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Our Basic Skills/Post-grad training at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute ended last December 17th but we formally received our certificates of attendance and proficiency just last Friday, December 7th. I was able to complete a total of 612 contact hours out of 640 contact hours. With my superb subtraction skills, I was able to come up with a difference of 28 contact hours (wrong answer pag walang label:). Had it been an exam, sasabihin ko pang job well done, pero attendance 'to, and 28 contact hours, which translates to absences for 3 1/2 days in 4 months, is so not congruent with my record. I was only absent once, as in ONCE, in my entire 4 years and 3 summers in college and it was because I had to attend my mother's funeral. And for obvious reasons, it was an excused absence so it doesn't count.(sorry mama if I sound like I attended your funeral out of duty, i'm just trying to emphasize a point and I'm sure you understand:) Even as a child, I enjoyed school so much that being absent was torture for me. Yung tipong 'Ma--ma, pa--pa-sok---po---a-ko' with matching tears and obvious difficulty of breathing, shoulders raised and all. If I remember it correctly, it was as if Papa had to request that I miss school...aah, I'm so proud of myself..was my determination and thirst for knowledge really that intense?..haha. But seriously, it wouldn't take a degree in medicine or in any healthcare course for that matter, for any person to make a judgment that I wasn't fit for school, or for anything else other than rest. Anyone who would hear my hacking cough along with my 'I can't take it anymore' and 'I think I'm gonna die' act while I insist on going to school would either think of me as a Determined dweeb, or a Dumb martyr. And with this story comes one of the not so pleasing trivia about my life, which is that "I've never had complete attendance in any school year from nursery to high school." Yes, I'm sickly or should I say, I was sickly (ows talaga?)..oo kaya!:p..and the culprit is almost always respiratory in nature- upper or lower?, it doesn't really matter because it usually evolves to lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) even though it only began as URTI. Which is why at a very young age, I already had the makings of a drug addict. I still didn't know that cough syrups (with codeine component) were addictive then but taking them was such a relief that I wanted to just finish the entire bottle in one seating; but thank God for Mama, for wisdom, for common sense, and for self-control:). Aside from cough syrups, I was also nebulized frequently with Ventolin, Budesonide, or a combination of both. I don't know if I'm just being too critical about myself but I really feel that my frequent exposure to steroids then, somehow affected my physical development. (I can already see Mao nodding in agreement, enumerating my Cushingoid signs, one by one..haha) But what really concerns me the most, out of all the medications I took in, were the antibiotics. If you have a healthcare-related profession, you probably know how antibiotics work. The antibiotic-bacteria interaction is like the student-teacher relationship for me. On the student's first days in school (first encounter), the normal student (bacteria) is expected to be fearful and obedient to his/her teacher (drug). Remember that stage when we used to believe in our teachers more than we believe in our parents?, that was also how easy for antibiotics to destroy and kill the bacteria in our bodies that cause disease. But it takes time, and a good teacher to do that. If the teacher doesn't enforce discipline early on in the relationship, the student will think of him/her as easygoing; hence, the student will probably treat the teacher more as a friend, than an authority to be reckoned with. In the same way, antibiotics must be conscientiously taken at least 7 days to allow it's full, and maximum effect on the bacteria to set in. Dahil ang bacteria, parang kriminal lang ba na hopeless nang magbago. You have to kill it, because when it survives, it will live to become a stronger, drug-resistant destroyer, either immune to or with new developed tactics to counter your attacks. Back to the student-teacher model, the student needs teachers who could impart more complex knowledge and information to support his/her learning needs as he/she increases in level. If the bacteria were like the students in my high school class, the antibiotic/teacher better be good because most of my classmates, well most of us actually, are very critical of our teachers- we're generous with our adoration and praises, but we can also be brutally frank if we believe we deserve someone better. High school teachers are like the 2nd generation antibiotics while college instructors stand for those in the 3rd generation in this model...gets? are you sure? because if you didn't, I still have other models in store. For you(1), you'd probably enjoy my phobia desensitization model; while a comprehensive discussion of my criminal model would perhaps enlighten you(2); and for you(3) I'd be glad to go over my slightly similar parent-child model...hahaha...but seriously, this thing about antibiotics bug me so much that I try to compensate by not taking in antibiotics now kahit feeling ko madedeads na'ko with infection. Nowadays, I usually just settle with lots of prayers, vitamins, rest, and other supportive/symptomatic treatment as needed. Although I'm confident that Mama followed the doctor's prescription and completed the entire duration of every antibiotic therapy I had since birth, I will still try to stay away from them as much as possible. (I don't wanna say this but) I'm trying to reserve the broader-spectrum antibiotics when I truly madly deeply need them, aside from wanting to give my liver and kidneys a much-needed break. Enough with 'science' (chos) and back to the real issue at hand, I really kinda' feel bad about those 28 hours; but just when I thought that that was the worst part, the jaded HR kuya, to whom I submitted my application requirements, had to rub it in, taking extra time to get a pencil and encircle those numbers for emphasis. In all fairness to me, the reasons behind those absences are all valid. I used 1 day (equivalent to 8 hours) for a job interview and rest ('cause I was sick again), and 2 days for my Basic Life Support training. The remaining 4 hours was a punishment for forgetting to punch my card out at the bundy clock. I didn't have the opportunity to explain to the jaded HR kuya what those 28 hours stood for, I just pray that my grade (one of the highest, if not the highest mark in our batch..ehem) would compensate for it. I can never boast of anything really, but I want to express my happiness and gratefulness to the Lord above for His guidance, love, and protection that made me achieve my goals. Actually, my grade, by other standards, is just average. The fact that it was among the highest (again, if not the highest...hahaha) just slightly increased its value; nevertheless, my instructors expressed their heartfelt congratulations for me so it's something, especially since many in our batch didn't meet the grade requirement to receive a certificate of proficiency at the very least. So there, Ate Friz, Mao, and I decided to cap off the day by eating out at Conti's then Red Mango at Trinoma. Even though we've only been together for roughly 4 months, I know I found friends-for-keeps in them.
my hearty club sandwich..yumyum:)
I was wearing red so everyone was jokingly greeting me "happy birthday!"; but Mao and Ate Friz certainly made me feel like it was my birthday for real because I had a great and yummy afternoon-evening all expense-paid!..haha..Mao said the dinner was his belated Christmas gift, while Ate Friz is as always very generous. It was already 8 pm when we finished dessert and we all had to head home already so I didn't have the chance to return their favors. But I'll get my chance in the coming days, because it won't surely be the last of our fun random afternoon-evenings together. Thank you Lord for giving me such wonderful friends!
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Wow, I'm quite a blahgger, am i not? I can't believe I just wrote about attendance to being sickly to medications all in one paragraph. This post has definitely gone farther than expected...though not too far I hope:)
I pray I could keep this up because it would really be great to look back one day and see how I lived my life through these posts. I love Gang Badoy's take on blogging, expressed in her keynote speech for the 2009 Phil Blog Awards, with the theme "One Blogging Nation".
"Last thought - blogging is not the ultimate verb here tonight. I know you have caught a lot of flack in the past about the seeming non-active motion bloggers take. For those who think that blogging is a minor verb, I have something to share: One cannot blog unless one goes out there. If you never got your hands dirty or walked streets, helped out, experienced heartbreak, death, birth, victory, defeat, betrayal, pain, sweat- then really- you have nothing to blog. I think it is because you live and you live well -- this is why you can blog. Someday it will be said that blogging is merely the record of 'lives well-lived.' Again, for that I am grateful."
This blog of mine, a mere account of my personal thoughts, emotions, experiences, and beliefs, will apparently not matter to society in the more important fields of science- politics, social sciences, philosophy, etc. I started this only for the sake of creating an outlet for my thoughts whenever I feel like I want to share something. I've been writing since I was very young and I thought that with blogging, only the medium would be different. But blogging is so much more than writing about how my day went or how I feel at the moment. Somehow, though I don't expect anybody to waste their time reading my blog (I haven't even told anyone about it), this experience invokes a special sense of responsibility from me knowing that there's always this chance that someone would come across one of my entries, and I might be destined to make a life-changing impact in his/her life. One of my resolves for this year include my desire to blog on more relevant and inspirational topics. I am not a celebrity so most of my stories don't interest readers much but I am a nurse, and a servant of God- surely I have thoughts that matter in those fields. But if I have 2 words to perfectly describe what blogging has done to me, it would have to be HUMBLED and GRATEFUL. Thank you Lord for your amazing grace and love, that enables me to live each day, to experience the wonders of this life, and to give you glory with my every breath. For the thoughts you allow my brain to think, the feelings and emotions I'm able to draw from the depths of my soul, my faith and the values and principles I hold on to to keep myself grounded, the experiences and opportunities that leave me in awe, the people who make a mark in my life- MY LIFE, I am humbled with your love and power, and for all these and more, I am grateful.:) meow
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