Cariño: Baguio Connections 61

THANK you to those who texted me that the last column purporting to be mine is an anomaly. Yes, I found it on PressReader, as you directed, and yes, the whole thing is an anomaly.

It is titled “Baguio Connections 60” and an old picture of mine appears there, but the piece purports to be written by an Edgardo Hipolito. And I did not write whatever is there. Much less do I know who Edgardo Hipolito might be.

Except that the last paragraph - is the first paragraph of my actual piece submitted for publication on April 5, to SunStar Baguio. My submission was actually longer. So yes, what an anomaly. Now duly reported to SunStar Baguio editor Rod Osis, as I write this and await his response.

We were before my brother Dan’s death speaking of doctors. This week, let us pick up from there.

Thank you to the doctors who helped him through what turned out to be his final years and his final days; thank you for your scary skills and the care with which you dispensed them. Thank you for helping Dan pull through a miraculous number of times. Thank you God for working through such a magical set of medical practitioners.

First, there were the legendary docs of the legendary PGH as far back as 2011 or 2012, the first time Dan was seriously confined. He was in ICU and he pulled through. Thank you, God.

Then there were the docs in San Juan de Dios, if I remember right, the time my other brother Matty was also in the hospital before succumbing to multiple organ failure. This was in 2013, and again, Dan pulled through.

Later, Dan was at NKTI, where the docs are also the stuff of legend. Again, an ICU confinement. Again, he pulled through miraculously. Thank you NKTI. Thank you, God.

And then another stint at NKTI, if I remember correctly. Another miracle. Dan survived; thank you NKTI. Thank you, God.

These last hospitalizations involved the La Salle Medical Center in Dasmariñas, Cavite, where he died, and the Quirino Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.

The latter was where Dan spent three weeks, from January 29 to February 16, the first two in ICU. Again, he stabilized, got well, actually, and was released. Thank you ICU and Hemo docs at Quirino, including ye from India, whom Dan questioned about your homeland.

There are doctors and there are doctors. Of course. In one’s life, one meets any and all kinds of them. Thank God that there are those for whom the Hippocratic Oath means something, for whom Life is to be respected and saved, for whom a patient is to be treated as best as can be.

All told though, thank you for hospitals. Thank you for doctors. Thank you more for the good doctors and the good hospitals and the good clinics.

Thank you, God.