‘… I tell you part of the challenge of battling back against COVID was mental — keeping your wits about you as you endured the constant blood extractions and injections that meant you could hardly sleep longer than an hour or two straight.’
AS I write this, I remain confined in a room on the 11th floor of the St. Luke’s Medical Center in BGC. Outside my window is 32nd Street and across my room is Mercury Drug, a place I frequent for my medicines and sundries. I’ve been looking down on Mercury Drug since Friday, April 2.
COVID-19 is why I am here. In the morning of Wednesday, March 31, feeling too weak to even take five steps unaided, I asked help from my Nickel Asia family, first for an oxygen tank at home and later, when that didn’t seem to work, to get me admitted to the hospital.
I had heard how hospitals were full, but knowing my body I knew that emergency medicine Dr. Mayvelyn Abiog (both of St. Luke’s and Asian Hospital) was right: I wasn’t in good shape. According to Dr. Abiog, when I met her outside the emergency room of Asian on the night of the 30th, my pulse oxymeter reading was in the 80s. “Please get yourself admitted sir, go to St. Luke’s, NAC can help you there. Don’t go home anymore,” she begged.
Of course, I went home — to Alaminos, Laguna.
By 5:30 a.m. of the 31st I knew I had to return to BGC. Thankfully, with me in my house in Laguna were Ronald Montano (who had been driving for me on and off since my days at Coca-Cola); my friend Jon Sacro, and my officemate Lester Pascua. Lester and Jon had actually arrived afternoon of the 30th to check on me, and were surprised when I told them they should be “taong-bahay” while Ronald and I drove back to Alabang to see Dr. Abiog.
They were all on the ground floor while I tried to rest on the second floor but it was about 4 a.m. of the 31st when I asked them to come up to tell them I felt it was time to return to Metro Manila. So we drove in two vehicles back to BGC.
In my condo, I got the office oxygen tank set up, and from 7:30-8:30 a.m. was hoping it was good enough. But I continued to feel weak. That’s when I was told by retired Lt. Gen Romeo Tanalgo (Marines) and an executive of NAC: “JB, just go to the emergency room. We will take it from there.” And that’s how I ended up in the ER by 10:30 a.m.
I ended up spending three days and two nights inside a plastic encased cubicle (unit A11), attached to a Phillips High Flow Oxygen machine that at one time was pumping oxygen at 100% into my nostrils, while three IV attachments (two on my left arm and one on my right) delivered various medicines into my system, including Remdesivir and Tocilizumab.
All around me was the hustle and bustle of an ER with all the beeping noises from all the gadgets attached to all the patients, whether critical or severe, and I tell you part of the challenge of battling back against COVID was mental — keeping your wits about you as you endured the constant blood extractions and injections that meant you could hardly sleep longer than an hour or two straight.
I had never lost my sense of taste or smell, and while breathing was becoming difficult (I had pulmonary embolism) I could move about within the cubicle on my own. Because I was attached to the High Flow machine I could not leave my cubicle to go to the bathroom. I begged the nurses to find me a commode and lucky for me they produced one; so when I had to do what I had to do, I would get up, close the second plastic covering (with polka dot design) to give me privacy, and be done with what I had to do. Then it was back to the “bed,” which was an ER bed not meant to be slept on for more than a day, I guess. That was my routine for the 31st, April 1 and April 2.
I have to admit that all these time, in the back of my head, I had one single question: Will
I be one of the “lucky” ones who will still be able to walk out of this experience?
One day, a doctor came. He pointed to the High flow machine and told me, “Sir, if we can bring the level down to 60, we can move you to a regular room where you can continue recuperating.” What a relief to be given a goal. I think it was the afternoon of April 1; they came in and lowered the flow level to 70, watched me for a few minutes, then lowered it again to 60. My body was able to adjust. Think about it: this was the afternoon of April 1, which means I had been in the ER a little over 30 hours. But believe me: those 30 or so hours seemed like an eternity.
The only time I felt I was beginning to fight back from the brink really was when they finally wheeled me out of the ER at 7:30 of April 2 to bring me up to room 1167, my High Flow machine in tow. By April 6 I had been weaned off the High Flow machine and was attached to the oxygen supply from the wall; two I days later I was also off that oxygen tube. This meant two things: I no longer needed the commode in my room (I had Jon and Ronald buy one for me in the medical supply shops in Manila and had it brought to my room) and, more importantly, I could now shave and shower, for the first time since March 31.
I’ll spare you some other gory details — particularly about the anti-coagulant injections I had to get twice a day (two shots per) that left welts under my left and right triceps and left abdominals, the only injections I really couldn’t stand. But they were necessary because clots apparently are a major risk factor in COVID cases, causing strokes and all.
So I just had to grin and bear it, over and over again.
I’ve slowly gotten back from the brink, something I had for a moment or two (truthfully, more than that) wondered if I could do. But I have and soon I will be home. I still could not feel happy about it because I think of the so many others who weren’t as lucky; worse are those who failed to make it because they failed to get the proper medical attention in the first place.
Which is why I know that we as a people need to get our country back from the brink. This mismanagement that has been going on for decades has got to stop. And one of my personal takeaways from all these is that the panic caused by lack of sufficiently equipped medical centers is because our highest ranking public officials have never cared about public hospitals. They go to the best private facilities and then let the taxpayers foot the bill. Name me a President or Senator or Congressman who has needed medical care and you can bet he or she got it in one of the four or so prominent medical centers in NCR. This has got to stop.
We need to elevate our city and provincial medical centers into local PGHs so much so that they become first choice for our people — and for our public officials. A President should either go to PGH, or V. Luna, not to St. Luke’s or Makati Med or Cardinal Santos. He should go where the people go.
And we should make sure that our people contribute to the national health insurance fund and that their contributions are not stolen or diverted to centers that are supposed to extend “malasakit” but are nowhere to be found today.
We need to get our country back from the brink. And we need to start acting, now.
