The patient in Room 8
The patient in Room 8 - Feyan Jing Pulmano
The Fall My insides were mangled. Hunger rippled in my stomach, only to be numbed by the sleep that never really came. I can't remember how many days I've been like this. I guess this is now the fifth day. The hospital halls come across as whitewashed tombs when I slowly walk through them. I've memorized every bend and turn to the toilet. Watching over my father night and day before took all my energy, but if needed, I would move the world to summon up more. I felt a strange mixture of fatigue and alertness like a fox. I am glad. My heart is saturated with peace at my father's current condition, but a jarring flashback reminded me that I was far from feeling like this five days ago. I finally had a real conversation with my cousin Don Don. He is fifteen now and was telling me his dreams of working abroad. The debut party of my niece was slowly coming to an end. People finished up their conversations and their body movements betrayed their desire of going home. The music was bad - I expected at least some dance music so people would enjoy the
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dance floor. Instead, came rock music that was a crappy cover of old school songs like the musical Annie's 'Tomorrow'. In the hope of seeing some hiphop or r&b songs in the playlist, I glanced at the computer screen. Suddenly, something assaulted the floor with a loud, unexpected bang. Some idiot must have knocked down a vase or a folding table, I thought. But the world stopped for me alone when I saw what fell on the floor. I could feel my gaze slowly pass by the surrounding onlookers and I strained to look. Then all breath left me. My father lay motionless on the floor. My legs moved like a tightly wound spring; they bolted towards my father. My ears picked up my mother's terrifying screams - screams I will never forget. My father was surrounded by four people, one trying to see if he was still breathing. As I stood there next to him someone shouted that he had no pulse. The fear built up inside at that moment and my mind overloaded. Out of sheer desperation I quickly rearranged my thoughts to become useful somehow. I recall someone saying 911 at the time, so I used my inner megaphone to shout that someone call an ambulance. My younger brother Pom emerged from the crowd and I told him in a controlled voice to call my sister Shane and her friend Pascal. Then I shouted above the crowd if they could form a prayer group in the corner. Back at my father's side a young man was hovering over him - a cousin who's a nurse. I felt the spark of hope. Some people then said a small hospital outpost wasn't far off, so they began carrying my father to the car. It took six men to lift my father off the ground and move him to the parking lot. Once there my family quickly entered, my uncle at the wheel with sweat coursing down his forehead like a raging waterfall. Each person in the car was praying for one thing that my father would live. The motionless hand of my father was in mine, and I choked back tears as I told him reassuring things that were more for me than for him. I needed to hear that he was going to make it, that he had to fight hard. Within minutes we arrived at the hospital outpost and nurses rushed my father inside on a stretcher. Once in an emergency room they quickly closed the curtains. Seeing the
The patient in Room 8 curtains closed caught my breath since on the one hand I wanted to watch, but on the other I knew they needed privacy to work their best. They couldn't deal with overemotional family members and at the same time save my father. But from a small slit in the curtain I saw them trying to revive my father, pumping his chest to get his lifegiving breath back. The moments in that small corridor were agonizing, the wait a torture. My mother, sister and younger brother looked like ghosts, only staring forward and sometimes shooting a glance towards the closed curtain. More family members arrived and took their place near my mother and others filled the hallway. My uncles walked the halls and the entrance door back and forth, no doubt thinking back on how they lost three brothers in the past and praying for dear life that they would not lose another. Prayers and tears flowed simultaneously as everyone prepared themselves for any sign of life. My mother was shaking and losing her color as she constantly wetted her face towel to cool off her head and neck. For some months now she suffered from hyperventilation and my father's collapse only made it worse. I waited with arms around her, trying to convince her that pa would make it - that God would not let him die. To me it also felt like the corridor was filled with unnecessary nurses and I had to bite back my irritation at seeing some of them joke and laugh as if they were at a party. The doctor finally came out and told us my father's pulse was back but it was very unstable. Once it was strong enough they would move him to a larger hospital since the outpost didn't have the necessary equipment. Roughly an hour later my father was put in an ambulance on its way to the closest hospital - Makati Medical Center. Only my mother and I fit inside so Shane and the rest would meet up with us later. In the ambulance I comforted my mother with things that we could do when pa would get better, like eat healthy (90% greens) and exercise more. His days of eating steaks and pork chops were over - not that we ate that anyways. With an unsteady hand I opened a pack of crackers, hoping to get her to eat something. She thankfully took three and
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said, "Jing, you must be strong for us because I can't be strong right now." I put my arms around her and gazed at nothing in particular. My response came in one breath, "I'll be strong." Fighting for his life The ambulance screeched as it weighed the pavement at Makati Med's entrance. The place seemed like a lighthouse surrounded by darkness. The inside lights of the hospital shone outside like a beacon for all who sought help. Nurses and a security guard helped to roll the stretcher out and into the hospital's emergency room. My mother and I rushed behind the stretcher, afraid to lose sight of it and even more afraid for what would happen next. The emergency room stank of antiseptic and medicine. Nurses and doctors quickly positioned my father so he could again be resuscitated. Wires of all kinds were stuck into him and moments later machines were monitoring every bodily function. Pa's heart rate was weak and his pulse barely noticeable. Nurses noted a lethal blood pressure level and put all their efforts into keeping him alive. Could I only somehow make sense of all the numbers and little bleeping sounds. Doctors came up to my mother and I to ask for all sorts of information about Pa. The first questions were easy, even for me. What happened, what time did it happen, how did he fall, was he eating anything at the time, how old is he, does he have any allergies. It was a good thing my mother kept her head clear to answer all the questions because to me the last questions were a blur. My eyes and thoughts kept darting towards my father, hooked up and fighting to stay with us. My stomach began to roil and knot as the tension rose with every passing minute. Finally Shane, Pascal, Pom and my uncles and aunt stormed in the ER and saw for themselves how my father was doing. Minutes passed and more doctors and nurses went into the small space were my father lay with eyes closed, showing no sign of life save tiny rises and falls of his chest. We all sat and stood, hands folded, almost
The patient in Room 8 entranced at what was happening. To our horror, his heart stopped again. The monitor showed only lines and lines. Doctors and nurses frantically tried all their revival techniques from CPR to chest pumping. His heartbeat shot back into him and the line cracked a little. My family watched and waited, all this time I think no one took a breath because at any moment my father could breathe his last. A seizure crashed into his body like a thunderstorm, tearing and ripping his insides with every aggressive shake. It seemed as if the same seizure hit everyone one of us, since we felt the incredible pain, maybe even more than he did. Tears wouldn't stop flowing from my eyes and I didn't know where to put my hands. They went from cross-armed to prayed-folded, from clenched tight to covering my face with only small slits between my fingers so my sight would never leave pa. Once again his heart failed him, letting him fall into a void of death and nothingness. The lines on the monitor were back again and so were the doctors. They brought out the defibrillator and before I saw them use it, the curtain suddenly closed. I blinked away tears to quickly asses what that meant. My mind told me the worse had come. The hated curtains were before us again and all we could do was listen and hope and pray for a miracle. My brother was down on his knees pleading to God, begging with all his might to intervene. My sister was in a still shock. Her friend Pascal kept walking from outside to the inside, undoubtedly also wrestling with his thoughts. My aunt held my mother so close I feared she would suffocate her. My mother apparently didn't feel the squeeze. Her face betrayed agony beyond imagination, a sight I wish no one to ever see. And I was in the most horrid position of all, trying to stay strong when all I wanted to do was scream and cry and blame this on someone. I heard the doctors shouting orders to nurses, to bring them this and that, to stand clear when the defibrilator was going to hit. The bleeping sounds became an orchestra and the room started to dissapear. All the other beds and patients faded away, their faces melting in the white blur of my teary
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eyes. I heard the bed shake again and muffled sounds became grunts and coughs. Another seizure was gripping my father, not wanting to release his heartbeat. I looked at my sister and brother again, wanting to say something encouraging, something that would give them hope. But the words caught in my throat and I realized that nothing I could say would matter. Maybe they couldn't even hear me, so focused were their gazes at the curtain that not even the roaring of a passing steamtrain would break their concentration. Again a feeling of hopelessness washed over me. I could do nothing. With my skills, all my talents, every 'so called' achievement in my life, were worthless against this invisible, invincible enemy. But I knew a God who was greater and to Him I began my ragged prayers again. My thoughts stretched out to everything I knew about prayers. That they should be precise, be honest, from the heart, focussed to God alone, and be full of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving! In my mind I laughed a hysterical laugh at the thought of thanksgiving at that moment. How could I say thanks to God if there was nothing yet to be thankful for. I knew I should say thanks, but what for?? My father was flatlining at that very moment! Then I brought back everything I knew about God's will in connection to prayer. we could pray all we wanted but in the end it was all up to God's will. I wanted a miracle and I prayed for it, as hard as I could. I could feel my knees buckling from the pain of fatigue and anxiety but I ordered them to stay upright and up they stayed. Save my father, I prayed. Do your miracle this day please. We lived our entire lives as your servants, you sent us out, we shared your gospel and your love. We followed your calling and obeyed even when it hurt. We even went to Holland upon your command and lived there for 13 years and finally were sent back home with almost nothing. My emotions mixed and moaned. I tried so hard to be thankful, thought of being married to Rocelie, but the negative thoughts were overcoming the positive ones. I wasn't with her now was I? We were faithful for 13 years weren't we? Why couldn't we stay in Holland were we built up our lives?!! And now to top it off my
The patient in Room 8 father is going to die?! Anger overtook me, rage overwhelmed me and my mind became a furious cauldron of blame. Then I reminded myself that God has a reason for all of it. I knew that but at that moment all reason was meaningless if my father was lost. I didn't care for anything at that moment, only the return of my father. A pause set in. A quiet moment ushered itself in the room. The curtains parted for a brief second and a sturdy nurse came out to speak to us. Her tone of voice was calm and respectful, but even her years of professional nursing could not hide her hidden message. She said my father had suffered multiple cardiac-arrests, resulting in the many revival attempts of the doctors. His heartbeat was back but extremely weak and could fall out again at any moment. My uncle asked in a broken voice what his chances were. The nurse showed hesitation and spoke in words that betrayed her fear. She said because of the many seizures, my father's heart had become severely weakened and that the doctors couldn't maintain reviving him forever. When it gets to this point she said, his condition will deteriorate from here. She said she couldn't give any chance because nothing is sure. That was just another way of saying it's hopeless. When her words sank in, all hope I had, maybe from praying and being filled somehow from the Holy Spirit, spilled out of me like a bucket of water tipping over. Sheer desperation kicked in and quickly evolved into a mad panic. I suddenly realized, my father is going to die, really die, not flatline and come back, but flatline and never wake up. And this woman in front of me is death's messenger. When I was thinking all this, the next words of the woman never reached my ears. So clogged they were of the panic sirens in my mind. Later on my mother told me what the lady said. She asked my mother if they could stop reviving my father. She then asked if he believed in God and if they could bring in a priest to give him a final blessing before he left this world. My mother was enraged that the woman would ask such a thing but she kept her feelings under controle. She told them to keep on doing their job. My father was a christian and we were all still praying for him. My mother told the woman boldly
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that we still believed in miracles, so they had better continue their job. Again the woman betrayed her feelings of heartfailure and told us that we should prepare ourselves. In the moments of wild desperation and just when I almost gave up hope, a flicker of courage awoke within me. I told the woman that I wanted to be there with my father, even though it was not allowed. I demanded to be with him in his last moments and pray for him. In my heart I held fast to the miracle that if I could maybe reach out to pa, to tell him to fight, to tell him not to give up, that that would be enough to bring him back. God's words had to reach his heart somehow. So I insisted to be with him. The nurse warned me that I may not be able to handle the things I would see the doctors doing to his body. But I told her I could handle it. I would be strong enough. The curtain closed again but this time I was on the inside observing everything. Nurses surrounded him in a sea of blue and the doctor tightly held a defibrilator. I closed my eyes as they used it on my father, hearing their counting in my head. Even with my eyes closed I could still see somehow. The bed shook as the power of electric shock surged through my father's lifeless body. Still nothing. All I wanted to do at that moment was to be right beside him, shouting in his ear to come back. Somehow in the deep crevices of my mind I clung to the hope that if he could hear me, he would know he was not alone and derive his strength enough to come back. But the nurses seemed so many and the doctors blocked every single way to him. I was helpless again, forced to watch in my mental hanging. In a split second I was back again in front of the gates of heaven pleading for my father's life to God Almighty. Why was he letting this happen?! We served, we love, we gave, we sacrificed. This couldn't be happening. My body trembled in a cold sweat but at the same time a burning nausea was building up, ready to swallow me whole. Maybe it was all a horrid dream. A figment of my imagination? But it felt so real. I wanted so much to wake up back in my bed in Holland, and seeing my father downstairs
The patient in Room 8 reading his Bible in the livingroom table. Reality used its strangling pull to jerk me back to the present, reminding me that this was happening before my very eyes. Another electric shock jolted life back into him, only to lose it seconds later. This torture was unbearable and the gates of heaven stayed closed. God was silent. I didn't feel a hint of Him there, only panic and desperation. Again I prayed, or better yet, cried out with all that was within me to God. "Don't let this happen God, not here, not now. Don't take my father away from me. I'll do anything, I'll give anything. Forgive me for al my complaining in the past, but just grant me this one thing. Save pa, please oh God. Aren't I your child? Didn't You say You loved me? So don't I also have some rights? Can't claim anything too? Give me back my father! Then my words switched to my father. I knew he couldn't hear me if I actually shouted it but perhaps his spirit could hear me. I begged God to let pa hear my spirit crying out to him. "Pa, don't you give up. Don't you dare leave us. We need you. Fight pa, fight even though it's hopeless. Fight for us you hear me!" The knowledge of God's will shot into my thoughts. Nothing happened without a reason. God must be behind this. His will is unbreakable. Once He sets His will on something, it will come to pass. Then a horrendous thought came forth. What if it is His will for my father to die now? No, please no. That realization almost killed me on the spot. But I wouldn't accept it. I bound my soul, spirit, will and heart and refused this. With all respect but at that moment I could not accept my father's fate. "God no, I know Your will be done, and pray You let Your will be done but please, let Your will be that he lives. Change it oh God, grant my request and give him another life to live." All these words were said in minutes as the doctors pounded my father's chest. His eyes
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were still closed, his legs rocked by the thunderpunches they dropped on his chest. Then it came. That sweet sound of a a bleeping heartbeat. The line cracked, and cracked, and kept cracking. It was small but no amount of tears in my eyes could blur my sight to hinder me from seeing the sign that my father lived. I realised I had not taken a single breath and finally took some air in. I continued praying until the heartbeat became steadier. After a few minutes I came out of the curtains to rejoin my family. They still were the same, not knowing what had happened. I nodded a small nod, as if saying, he's ok but nothing is for sure. The hours after that felt like walking a tightrope. A single mistake would plunge you into a neverending fall. But my father walked the rope and made it to the end. God was holding his shoulders keeping him from falling. My father had died several times that night. The nurses pronounced clinical death several times but God conquered death for pa. I don't know what pa was experiencing in the world between life and death but I know for sure he felt God, maybe even had a glimpse. The sea of blue dispersed and after three, maybe four hours they left pa alone on the ER bed alive. At around 6am, the ER attendants were getting ready for Papa be transferred to the Medical ICU. I thanked God that night. Countless times. But it's not enough for what He did. Not nearly enough. He answered our prayers, not only mine but all of our prayers, from my family to our other relatives. Some had never even met us and some had not seen my father in 23 years. Yet one night, one tragedy was enough to bring us all together.
Not letting go I walked back from the toilet to the Intensive Care room where my father was moved and sleeping peacefully. His room is beautiful. A simple clean, white room, just big enough for him to rest and have maybe one or two family members stay by his side. I took my place beside him and felt his forehead. A bit warm. But it's no big worry. I knew God had done another miracle in our lives and the
The patient in Room 8 miracle slept in the freshly made bed before me. The nurses were really doing a great job and the doctors were said to be the best in the hospital but in my opinion, they might as well have been the best in the world. His heartrate is almost normal, his bloodpressure dropping everyday. The respiratormachine still gives him air, but only 30%. The other 70% he's doing all himself. His food came in through a tube connected to a little bag handing above his head. Must taste awful, perhaps a little sweet chilly saus would help? My brother Pom also had a thought! What would Papa's food taste like? I smiled and wondered what he was dreaming about. His hair harbored more gray hairs these days but it made him look all the wiser. His big meaty, engineer hands lay still but I knew one day soon they would be holding a hammer, or a wrench, or a crosshead screwdriver. The engine had not yet been invented that my father could not fix. My father, the engineer who became a seaman, the seaman who became a father, the father who became a missionary, and the missionary who became a peacebuilder. God wasn't done with him yet. He would give my father many more years of servitude which pa would serve willingly and joyfully. I always struggled with the question of pain. If there is a loving God, then why does He allow pain? Well, I can't answer that fully but what I can tell you is a story of a man who suffered multiple cardiac arrests, almost lost his life, unwent a gruesome recovery period (you try breathing through a tube day and night) and almost lost his world altogether. But because of his pain, my family came closer together. Family members who had never seen each other for 23 years are coming together. We learned to keep hope alive, endure longer, pray harder. This pain gives not only my father, but our entire family a true story to share to others about a gift being given to us - the gift of life. And most of all, maybe most importantly of all, our faith has been tested and through trial hardship has brought us closer to God. Thank you Jesus for letting us go through this. Thank you Lord for not letting us go.
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"I will never leave you, nor forsake you. I will let my face shine upon you and give you peace."
By Feyan Pulmano October, 2009