Weak At The Knees

The other day I received text messages informing me that a close girl friend of mine had suffered a stroke, was mildly paralyzed and was rushed to the hospital. I wasn't able to go to the hospital that night to see her, but a common friend of ours who did texted me: "She has Guillain-Barre Syndrome."

Of course I looked it up online. This site explains it well, but since it's a distant healing rather than a medical/scientific site, I looked at Wikipedia. Then I dug up a really useful site, the Guillain-Barre Syndrome Support Group, based in the UK. The best thing about this last site is that it contains testimonies of those who have experienced and recovered from GBS. Reading those accounts heartened me. I couldn't bear imagining this friend of mine permanently immobile and depressed.

I visited my friend - let's call her Rachel - yesterday afternoon after lunch. but most of the time I was there her mom and the nurse were busy bathing her so I had to wait outside.

When I first arrived I was able to say hi and ask how she was. "Hi, I have GBS."

This was what I noticed:

1. She was lucid, sitting up straight. She talked slowly and carefully, her voice a bit slurred. She said she couldn't smile because she had to support her chin with one hand while talking, because of the mild paralysis in the muscles of her lower jaw. She was connected to a dextrose drip.

2. Her fingers were nimble enough to receive and make short text replies to me on her cell phone.

I was relieved because I had expected worse circumstances.

On her way back from the restroom her mom asked me to get a male nurse to assist them back to the hospital room because she had to hold the drip. Rachel was able to walk slowly, but I realized her legs couldn't voluntarily support the weight of her body. Her mom and I propped her up on the bed, because the bed base was high. Then she asked to wear socks because her feet felt cold (she couldn't bend down to put them on). She told me she could feel the cold, but if her foot were dipped in water, she couldn't feel the sensation of wetness. She asked me to hold her hand, and it was cold and dry. Apparently she could not generate/regulate her body temperature (something to do with the nerves, I don't know how to explain it), but she could feel the warmth of my hands.

I asked if she was able to eat solids. She said she eats by supporting her lower jaw with one hand. "So there's nothing wrong with your tongue?" I asked. None, she said. She had solid food for lunch, despite the drip. The drip was there because earlier she had no appetite. Her blood pressure was up and down, and when she sat up from a prone position she felt dizzy. After she threw up she said she felt the pressure in her esophagus released, so then she actually felt hungry. She drinks water from a glass (doesn't need a straw), but can't stretch out her arm to get it from the table. She says she doesn't like to lie down for long periods without changing position, because the muscles in her back ache. When she lies down she puts a folded blanket between her knees for warmth and circulation. With some effort she can move each leg forward and backward, as long as she's lying down. She likes to be bundled up in a coverlet because her extremities constantly feel cold.

Apparently, this is what happened:

1. Last Wednesday, she woke up feeling numbness in her toes. She still went ahead with her duties. Through the weekend, she felt a tingling sensation climbing up her legs. By Monday, she was still able to drive to work. However, when she got there, her blood pressure shot to 160/100, and she passed out. One of her colleagues took her to the Infirmary, where she was given medicine to lower her blood pressure. But when the doctors noted her mild paralysis, they concluded she must have had a stroke. So her parents rushed her to the hospital for tests.

2. After the battery of tests and the CT scan Rachel was scheduled for an MRI. Early this morning the results of the CT scan came in and they discovered that her brain was undamaged - ergo she NEVER had a stroke at all. And best of all, there was NO brain damage. So when the neurologist interviewed her and she told him of the sequence of events leading to the hospitalization, he diagnosed her as having Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS).

Rachel was aware of GBS, because she had had one male student who suffered from it last year. One day while standing at the bus stop, he just collapsed, his legs buckling beneath him. He missed two months of classes, and when he came back, he was just barely able to walk. He reported to the class his experiences with GBS, so when the neurologist made his diagnosis, Rachel was able to grasp what was happening to her.

But Rachel's mom still doesn't understand what GBS is, or whether people are able to recover. I told her about the GBS Support Group, and the accounts I'd read. Rachel said, "If I'd really had a stroke, my brain would be permanently damaged. At least the doctor said, with GBS, there's a beginning and an end." According to the GBS site, the condition clears up of its own accord, only you can't predict when. My guess is, with the immunoglobulin treatment and the physiotherapy, Rachel actually has a chance of recovering most of her motor functions any time within six months. Rachel probably wouldn't be able to go on mountain hikes but at least she'd be able to walk short distances unaided, or even be able to drive again with a companion. The possibility that the quality of her life can still improve is what counts.

The duration of the hospital stay, the cost of physiotherapy, and most of all, the cost of the immunoglobulin medicine worries her mom. Rachel asked me if I could ask all our friends to help raise funds for the medicine. I was shocked when her mom mentioned the cost of treatment. It's estimated that a GBS patient needs 5 vials of immunoglobulin a day for 7 days. However, the premier brand of immunoglobulin costs something like PhP 13,000 PER VIAL. If you calculate it, that's the amount you spend on a CAR. So Rachel's mom told me that she asked around for a cheaper alternative that was just as effective. She found one being supplied by a company somewhere in Manila, that was priced at PhP 5,100 per vial. The 35 vials Rachel needs for the treatment will then cost just under PhP 200,000 (less than half the other total, but still a hefty expense). So I said if they could get me the name of the cheaper alternative I could try to source it in the US and ask some relatives to bring them early next year when they come for our family reunion. Or we could ask our high school batchmates in the US to sponsor vials for the treatment. Or we could write to charity organizations abroad for help. Anyhow, I said I'd ask our other friend Francine to help me write some letters. We'll try to set up a bank account for donations as soon as possible.

If, after reading this, you'd like to help in any way, please send us an email or leave a comment below. We'd really appreciate it.

Claymation: The Corpse Bride

I recently took my mom to a showing of Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, at the Gateway Mall Cinemas in Araneta Center, Cubao. My mom had no idea what claymation was, but I knew the animation style and the storytelling would appeal to her. Earlier we had gone shopping for her birthday treats and for a friend's wedding gift at Rustan's. Naturally, we left the stuff in their package counter to be wrapped and went to enjoy the movie.

She knew Johnny Depp, from Chocolat. She knew Helena Bonham Carter, whom she first saw in Merchant Ivory's A Room With A View ("This actress looks like Joy! Look at that jawline!). But she knew it wasn't about the stars themselves, but their voice acting. In that respect, you would say Corpse Bride was a star-studded production. Other instantly recognizable cream-of-London-theater voices included those of Emily Watson, Richard E. Grant, the Absolutely Fabulous Joanna Lumley, and Albert Finney. Once my mom experienced the voice acting fleshed out in plasticine, shot in frame by meticulous frame, she was hooked.

The storyline of Corpse Bride is simple, loosely based on a Russian folk tale and set in the Victorian era. Reluctant working-class but materially prosperous Victor meets well-born but impoverished Victoria for the first time on their wedding night. He has trouble reciting his wedding vows, goes out on a winter night to practice them, and accidentally sticks the ring on a stick... which turns out to be the bony finger of our eponymous girl; to wit, "marrying" her. Emily was an innocent maiden mortally betrayed on the eve of her wedding by a dastardly fiancee. So Victor is sucked into an underworld of jazzy singing articulated skeletons, where he realizes that he is in love with the pure-hearted and very living Victoria. In the world above, Victoria's family thinks Victor has jilted their daughter and rush to marry her off to the sleazy Lord Barkis Bittern. The tale of Victor and Victoria's attempt to reunite in true love, and of the murdered Emily getting justice, is directed in prime Tim Burton style (see The Nightmare Before Christmas), and enhanced by the music of the very talented Danny Elfman.

Needless to say, my heart went out to Emily, the Corpse Bride. I don't know how they do the claymation of eyes welling with slow tears, but I am amazed by the attention given to details like that. My own eyes watered. My mom enjoyed herself utterly.

Definitely worth getting on DVD!

Girls' Night Out

A dog-lover friend of ours invited Almond, Tim and myself to a benefit dinner for the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) last night. The event was at a small watering hole near Almond's house in Quezon City, and had a tribal theme. The ticket price of PhP 300 covered dinner, a drink and a free oracular reading of any kind. Unfortunately dinner turned out to be two pathetic sticks of pork barbecue and a cup of rice, and nothing else. The drink was a choice of either beer or iced tea. The free oracular reading was, to put it kindly, unsatisfactory in the sense that the readers were either inexperienced (one was still consulting a book! which we could have hypothetically bought and consulted ourselves!) or sounded like they were reciting from a pre-prepared script. Neither Tim nor Almond were impressed. Also, neither girl eats red meat, only seafood and vegetables, so they were in a quandary. The organizer was a wiccan who was promoting alternative lifestyle practices, so the two girls were under the impression that there some vegetarian food would be available.

"Serving vegetables would have been cheaper for them!"

"Do Wiccans eat vegetables?"

"But that Wiccan smokes!"

As for me, I wanted to get the most out of my PhP 300, so I grimly ate my two sticks of barbecue and washed down a couple of spoonfuls of rice, which was very dry, with the watery iced tea. I also wanted my evening to be more interesting, so I hied over the henna artists booth and looked over their catalog. The smallest size of henna tattoo was priced at PhP 50. When I asked if they could do certain designs in what I thought was the dainty fifty-peso size, to my dismay I was told that the tattoo stencils were actually bigger than the "clip art" size I wanted. Still, I was determined. Besides, the design would eventually wash away after several days.

I finally found a design that appealed to me, a rampant wyvern with wings outstretched, its tail curling like a seahorse's. A wyvern is a magical beast, the type you find emblazoned on coats of arms and other heraldic artifacts. It's actually a little dragon, but whereas the western-style dragon has wings, two front paws and two back paws, a wyvern's wings ARE its front limbs. Like a bat. Once upon a time, in a previous, physically fitter life I had been pointman for an assault squad of airsoft players in a team called Wyvern. The symbolism, you know, had to relate to something in my personal life and identity. I had it done, all three vertical inches of it, in the center of the small of my back, just above the waistband of my jeans. In fact, it took a while to dry. I sat near where a percussion band played tribal drums with my t-shirt taped up in the back to avoid stains for 45 minutes. I was chagrined that Tim and Almond were getting hungrier and hungrier while I waited for my henna to dry, but there was no help for it. In the meantime they moved around, successfully eluding the chainsmoking wiccan who wanted to sell them some colored magic love salt to dissolve in their bath.

When the henna dried and we piled in the car to go, Tim mentioned that she wanted us to try a restaurant called Spoon owned by newscaster Ces Orena-Drilon. She'd just read about it in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It was near the ABS-CBN compound in Quezon City, not too far away. We finally found Spoon, amusingly enough, located right next to a place called Dish, which was actually some sort of nightclub. Alas, it was full and there was a long waiting list. Tim and Almond were delirious with hunger, but we decided to walk around till we found a restaurant that served seafood and vegetables, in a nice, family-type place not too dark or noisy. Parking was hard to come by, and we were damned if we were going to give up the slot we found just to look for a worthy restaurant.

Serendipity led us to Sangkalan, which is a Filipino restaurant and grill in the famous Trellis tradition on 27 Scout Albano St. It was newly renovated, too. It being the Halloween weekend they had booked an acoustic band to play later at night. Even I still felt a little hungry after the two little barbecues. So we ordered a sumptuous feast of sizzling tahong (mussels) in red chilli garlic sauce, chop suey with buco, grilled squid, deep-fried oysters in a salsa of mango, kamias and red onion. Silence reigned as we gulped and chewed. My ice-cold buco sherbet even arrived served in the coconut! The dishes looked wonderful and tasted wonderful. They erased the nasty memories of the mean little barbecues and watery iced tea. All our orders were winners! Even the acoustic band didn't sound too bad. We are definitely going there again. Serendipity indeed!