room, I'll possibly be renting a place near work so I can meet the 8-10 sleeping hours mandated by my doctor.  The thing is, I'm between jobs right now so I'm basically digging from my life-savings.  Thank God I saved up something from my Thailand assignment before.  Thank God my mother and some relatives didn't give up on me that easily (and they had the means to help me out) the way that couple did on themselves.  It was immeasurably more than what that man and his wife had.