In the Ward

Papa is moved to the ward. There’s no regular room available and the Intensive Care is ridiculously expensive for someone who no longer needs to be there. His is a corner with two curtains for privacy. The neighbours have the radio on, and if its not Papa snoring, then its his neighbour.

I rested my head on the inflatible pillow that pressed against the chair’s back. Its impossible to sleep on a chair. Let alone a foldable chair. To adjust my aching back, I sat up straight and I saw Papa looking at me. “Where is this place?” he says. After the Pulmonary back rub – a nurse comes and rubs papa’s back with a contraption that looks like an electronic shower head – and his throat suction, he could speak clearer. For a few minutes, he asked me where he was, how he got there, where everyone else was, where he was, how he got there, where Nanay (mom) was.

His memory evades him a little and he’s some what disoriented, but they say its normal. We just need to talk to him often and repeat things. As for now, doctors are weaning him off all support apparati: the feeding tube, oxygen tube and catheter, and he gets daily physiotherapy. His speech is still impaired due to flem in his throat and he keeps removing his feeding tube. But he says, he wants to go home now, maybe he’d be allowed to go that afternoon?