Taking things for granted

It’s often said you never realize what you have until you lose it.

Since suffering an impacted fracture of my forearm last July 14 in a home accident, I’ve been trying to survive without the use of my left hand and believe me, it hasn’t been easy.

Just typing copy on a computer is an ordeal. I’ve had to rely on my right hand exclusively to knock down keys, using my index finger to strike the buttons and my thumb to hit the space bar. To depress the shift key, I put a pencil in my mouth and point the eraser head on the button. With a slight nudge of my head, the eraser head pushes on the shift key and my right hand does the rest. Try it when you’re not busy so you can imagine what I’m going through. What takes me an hour to finish typing now takes me two.

My daughter Cristina can’t believe how proficient I’ve become with a pencil in my mouth in four weeks. She’s thinking of putting a photo of me doing the trick on my facebook page.

I’ve seen a beggar on the sidewalk of the Sucat overpass without hands and feet somehow blowing on a harmonica held up by a prop attached to his arms and legs. Pedestrians take pity and drop some money in a can beside his sitting spot. The man wears a hat and you wonder how he fixes it on his head. He sits on a wooden flat slab with four wheels, his means of transportation.

With my left arm and hand immobilized in a sling, I think of how lucky I am that I can still use my right hand and that I’m right-handed – reflecting on the man with no hands and feet.

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I think how inconsequential it is that I’m not able to tie my shoelaces, that I’m down to wearing only slip-ons to avoid complications, that I can’t floss unless I use this hard-to-use short string tied to a C-shaped plastic device with a handle that doubles as a toothpick, that I can’t slice my meat during meals, that I can’t scrub my right arm, that I can’t strap a watch on my right wrist, that I can’t shoot a basketball straight (I need the left hand to hold the ball with my right hand while putting up a shot even if the release is just with the right hand), that I can’t play squash and that I can’t sleep in bed the way I used to. The man with no hands and feet doesn’t even bother thinking about those trivialities – which brings me to the point of consolation.

No matter my infirmity, I’m still blessed by retaining the use of my right hand. It’s all about appreciating what you’ve got and not moping about what you don’t have. We sometimes take things for granted. Like the parents whom you know will always be there for you until one day, they’re gone. Then, you regret not having spent enough quality time with them when they were alive. Like your two hands until you meet an accident and lose the use of one or both, temporarily or otherwise.

When you suffer an accident, like I did, it’s a timely reminder for us to thank the Lord for what He has given us, not to curse the darkness for our misfortune. The gift of life was given to us by God. We wouldn’t even be on this planet without Him so to sometimes wonder why of all people, we are chosen to suffer this or that malady is such a selfish thought. Instead, let us thank God that we are still able to function to the best of our ability, accident or not. Let us remind ourselves that there are others in the world, without hands and feet, not even thinking about someday tying their own shoelaces because it will never happen.

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I broke my forearm at the height of storm Basyang in the backyard of our home last July 14. It was early morning, about 5:45 a.m., when I was clearing the drains of leaves in the corridor beside our kitchen. Strong winds stripped trees of leaves in our street and the rains swept them to the drains, clogging the passage and causing water to seep into our home. As I walked barefoot to unclog the drains, I slipped on a puddle of water and broke the fall with my left hand.

Dr. Ilustre (Bong) Guloy, chairman of orthopedics at the Asian Hospital, performed surgery on my forearm last July 17. He inserted five pins to keep the dislocated bones back in place in a 30-minute procedure that went like clockwork. I thought I could still do some of the things I did with my left hand before the accident and when I did, my bones moved. X-rays later showed I had abused my limited mobility in the forearm. So patiently, Dr. Guloy suggested several options to repair the damage. If left alone, the forearm would “heal” improperly, creating a slight deformity but allowing full functionality. I decided on the option of a second surgery, this time promising Dr. Guloy absolute immobilization of my left hand.

Dr. Guloy performed the second surgery last Aug. 5. He put in six pins on the side of my left wrist and what looks like a nail on top of the hand as an additional piece to hold the bones in place. The procedure took about an hour. Dr. Guloy had to readjust the settling bones to where they should be before putting in the screws. As in the first operation, I had general anesthesia.

The other day, I was in Dr. Guloy’s office for a check-up with my latest X-rays. I can’t almost begin to describe the feeling of a patient when you see your doctor smiling after reviewing your X-rays. All I can say was it felt good. My wife Menchu, who has never left my side in the 33 years we’ve been married, saw it in my eyes – I owe a large part of my recovery to her. The X-rays showed the bones were in place and the healing was in progress. I wasn’t just relieved. I knew I would try never to take things for granted again. I said a prayer of thanks to God.