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It is hot and sultry as I sit here and jot down a few
lines for this segment. We have been
going to the Plaza each morning to play Frisbee and partake of the playground
equipment. In the 
beginning, the kids
were up at 6:00 a.m. which gave us plenty of time to get breakfast and walk our
way to the morning’s activity.
Regrettably, starting yesterday, the wakeup time was moved back a touch;
in fact by quite a touch. I rolled out of bed at 6:30 to find
everyone still sprawled out on the living room floor. Oh yes, I guess that is another subject I
should address. It appears the bunk bed
had turned into a something more ornamental than useful as of late. The children spent so many years sleeping
together on mats on a floor in Owak, Cebu that segregating them to a double
decker was a bit more than they were accustomed to. Thus, in less than a week, the queen sized
pad for the bottom bunk was being carried out to the living area along with an
extra twin size pad each evening for the kids to sleep upon. Stephen, who was sent here to assist in
watching the kids, decided to sleep on the couch and in essence, above the fray
of youthful bodies upon the floor.
beginning, the kids
were up at 6:00 a.m. which gave us plenty of time to get breakfast and walk our
way to the morning’s activity.
Regrettably, starting yesterday, the wakeup time was moved back a touch;
in fact by quite a touch. I rolled out of bed at 6:30 to find
everyone still sprawled out on the living room floor. Oh yes, I guess that is another subject I
should address. It appears the bunk bed
had turned into a something more ornamental than useful as of late. The children spent so many years sleeping
together on mats on a floor in Owak, Cebu that segregating them to a double
decker was a bit more than they were accustomed to. Thus, in less than a week, the queen sized
pad for the bottom bunk was being carried out to the living area along with an
extra twin size pad each evening for the kids to sleep upon. Stephen, who was sent here to assist in
watching the kids, decided to sleep on the couch and in essence, above the fray
of youthful bodies upon the floor.
On this particular morning, even with my loud voice, not
one body moved…even Stephen literally turned his back toward my morning
presence. Adult priorities definitely
didn’t mirror the children’s and I knew to get them going it would involve
something drastic. I went to YouTube and found the song “Gasolina” and turned
up the volume on the laptop. Even with
the bass beating and Spanish words streaming, there was little movement, but there was life and some annoyance as I
heard a mournful moan here and there.
So, I moved up to “Jumbo HotDog”, “The Spaghetti Song” and “Butsekik”
(It has no intelligible words in it).
Finally, one by one the tykes arose from their sleeping positions and
filtered their way toward the breakfast table…..all except one. Clarisse had been complaining about pain with
her eyes the previous couple of days along with muscle pains, but yesterday
morning, she just didn’t want to get up.
She didn’t feel overly warm, but just seemed lethargic. We decided to go to the plaza for Frisbee and
the playground and left her under the care of Stephen.
 | |
| Scraped nose along with bruised ego |
When I played Frisbee with Stephen, I was pretty much
guaranteed good throws (he is 17 years old); however, Toy Toy
was still struggling at perfecting his skills. Regrettably, it was either a matter
of dodging rocketing discs from Stephen or chasing after errant tosses by
Toy. On that particular morning, I
didn’t react fast enough to one of Toy’s good tosses resulting in the Frisbee
glancing off my outstretched hand and slapping me on the nose. It was only when I wiped my face on the towel
at the end of our twenty minute session did I see the blood and then felt the
scrape on the bridge of my nose.
I decided to sit on a bench under a flowering Kalachuchi
tree for awhile. A swing set was
entwined in the lower branches and Santiago decided he would climb among the
blossoms until he belatedly discovered that there were bees harvesting the
nectar and they definitely did not appreciate a two legged intruder. It took only one sting to get him dropping
out of the tree and back on solid earth once again. When compared to bee stings in the United
States, it looked more like a mosquito bite than a red welt. Still, in the case
of Santiago, it was a valuable lesson learned in coexisting with nature.
By the time we had returned home, Clarisse’s temperature
had risen dramatically. I gave her one
Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and started her drinking copious amounts of liquids,
mainly water and juice. Just before
lunch, I lay with her and wiped her head with a rag. Even though she got up to sit at the table to
drink liquid and sample her rice (during lunch), she was still lethargic. After
the dishes were cleaned from the table, she asked me to lay with her again and
so I did, but we were not alone. Toy Toy
decided he should take a nap and snuggled within the wide gap between Clarisse
and me. Within minutes, they were both
asleep with Toy snuggled tight against me and Clarisse on the other side of
Toy, firmly holding my hand.
Throughout the evening, I monitored her condition. You could not buy a decent thermometer in
this country, so the one I had was pretty much worthless. Still, I knew that
she was quite feverish and continued to push the liquids.
The next morning, the fever had not gotten worse, but not
gotten better either. So, I loaded her
onto the motorbike and took her over to the private hospital at
Kabankalan. In the states, all of the
medical facilities I had ever visited were air conditioned, but in the
Philippines, it was an entirely different situation. Although the offices and specific rooms had
a/c, the hallways and waiting areas did not.
Clarisse and I sat upon a cuShioned but low slung couch
in a small waiting area outside the emergency room doors along with a couple of
other suffering patients. I spoke with
the female nurse on duty and told her that my daughter had a high fever. She indignantly replied we had to wait our
turn. So, we waited…and waited…and waited some more. I finally stopped the
nurse (as she walked by (of which she did a lot of that) empathizing the fact that
I had a daughter with a 104º fever and thought it demanded a little more
attention than what we were receiving.
The nurse looked at her and then at me and commented that she thought I
was the patient and didn’t look that sick….I was becoming rather agitated with
the aloofness of that supposedly medical professional, but in short order she
brought out a thermometer and took some BASIC vitals.
In a few minutes we were taken into the emergency room where
a more thorough examination was performed. Although Clarisse’s blood pressure
was fine, her temperature was 103º and she was still lethargic. They sent us for blood tests and then looked
down her throat. A gynecologist was the
MD on duty where she made a diagnosis of enflamed tonsils, prescribed antibiotic
medication and we headed for home.
Even though the cost for hospitals, services, and
physicians were ridiculously inexpensive here, the price of medication was totally
outrageous. The antibiotics prescribed cost $2.50 per pill and she had to take
two per day for seven days. Still, even at
that price, I was not going to complain too much as it had its desired effect. By
the next day, Clarisse had made a miraculous recovery and was eating, laughing,
and just being a twelve year old once again.
In Cebu, the treatment for her fever would have been
herbs and faith…as it is for many Filipinos unable to afford professional
services. In the end, her fate would
have been dictated by her immune system and whatever medicinal effect the herbs
could’ve provided. However, I was
happier that Clarisse was here. In 2011,
her brother Toy also had a high fever and the resultant treatment (drugs) cost
over $50. Had I not been there, the
illness would have been allowed to take its course (with perhaps catastrophic
consequences). In the end, I may be the
one to make a difference in the quality of life and certainly in regard to
health and treatment of my four siblings.
It is just unfortunate that so many children do not have that
opportunity and are forced to weather an illness without the medical resources
which are so readily available but financially unattainable. And as far as I am concerned, that is a crime.
While doing some demographic research the other day, I
came upon some interesting statistics.
Looking at “factbook”, published by the CIA, I discovered that those who
were 65 years and older in the Philippines was only 4.3% of its entire
population (or 4.5 million seniors). In comparison, the United States
population of those 65 years and older was 13.5% (42.5 million)! Again, I am confident the affordability or
unaffordability of those available health services is a contributing factor to
the large disparity in comparative age groups of those two countries.
Daryl A. Cleveland
April 12, 2012
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