May, 2006 Archive

when i was a little girl, i wished my mother was dead.

i didn’t want to kill her, i just wanted her to die. i vividly remember that when she leaves the house, i would wave goodbye, close my eyes and hope she will never come back. never ever.

i realize now that at a very young age of 7 or 8, this thought was morbidly disturbing. it was so violent, i usually try to deny it ever crossed my innocent mind.

but back then, it was a reasonable fantasy. imagine a place without pain. a place where i can be what i was…a child. my mother never gave me that chance. 

she expected us to do grown up things, like doing our share in increasing family income. we were expected to sell this and that, so we can make some money. no, she did not pimp us out to sell our boides, but i still thought that at 8, i should be playing with other girls my age rather than go around the block with a basket full of fishes, vegetables or fruits, balanced on my head, screaming at the top of my lungs, begging people to buy and help me.

she hated every single little mistake me and my sister made, and she was very creative in hurting us physically. she had this thing about blood. she would start hitting us for whatever reason, rip our clothes off, hit us mercilessly with whatever she can get her hands on, for what seemed like hours, nonstop, until she sees blood. she then leaves, only to be back in a few minutes, expecting us to be all dressed and composed, furious why we were still whimpering like little wounded cats in the corner, when we should be in the store smiling at the customers, so we could have some money.

it was all about money, and i didn’t really get it. forget humiliation and exhaustion, all she cared about was that we work, work, work. after all, we needed the money.

it was no surprise that i reached the point where tears were not enough and irrelevant. i taught myself  how to theoretically look physical pain in the eye, and stare at it with a strong resolve that it was nothing, that i was beyond it. while the beating was real, i would retreat to a world of make believe. a place where i was secured, happy, unhurt.

for years i hated her. i called her “Mama” out of fear, not out of love and respect.

i was a very angry girl, and i grew up to be a very angry young woman. there is no one and nothing that i cared about. i hated the world, i hated myself. and i suffered.

but hatred is tiresome and draining. years of being angry did not do me any good. it didn’t get me anywhere. i was alive, but was not really living. and i thought there must be something more. life must be more than what i had, it must be more than hatred.

“the unexamined life is not worth living”

determined to make my life worth living, i had to let go of my anger. i decided to figure out why people behave the way they do. why my mother behaved the way she did. if i find out, i’ll understand. if i understand, i can accept. if i accept, i can forgive. if i forgive, i can move on.

i read books on human behavior. from the simple ones to the complicated incomprehensible ones that made my head ache. i talked to people who knew. i tried to process every little thing, i tried to learn. two years of this and i thought i was ready.

the journey was anything but easy. it was always emotional, mostly exhausting. i cringed at the thought of communicating with her, but there was no other way. if i wanted closure and healing, i had to unmask her. trying to find out who my mother was, was difficult. difficult but possible.

she was a victim. given away by her parents to her aunt who was childless, she was never told why her, of all the seven children. never shown love by her real parents, she grew up convinced that she had no one but herself. she grew up not knowing how the whole love thing worked. uneducated and alone, marriage falsely promised her a sense of direction.

fifteen years, eight kids, and one miscarriage later, it must have dawned on her that the man she idealized as her knight, did not, and was unable and unwilling to rescue her. yet she moved on, for the sake of her children. she was left with the responsibility of making sure food was on the table, and was blinded by the imagined bliss he so eloquently professed. she was expected to be strong, and was not allowed to complain. she loved him with all her heart and was pushed to assume that that love was returned. she was fooled and was too naive to acknowledge it. she was disadvantaged, and was too devastated to make a change.

she was a very angry woman. no one cared for her. she hated the world. she hated herself. and she suffered.

she lashed out all her pain on us and on anybody she can get away with. i know there is no excuse for that. even the fact that she was ignorant about the nonphysical effects of physical abuse was not an excuse for her violence, but it is not fair to say she knew better. she didn’t know any better, and she did what she thought was best at that time.

knowing all these meant freedom. from resentment, from hatred. and although it took me years to finally get there, i did get to the point where i forgave her and saw everything on a different and clearer angle.

when i was living on my own and was able to buy her stuff, i would get her roses for mother’s day. she would look at the flowers uninterestingly and say: “what am i gonna do with those flowers, i can’t eat them…” i would smile at the lack of appreciation, because i knew that even weeks after the petals have fallen off, it still stayed in that empty coke bottle, and with pride, she would tell everybody that i gave it to her.

if hatred can be unlearned, love can be learned.

i learned to love her, and fondly called her “Mama”. although i still say it with a hint of pain, that my mother never kissed me till the day she passed, i do not take it against her. she grew up in a world devoid of love and affection, she never learned how to express her own. i understand that, and most of the times, it broke my heart. i would shower her with little kisses on my weekly visits, and she would wipe her face, telling me off for acting like a little girl. i would smile at the lack of emotion, because i knew that in her heart she wished she could do the same.

some people think mother’s day is a scam. a lame excuse for hallmark and flower shops to increase their profit. i’m sure there is some truth to that, but i can’t totally agree.

for me, mother’s day is a great way to remember. not only my mom, but the things she taught me. her strength and determination to keep all of her children alive, no matter what the cost, even if she has to do it mostly on her own. it was the kind of strength and determination that put us where we all are today. it was the kind of devotion that inspire us to be better as parents. and it was her love, uniquely expressed or unexpresed, that made her the best mother in the world.

if i could, i would bring roses to her grave on mother’s day, even though it will only wither and die. i would stand there and tell her it was silly of me to wish her dead when i was a little girl. i would tell her i would do anything to have her back. if i could.

but i can’t.

so i will celebrate this mother’s day thinking of her. and i will think of all the mothers out there, who are giving all of themselves everyday, those who are doing their best all the time, even if their kids don’t appreciate or understand it.

i will celebrate this day, and wish that just like every self sacrifing devoted mother, like my Mama was, i can be the best mother to my little ones.

she apologized a couple of times. she asked if i could pass it on to all the nurses she yelled at, that she was extremely sorry.

i said okay and asked her if she needed anything else. she kept mumbling her apologies.

i closed the door behind me and thought of how extremely irrelevant her apologies were. i mean, this woman was screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs when nurses tried to check her. as far as i’m concerned, it was not really what she said, but how she said it. people curse or swear all the time. she took it to a higher level by screaming inappropriately, making it clear that she hated the idea of us being there, because we were there to make her life miserable.

i was a resource nurse (no patient list, just helping everybody with anything and everything) last sunday night. i went to her room to check why the alarm of the IV pump was going off. i told her i will try to flush her IV line to see if i can make it work. “all of you, all you do is come here and poke, and poke, and poke, and i’m sick of it!”

it would have been understandable if i was actually poking her, or if she was confused and cannot tell the difference between poking her from just flushing her IV line, but she was totally with it. i turned off the IV pump, and told her nurse to deal with it, i was not going back to her room again, i needed to talk to myself.

i gave it to her. she has the right to be mad. there was no reason for her to be nice. she is in her early 30s, her breast cancer has metastasized to her spine, and the prognosis is poor. the doctors will operate, but there is no assurance. she is scared that she will not wake up from the surgery, and she is terrified at the idea of her one year old daughter growing up, not knowing her mother.  there is no way you can take that information sitting down, with a big smile on your face. i totally get that. she has a legitimate reason to feel like a total crap.

what i didn’t get was the rudeness. it was very unnerving.

when she apologized, i stood there. emotionless at first, then this overwhelming sense of arrogance overtook me. i thought to myself, “sorry sister, but words are cheap, and sorry isn’t good enough.”

i didn’t see her the remaining hours of the shift, as planned. driving home, i was amazed at the fact that i was such a bitch, and although i tried, i wasn’t really able to figure out why in my mind, i was so mean and unforgiving to this patient. i slept it off and hoped that i can make things better the next night.

she came back from surgery at about 9 pm that monday. the nurse assigned to her gave  up on the pain issues. she has given the maximum doses of pain medicine on top of the PCA (patient controlled analgesia) doses, but the patient was still in severe, excruciating pain. she was screaming nonstop while waiting for the doctor to come. i thought this was the perfect time to redeem myself and make things better. i went to her room, and  saw her writhing in pain, almost falling off the side of the bed, crying. i didn’t really know what to do or say, so i stood there for a few seconds, speechless. when she realized i was there, she asked me to “call the f#%&*ng doctor!”

i left her room after saying “okay”, thinking it wasn’t that easy to make things better after all. i asked the charge nurse if there was something we can do to help her.

“I don’t know May, it is really very challenging to manage that patient’s pain because she has been using heroin for a few years now. i already talked to the doctor, and he is on his way.”

that little piece of information jolted me. it was very untimely. i was just tyring to get my act together, trying to be a little more understanding. trying to be nonjudgmental.

tried to be nonjudgmental. and failed miserably.

it was hard, and i can only take so much. i didn’t see her the remaining hours of the shift, as planned. i had this nagging, insensitive idea that she  deserved every bit of pain she was experiencing, and that feeling made me uncomfortable. it was such a mean, heartless thought, but i won’t lie to deny it.

i am now a certified bitch and i don’t even know where to start so i can fix myself.

it is quite hard to be a good nurse in certain situations. and the more i think about it, the more i realize that some patients make it even harder.

i need help. and honestly, i don’t know where to get it.

i was pretty sure he wasn’t bleeding, but i still needed to check.

he made a sound which i interpreted as “yes”. i lifted his gown slowly, so i can take a closer look at his groin, where his newly inserted temporary dialysis catheter was placed.

bart simpson’s many faces greeted me. his proverbial yellow, saw toothed hair sticking out from his huge head made me smile. his smiles, mischievous and mocking, covered the dialysis catheter site. i thought he was talking to me, and i believed he said something funny.

i had to excuse myself, or else, i would have laughed uncontrollably.

then i realized, there must be something wrong with me. what is so funny about a 40 year old guy wearing a bart simpson boxers? nothing.

it’s a free country, there is no law that says only little boys wear a bart simpson boxers.

so please, if you see me in a “dora the explorer” pink underwear, i will not tolerate even a repressed, shy giggle. i don’t want you laughing. i don’t want you smiling. i don’t want to spell it out to you that it is not funny.

go ahead, wipe that smile off your face. don’t embarass yourself just like i did.

if you allow them, they will sleep on the floor. if there is a space in the room, they will lay their blankets there and make themselves comfortable. it is not unusual to see a daughter or a son of a patient sleeping under the patient’s bed. this is a common picture of a hospital room back home. filipinos believe and feel that their presence makes a huge difference in the comfort and healing of their loved ones, and in most instances, i totally agree. of course, there are those who make some patients’ lives more miserable, but they are a minority.

in the philippines, most of the hospitals, (with the exception of ICUs) allow one family “watcher” per patient. they can stay at the bedside 24/7. if the patient doesn’t want to be disturbed, and wants his privacy, it’s his decision. if they might interfere with any patient care, they are asked to leave for a period of time, and will be called once the procedure is done.

i see the disadvantages in this kind of situation for the nurses. the lack of space, the lack of privacy, the awkward stares and glances whenever you do, or not do something to the patient. there are times when the family gets more difficult to handle than the patient. the hassles of approaching the watcher to leave everytime you need something.

on the other hand, there are undeniable advantages. it lessens fear and stress. when you are sick, you get anxious, afraid that something you cannot handle will happen to you. it doesn’t matter if you are going to have a brain or heart surgery, or you got a  case of the simple, common flu. when you are in an unfamiliar place like the hospital, your anxiety doubles. when somebody you know is just a look away, you feel a sense of security.

i welcome the presence of a family member in my patient’s room most of the times. the only times i hate it, is when the  family member is a medical professional who cannot keep his mouth shut about the things that he would do if his mom/dad is in “their” hospital. those nagging questions with that condescending tone always get to my nerves.

anyway, i have been here for over four years now, and i am still learning the american way. i admit there are habits i need to break. there are rules i need to follow.

i always ignore visiting times, and i’m pretty sure this will soon get me into trouble. i let patients’ family overstay, illegally, so to speak. especially if the patient has no roomate. i don’t remind them to leave even if visiting time ended an hour ago. it makes me feel comfortable that my patient appears secure. my blatant disregard for the visiting time policy is even worse when my patient is over 70 years old. my heart goes out for these older people who are terrified by the fact that they are not home.

the charge nurses are getting tired of reminding me to be strict about the visiting time. other nurses are tired of reminding my patients’ family that it is time for them to leave.

and i am tired of being reminded. i’m also tired of seeing my patients’ family being reminded. i think the “11 am to 8 pm only” visiting time policy stinks, and implementing it strictly is ridiculous.

what do i need to do to let them know that i do it on purpose? that i do not ask people to leave, not because i don’t know the policy, but because i don’t want them to leave?

i don’t want to take away that little sense of security that i will never be able to give my patient no matter how nice or caring i am. i don’t want to take away that sense of peace i see in my patients’ faces, even in their sleep, when they are aware that someone is holding their hand.

i am stubborn and i need to be written up. if i don’t get my annual raise because i do not follow this policy, maybe that will put sense into my head. maybe.

either that, or why don’t we just call this policy stupid, then change it?