Itsy Bitsy Spider

While I was in my room getting ready for bed, I saw something out of the corner of my eye scurry past on the wall. Being used to seeing geckos and cockroaches running past me on a daily basis, I casually looked to see who was coming out to say hi this time, when low and behold I found myself facing death itself! I could suddenly hear my heart pounding in my chest and following my automatic instinct, I ran out of my room all while screaming "Oh. My. Gosh!!" After taking a couple of calming deep breaths, I slowly turned around and tiptoed back in my room, confirming what I had seen...Yep, I found myself face to face with a huntsman spider. This dark brown creature native to the Philippines, was at least the size of my right hand; gigantic and hairy. After some research I found out that they can have a leg-span of up to 10in.!) Basically, it's not something one would like to have staring down at them in their bedroom. At that moment I desperately wanted my dad there to protect me from this spider that I was sure had crawled right out of that arachnophobia horror movie. Now, I was faced with a decision. To kill, or not to kill, me or the spider. I stood there cringing, while a million thoughts were running through my head. How in the world would I even kill this monster, let alone conjure up enough bravery to? Its not like I could just take a shoe to it, the Huntsman's are known for their speed and are able to jump. They have good eyesight with eight beady black eyes and very large/long fangs. Even though they are pretty harmless to humans, if bit, it means a trip to the ER, localised pain and swelling, nausea, vomiting, fever, and headache.(can you tell I have been doing some research hehe.) I probably stood there for a good half hour or longer debating with myself about killing this spider. I had found 2 large shoes, a bucket, and a broom, while I was trying to decide what my weapon of choice should be, I am sure anyone watching me would be peeing their pants from laughter. One moment I would stand there saying to my self, “I think I can, I think I can” and the next, I would be running out saying“ there is no way I can do this!” It was about 10 at night and I was alone; there was no one else around who I could get to help me with this spider situation. Call me a wuss, but in the end I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t kill it and there was no way I was going to get close enough to the thing to capture it. I decided to shut the door to my bedroom, and sleep out on the prenatal bed waiting till morning where hopefully I could bring in some reinforcements. Well, after getting little sleep and waking up this morning, the spider was gone. What was I expecting? I guess my now pet spider didn’t get the memo to stay there all night and wait patiently to be killed. Now, I have to live with the reality that this thing is somewhere loose in my room. I have a feeling I won’t be getting much sleep in the next few days to come. The local Filipina’s tell me that the huntman spider makes for a good house pet, because it eats the cockroaches, geckos, and pesty insects. But I am sorry, I would rather live with the roaches than this spider... Shall I name him Itsy? 

My now pet spider, Itsy

Here is a way better pic of the Huntsman spider, this is taken by 

someone who was willing to get close to it obviously, I was standing at least 10 ft away

zooming in with my camera when I took my pic...

Meow, Meow

I saw her walking towards me, a little girl about 9 yrs old with an orange and white baby cat in her hands. Aww how cute, was my first thought.  As I was pointing out the cute kitten to my preceptor wondering where the girl was taking it, Gerlene nonchalantly explained to me that the girl was taking the wide-eyed meowing kitten to the garbage pile we just walked by...actually, the same garbage pile I saw the other kitten struggling for life in last week that I so desperately wanted to save. What!? Why would she do that!? Well, apparently it is common for animals especially kittens and puppies to be discarded like a piece of trash once they are done nursing on their mothers and start scavenging for food; food that can feed a famished child instead of that starving animal. Sadly, there is no such thing as a humane society or pound, its hard enough to acquire human rights here, animal rights definitely do not exist. Did you know that there are over half a million stray animals in the Philippines! Some would argue that I am caring too much about a kitten who did not belong to anyone. But, I believe all animals deserve respect, and this was very saddening for me to witness. I am thinking that once 1 woman every minute of every day stops dying preventable deaths in childbirth here, I just might start trying to save those poor kittens.

This lil kitten was just crawling around through the garbage, the lil guy looked almost dead

Speaking of human rights...Maribel(the baby twins mother) was rushed to the ER last night, apparently she was having extreme pain in the lower right quadrant of her abdomen. Since the family has no money, the only thing the Dr. did was tell her what her problem might be. Maybe gallstones in her gallbladder, or even appendicitis, but she needed to pay for and get certain lab tests to confirm what was really going on. He handed Maribel the prescription/list of the tests she needed to undergo, like a CBC, urinalysis, ultrasound ect. then handed her a prescription for pain medicine and sent her with instructions to return when she has money. Yeah, you read that right, they would not let her stay, despite the fact that she could have a life threatening condition ending her life and leaving 10 orphans behind. One of Maribels children ran here to the clinic handing me all of the lab tests/prescriptions including the medical supplies the family would need to purchase. Yes, here one actually has to purchase their own medical supplies and bring it with them to the hospital; like IV’s, Syringes and needles, blood(in case a transfusion is needed) anesthia ect... I was very appalled by the fact that the Dr. was allowed to just send Maribel home. I told the little girl to tell her mother she needs to go back to the hospital right away and then gave them enough money to cover the lab tests including the ultrasound (only about $25 US dollars!) Its really hard to comprehend how people can be so poor that they can't even come up with $25 to save their own or a loved ones life. Now I am just waiting for them to come back bringing the results and plan of action. As long as I have the means, I am going to help this mother as much as possible. If her life ended, it would end the lives of an entire family including 2 newborn babies, and that is not ok with me. This is an amazing song that reminds me, we need to care...

Gerlene and I are still keeping pretty busy here at the clinic. When we are not delivering a baby or doing prenatal checkups, we go around house to house and check on the moms and newborns. We are looking foward to midwife Eva getting back to have an extra set off hands again.

Here are some pics of the moms and babies we delivered this last month...

This mom came to the clinic in an ambulance! It scarred me so bad when I answered the door to a bunch of freaked out paramedics and an ambulance, but then realized nothing was wrong, there was just a woman pushing out her baby...The paramedics had no intention of delivering that baby. They quickly carried her into the delivery room, and then left when I put on my gloves...  

Gerlene and I doing post-partum checkups...Believe it or not this baby was 10lbs when he was born!! Biggest baby ever born at this clinic! It was a crazy birth with just Gerlene and I. He was another shoulder dystocia (5 minutes) and his mom hemorrhaged, but we were able to handle it and now mom and baby are doing great!  

Ooops, preceptor didn't make it to this birth...at least God was with me :)

P.S. Just realized that for those of you reading my blog through e-mail, you can not see/listen to the song I was talking about unless you come to my actual blog site...

Update from me :-) Finally!

To all my followers:  Sorry I haven’t written in a couple weeks, you are probably wondering what I have been up too lately, so here goes...

    We are temporally short staffed at the clinic this month because midwife Normi is not working here anymore, she is in the process of moving abroad to Taiwan to work as a caretaker, and midwife Eva went to America to write her exam to become officially certified as a midwife...so that leaves me and my preceptor Gerlene for most of the week. But we do have Grace (a nurse) who comes and stays in the clinic with me Thursday, Friday, and leaves Saturday morning. Despite the fact that I ended up delivering a baby on my own, we have been able to keep the clinic running well with it just being us. And ironically, it has been busier than ever before with 7 babies born just since the beginning of this month, and not all of them have been complication free. I want to say that even I am amazed at how much I have learned and how far I have come throughout this journey in Asia as a midwife. The things I know and am confident doing now is so awesome!

I just got back from visiting the baby twins again, and I am sad to say that they are not looking much better; also the mother still seems sick...

    It was after dinner and almost dark when we walked into their home, the only light was from the fire cooking the kettle of rice. I grabbed my handydandy cellphone which has a built in flashlight on the top so that I could see the babies. It is hard for one to comprehend the living conditions of this family without actually seeing for oneself, but I am almost in tears while I type this. Despite the help/medicine/formula we have given this family, the unbathed barely clothed babies are well over a month old now, and still look like they were just born yesterday. They don’t have the infections in their lungs anymore, but James(the boy) has dark green goopy stuff in both his eyes and has a major rash on the inside of his thighs, back, stomach and bum. Jasmine even though born bigger than James is smaller now, this could be the outcome of her twin brother being fed all the milk because he is a boy, and boys are prized here, just like in any other 3rd world country. Someone had put a filthy teddy bear over Jasmine to act as a diaper of sorts, and James had a cloth wrapped around him that was already soaked with urine. All James and Jasmine do is sleep. They don’t smile, they don’t move their heads or eyes towards me or anyone else for that matter, they are not thriving. Dear God, will these twins even make it to the age of one? Here there is no help from the government. Social services would definitely be involved if this was a family in America, but I am not in America, I am in a country where dying from starvation is just as real as dying from old age. If the wealth here in the Philippines could somehow be equally divided, everyone would have enough; no more, no less, just enough. .. All I can say is that we will do our best to help this family in every way we can...when walking back to the clinic from the twins house and on the way passing and having to leave behind an abandoned crying kitten in the middle of a garbage heap, I realized I cant save the world, God is going to have to do that. 

For those who are unaware, I am due to go back to Olongapo at the end of this month with Mercy In Action again. During the time I have been here in Manila, Mercy In Action’s birth center has been opened, is up and running, and very busy with sometimes even 3 women coming in 1 night. I have made many friends here in Manila interning at Gerlene’s clinic for these past almost 3 months, and will miss them dearly, though I can’t say I will miss the cockroaches as much, hehe! but, I have gotten used to living here in Manila. The grocery boys at the local store all know my name, and are going to miss seeing me there every week ;-) and I am sure the tricy drivers will miss driving me around and getting lost because I, the foreign girl, has no clue where she is going. In Olongapo, I will be living in the birth center just like I am here, but with 2 other midwives (the same midwives I was working with before) whereas here I have been living alone. The plan is to stay in Olongapo for the rest of my time being in Asia.(4 more months to go!)