Bonding Quest at San Isidro Cave

 “The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Prologue:

          May 31, 2011, I was so bored and I thought it would be better for me to do something during my indefinite break from my nursing career. For like reason, I went to Boac (capital town of Marinduque) to apply as a volunteered nurse at the provincial hospital. (This is the price I have to pay for resigning early at Lourdes Hospital. Just a jest! I love being a nurse!)…I thought, the process will transpire easily and quickly but it is far beyond what  I expected. I got a little disappointed as it will take a week or so. Fortunately, an old friend of mine (Kia Recalde) with her non-living girlfriend (Kisses as she named her camera) was there to accompany me. Since I was a little upset, she shared an eye-popping tsismis which in the end landed in a serious sensible conversation.  During our conversation, we came up with an idea of visiting the hot spots in our province. One of them is San Isidro cave which is completely undeveloped. I branded it as “the untouchable place”. We eventually planned our escape. Seeing its remarkable cave is a must! I've been lucky enough to bumped into her and got that shotgun lakad  - mga biglaang lakad talaga na laging natutuloy. So the next day, I prepared myself for the quest!

June 1, 2011, at around 530am, I left Torrijos and went home to Masiga. That was almost two hours travel. I felt tired but excitement welcomed me so I started to pack my things. I  started my journey  at 830am by going to Poblacion  ng Boac to meet my friend. I stayed at their house and rested for a piece.  But then, a little charming hamster  caught my attention (as in lababol talaga sya). I secretly opened the cage  to cuddle IT…IT just turned out to be a monster!! That little creature bit me which led to  superficial bleeding. Ouchy!!! (stupid me, hindi na ko magpapadeceive sa mga cuties talaga.tsk!) 

            So the escapade started...

Load yourself first before the journey begins, Miss Kia Recalde

We went to paradahan ng jeep going to Sta.cruz (travel time: 1hour and 15min kasama na lay over episodes with matching S and Z roads that made me feel nauseated that I almost puked)…

...then again another ride from Poblacion ng Sta. Cruz to Brgy. San Isidro (taking that rocky road with potholes and many curves and countless stop-over = another one hour trip)...

Two friends with one goal!

smile!! kahit sobrang init at sikip sa jeep!! 

Pwede...pwede talaga...haha! Peace!

indulged myself with ice cream!! yum yum!!!

The body of this banana gave up in carrying its enormously large fruit - it just simply  captured our attention.

This path leading to Kapitan Manuba's house.

…and a little walk  (almost 30 min) to reach the house of the Barangay captain (who was our tour guide). Many many thanks to Kapt. Porfirio Manuba. We couldn’t  have made it if  not for your effort and patience. echos!... Since it’s a duo journey with two tour guides, it’s a bit pricey with Php250 each compared to php100 each if we’re many (let’s say 5-6 in a group) . Well, I didn’t mind the price just to feel the worth of our very long and tedious journey…

Another long walk...

I'm playing with my balinghoy leaf...

 Road to Pardition! joke...

"Ang mga Batang Pari at ang Kalikasan"  karatula

The San Isidro Cave blueprint and oh, si Kapitan!

Yeah boy!! almost there!

This is it!! 

…At last! We reached the cave (as far as I remember, it was already 1230 afternoon when we started exploring the spectacular cave).

Now we go to the main story. Pictures will tell it all…

         What do I expect from this cave expedition? Cold, dark, a bit scary that would mean a very exciting moment of my life and of Kia’s. This, I expect, will be LEGEND…wait for it, wait for it… DARY! LEGENADRY!! Haha!  

 From cavern opening to the underground's dark amazing space.

View from within the underground 

As we walked through the cave, we saw this amazing rock formation...papunta pa alang kami ganda na agad ng view! :)

Going beyond my expectation...ooohh! spooky!

A Servant of Life (St. Jude unit experience)

an inspiring poem from Sister Visencia dedicated to all nurses

Every memory about my stressful work flashed back into my mind. Exposure to agony of seeing death, empathizing terminally ill patients, dealing with relatives of patient full of demands and complaints, choking with workloads, no eating and bladder break during a more than eight hour shift (as usual), thoughts like “may pagkakamali kaya ako?” “may kulang kaya ako?” or “geez! May nakalimutan ako iendorse!” followed by an immediate text or call to the taking over nurse, transfusing blood products which always jeopardize a nurse’s licence and finally, during code time when patients' relatives become very aggressive – my initial response is… and I think, will always be the big word PANIC then I’ll go berserk, dunno what to do and tell myself “crap, why is this happening to me!”  or “God, really!! Whatta _____!” or simply “Pucha talaga  o! Di pa ko tapos sa isa may dumagdag na naman” . Oh, there’s another one – “Takte, sobrang delayed na IV/ IV meds ko, ano  na ba talaga uunahin ko!”  But thank God, there are always good  nurses, nursing aides and excellent doctors!

Super busy except to my senior :) peace! I love`you Ma'am Angel!

The happy times with my St. Jude family

Sister Vicencia at the center - our mentor, our adviser

A smile on a face wouldn't hurt while on night duty

My last day of work at St. Jude unit

Actually, there are more stories to share that will quantify how awful nurse I am and how horribly I felt not being a service champion. Tons of stories and few should remain secret! 
But there were also instances that made me smile. The night parties and laugh sessions with colleagues, appreciation and sense of gratitude coming from some nice patients, orienting  foreign patients about the room and hospital policies (certainly my English fluency and spontaneity is well practiced when they’re around) and once, I almost handled a father of a well-known actor (wala lang, namuling lang ako),  having rounds with consultants (learned a lot from them), encountering different cases of patients especially those confidential ones and felt like I was their special agent not to reveal their diagnosis, sense of bayanihan when coding 2 to 3 patients simultaneously or consecutively, learning to prepare intravenous medications and knowing what they’re for, predicting some resident’s or consultant’s order (coz I got used to what they wrote, though predicting is truly hazardous), correcting doctor's order once in a while, seeing smiles on patients’ faces when they’re discharge and most of all, realizing how amazing it is to save someone’s life after putting our best in doing the cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the possibility of seeing critically ill patients getting better and better each day. Though some were unfortunate but life must go on and healing must continue physiologically or emotionally. 

my St. Joseph family 

Oh what a good start for a tremendously tedious shift!

Sister Vicencia, Ma'am Norie, Ma'am Hydee, Ma'am Iya (my buddy), Ma'am Rchel and our youngest 

and constantly charming charge nurse-Sister Venus

Through tough moments, never forget to beam :)

Our first night swimming 

Sing along with OLLH colleagues 

Post dinner at Mall of Asia 

I am absolutely not perfect.  I always see myself as a newbie, not mature enough to handle life-and-death situations. Decision making is not my forte and I have a slight difficulty in tailoring my profession. (Perhaps, I’m just scared to grasp the possible promotion of being a senior nurse.) 
I must admit, I'm still scared to work overseas. There's always this tremendous fear in me to see someone struggling in my hand. (still wondering why I suddenly let OLLH go but no regrets at all) On second thought, I’m very grateful to be in the medical field - the glory of witnessing how life is being delivered (talking about fetus to newborn) and the trauma of seeing how it's taken away. I started to appreciate the phrase “patience is a virtue” and I've learned to approach most of my patients and their loved ones holistically.  Perhaps, my profession is the most overwhelming, tedious and stressful part of my life, yet I find it the noblest, heroic, astounding…actually, there is no word to compare being a nurse. Nurse is just simply a verb, full of action! 

Dra. Gadia - one of the humblest and most approachable resident I've known

Christmas Eve with Dra. Afos...( I've never seen her angry ever! or if she does, she still looks adorable. Surely, Dr. Arboleda wanna hit on her...peace!!) with Ma'am Kim and Ma'am Jess

Dra.. David and`the whole gang (Ma'am Angel, Ma'am Audrey, Sister V,Ma'am Anna)

St. Therese/ St. Anne family

God, please use my choices to work perfectly into Your purposes.   I love you and thank you, always.