The business of assuaging

Over the past weekend, three deaths brought me once more up close and personal with mortality. One was so sudden and so fast, a man I have known almost all my life – from my youth as a classmate at the UP Law School, on to those child-bearing and rearing years with my late husband who was a colleague of his at Ayala Corporation – Mario Camacho. The death of a wonderful mother and wife, Marivic Padilla-Estrella, cancer-stricken for three years, whose husband Manny I also knew well at the university. And the 92-year-old mother of my good friend Menchu, Mrs. Rosario Katigbak who was ill for some time.

It was therefore the news of Mario’s sudden death that stunned me. I had just been informed that he was in need of blood donors and as I went through lunch with a friend wondering what indeed was my blood type, a phone call delivered the tragic news of his death.

And no matter how much we tell ourselves that death is the absolute truth, that "Death is the golden key that opens the place of eternity" (from Milton of course) and that as Tennyson said, "I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crost the bar," hope for us ordinary mortals is indeed intertwined with some degree of fear – fear of how we will pass on. How a final adjudication will give us eternal life or eternal damnation, knowing full well however that He is an all-merciful God.

With a mind still heavy with sadness, the next day I watched an extraordinary basketball game, a championship match at the Ateneo Loyola gymnasium, organized by young alumnus Chiqui Paterno. This Ateneo Alumni Basketball League had teams named after the Ateneo Hall of Famers the likes of Ambrosio Padilla, Ed Ocampo, Honesto Mayoralgo. It was extraordinary because 2, 3, 4 year-olds were running all over the place like David and Stefano shouting their hearts out, rooting for Dad and uncle Jun Arceo; young wives with babies in their arms cheering their husbands; even the babies seemed to be yelling. My 4-year-old granddaughter Katya, though keeping still, relished the scene completely for you could see it in her eyes. Pretty little Yana Lansigan, beside mom Luisa, looked so pleased at watching her dad play.

We were there for my son Martin, who was playing what I was convinced was excellent basketball and giving his team, Team Mayoralgo/4F HS ’86, everything he had for this championship game. And although they lost, they had fought so hard, like it was the biggest fight of their lives.

Your mind strays every now and then to the sadness of yesterday’s funeral wake for an earlier and older generation, and the stark contrast you see today in the exuberance and vitality of the young. You watch the splendid teamwork and fight in your son’s defeated team – Dudong Cruz, Chris Huertas, Mon Garcia, Jun Arceo, Lito Santos, brothers Raffy and Anthony Perez, likewise the brothers Lansigan, Ariel Villasenor, and Manny Mendoza, and in their coach Jon Mercado, also a high school classmate.

You realize the truth in what the ancient Latin poet Virgil wrote, "Fugit irreparabile tempus." Time flies irretrievably. Man is, after all, immersed in time – he is born, lives and dies within time – the alpha and the omega. You see time in the excitement in the eyes of the children who will in time be dribbling and running all over the hardcourt tomorrow, with their own children screaming and yelling for them. You see time in the strength of a friendship between two young couples today, Martin & Tania, and Gerard & Tessa who went all the way to Loyola to cheer for Martin. Indeed the inexorable passage of time!

Between the alpha and the omega is life to be nurtured and nourished, and with this in mind, let me tell you about a world-class facility, the M-Tech diagnostic and therapeutic center (M-Tech), an ambulatory clinic incorporated only recently, in July 2000, but already with a patient base that has gone beyond their projections.

I discovered a clinic of young medical practitioners with impressive credentials representing four major departments and their sub-specialties: Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics-Gynecology, and Pediatrics. Dr. Angelita T. Reyes, chairman of M-Tech’s mother corporation, the Makati Technical Healthcare & Mgt. Inc., very specifically mentioned that their objective in setting up this facility is to elevate the standards of medical practice in the Philippines and to provide young doctors with diplomates abroad a center equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment.

I met one of these doctors, gastro-enterologist Dr. Jaime Ignacio, young at 42 but already with a ten-year practice behind him. The venerable Dr. Ernesto Domingo, who takes care of my stomach aches, was abroad so Dr. Reyes told me to see Dr. Ignacio. He prescribed the right medicine and the patient is well.

As I entered the lobby and approached the reception area, I noticed the ambience which had the air of a first-class clinic in the US. Nurses in comfortable loose green tops and pants made sure that the patients were brought to the right offices of the doctors they wanted to see – businesslike as in the US but with the warmth of the Filipino. Jenny, a nice cardio-pulmonary nurse, led me to Dr. Raymond Vincent P. Jurilla, a young pulmonary specialist, who so expertly gave me a lecture on vertigo.

As I went back to the lobby, I saw Dr. Reyes talking to Dr. Julieta Javier, probably the only non-doctor specialist, but is equipped with a PhD and is a clinical diagnostic scientist from the US. Atty. Armando Laico, executive vice-president of the center, was with them, and, being a CPA-lawyer, runs the administrative aspect of the facility. Dr. Javier, with 38 years experience in the US, came back to head the diagnostic laboratory.

I remember having gone to the center upon its inauguration and blessing. Guests were shown around all floors of the facility, but I was not impressed then as I was last week when I visited it as a patient. The place was bustling with patients waiting in pleasant areas of the lobby and outside the rooms of the doctor-specialists. The place has a staff-complement of 166 experienced medical doctors, fellows and diplomates and 40 paramedical personnel who have been trained to handle even the most critical care needs of patients on an outpatient basis.

What I really was quite inquisitive about, because I had been informed by a friend about it, was the specialty of a Pain Clinic that has mastered the science of assuaging pain both acute and chronic. (To be continued)