‘By default,’ is how I would describe my first two caregivers. The modifier may sound thankless but it’s not. I never thought I would be needing them-two women I would be meeting the first time.
The setting was an unexpected hospitalization. Passing through the Emergency Room, I assumed I would undergo a checkup and be sent home. ‘Come back the next day,’ the voice of a specialist assuring à more thorough diagnosis. But my niece spoke to the ER nurse or administrator, ‘for admission.’
We came in from à stormy night. My niece and nephew were exhausted.
I soon found myself staring at the high ceiling of the hospital. ‘The luxury of heights,’ I told myself. My unnecessary commentary did not stop there. As I was being wheeled through a maze of corridors, I struck a conversation with the attendant: I never thought this hospital was that long, referring to how the young man managing the stretcher pushed his way through the hospital streets-corridors-with such bravado.
I was fearing I would tumble out of the gurney. Unfounded. The massive metal door closed. He made sure I had the privilege of using that one working elevator. It opened to a chapel. One more quick turn and I was in my room. My home for a week.
There was a young woman standing at the foot of my bed. With à cherub’s face and a bit of hallucination, she would have passed as my guardian angel. But back at the ER, my nephew and niece assured me I won’t be alone. To which, I also assured them, I don’t need anyone to watch over me. But my nephew was adamant. He knew how stubborn and socially independent I was- two traits that were confusingly interchangeable. And yet those traits worked when I was young. Presently, I saw no youth, just a man accepting to himself he is aging but denying to others-even to my beleaguered army of nephews and nieces who, without my knowledge, had coordinated across oceans and cities à system. They have formed a GC, à group chat, and this caregiver gazing at me had to report to them.
After the attendant had left, and a team of medical personnel had introduced themselves and noted my presence, the caregiver and I were left in the tiny room. ‘There’s really nothing to do,’ I nearly commanded her. She responded with a calm look. ‘Where does she get this cool facade?’ I was talking to myself.
She offered to change my streetwear to à hospital gown. I refused.
Morning in a windowless hospital room is not claustrophobic; it is isolating. Is it 5 a.m. now?
The breakfast arrived. I barely looked at the porridge. She noticed it. ‘Sir, what do you usually have for breakfast’? I felt the sincerity in her voice, so I said: I am really a bread and coffee man. Nothing fancy. ‘Oh, let me check at the ground.’ She was back, quick, with three warm ‘pan de sal.’ ‘Sir, do you eat ‘puto’ Rice cake.’?
The morning was unforgettable.
The second caregiver came the next evening. She was articulate. I inquired where she was from. She mentioned a district, à clan, à family name. I found connections, or I was making connections. I realized I have accepted the presence of caregivers.
That night, for some reason, I was put on oxygen. The medical attendants insisted I needed them. I felt no need for oxygen. The whole night the opposite happened: I had difficulty breathing tethered as I was to a huge oxygen tube. I kept on complaining and she repeatedly assured me it would soon be taken out. Her words comforted me, as if I found no less than à co-conspirator.
The next morning, the pulmonologist arrived and ordered the oxygen taken out. I was, of course, happy. But my caregiver’s reaction was worth à million. She was grinning, an instant caring cousin. She was happy for this grouchy man. Before she left for her other duties, she left me with more rice cakes, a precious tip from the previous caregiver. ‘Just look at them…no need to finish them off.’
That was more than a year ago.
Last week, my niece informed me that her sister, a nurse in New York, had arranged through her a caregiver. That other niece had always been worried about an often-neglected part of my body-the feet.
The caregiver was male. Change in gender. A shift in context. A different location.
Nothing by professional default was taking place. I was not in a hospital where he would know more about the ins-and-outs than me. He was stepping into my territory. I had a surplus of knowledge about my room, the bed I lord over. Because I continued to write, I assumed he would know the logic of my working table. Apparently, there was none. It was all in my head. ‘There’s Telmisartan behind the box of Stevia.’ I presumed à quick action. There were just my hands flailing impatiently. There would be more requests. I made sure my instructions came across as soft pleading.
When minutes passed by and nothing appeared to be happening, I turned around and my male caregiver was between panic and helplessness. The sudden movement seemed to have guided him to the objects we were looking for. It was obvious, it was not a single but a barrage of instructions I unconsciously fired towards his direction. I was treating him as a factotum. I offered him coffee and crackers but he politely refused. I second-guessed him: If he accepted the offer, it might even be followed by more complex instructions. It was my fault. I expected him to have entered my mind already. Surreal.
The next two days saw us in a hospital setting, where he, in my estimation, recovered his footing. He knew the hospital entrances. He was brisk with the wheelchair, asserting himself over the security guard. It was once more like that stormy night à year ago when I was admitted. He knew the nooks and crannies of the hospital. And he knew many we saw in the hallway. And he had the quietest way of telling me the specialist had left some two hours before the vowed clinic hours.
‘It’s alright, Sir…we can look for another doctor.’ We were in the elevator once more, and out on the hallway as he hailed for space. We could not be delayed.