No exact figures yet, not even words or phrase comprehensive enough to describe the devastation brought about by typhoon Yolanda. What’s clear to me is this; the devastation is more than enough for me to donate and mobilize for the victims of this typhoon.
Donate
It doesn’t matter how much or how many. Donate any amount, to any of the credible donation institution or agencies helping the victims of Yolanda. For the relief goods, you can prioritize giving water and ready to eat food , as in this photo by Rappler.com.They badly need it, now.
Rappler’s relief goods guide
Be responsible enough to make sure your donations go directly to the victims of typhoon Yolanda. Here ‘s a picture list of charitable entities doing relief operations for victims of Typhoon Yolanda in the Visayas.
Rappler has a more extensive list of whom and where can you donate. So is Huffington Post‘s “Following Philippines Typhoon Haiyan, Here’s How You Can Help”and CNN‘s “How to help Typhoon Haiyan survivors“. I cannot vouch for everyone of them. Also please take note I’M NOT SOLICITING ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY OR GOODS for victims of typhoon Yolanda. The institutions I’ve listed above can very well handle your donations, not me:
Mobilize
It’s not clear yet as to where and when my help will be most needed. What is clear though, is that donations will not be enough. Looking at the extent and estimates of devastation, they need every worker (skilled or not), to rebuild.
As I write this, medical-surgical missions are being prepped up by DOH and various NGO’s in addition to the previously assembled team prior to Yolanda’s wrath. I myself is waiting for advice too. I’m sure they will need engineers, architects, builders, and construction workers to help build homes. if you are a member of any of these workers organizations, ask your officials for details regarding any volunteer mission.
Internet and Social Media
If you’re just at home and for some reasons couldn’t be mobilize, you can harness the power of the internet to
Share the donation portals so your friends will be aware too and donate. Or share this post if you like 🙂
Share the Google Crisis Map– Evacuation areas, shelters, health care facilities etc.
If you are a Google mapper and is familiar with the places in the areas hit by typhoon Yolanda, send me an email I’ll request you be added up to a group of mappers doing the crisis/relief map for Yolanda.
That’s all for the moment. I hope you all now know, what is clear and what is not, as of yet. Let’s Donate and Mobilize.
“Why do you blog?” A friend asked. “A way of screaming out loud ideas in this world?” He continued. “Popularity?”
“Will it put food on the table? Will your essays and discourses put people into action?” He goes further . ” Will it even be beneficial to anyone or even to yourself?”
I was silent, concocting some answers. “Have you told anyone about your story?” I shot back at him. “My what, story?! Well yes, partly but I thinks it’s not even worth telling!” He jokingly answered. “Even telling yourself about your story?” I replied back, half jokingly. “Why would I tell my story to myself ? Thats dumb!”.
Silence. But I got him into thinking.
“My friend. If your story is not even worth telling to others or even yourself, you haven’t live your life enough yet to write about yourself”…
In a sense who you are has always been a story that you told to yourself. Now your self is a story that you tell to others. -Geoff Ryman-Author, Paradise Tales and Other Stories
In all the years I’ve been writing online (and before that, on yellow paper) I rarely bothered analyzing the “driving force” behind my compulsion to write and in recent years, blog. I probably wouldn’t find a comfortable answer. Or maybe, I just don’t care. For me, whatever it is, for as long as I’m writing, I am happy. Until a recent experience brought me to terms with myself.
Let me share a story, my story, to wangle answers.
In one recent adventure, I was asked to paddle and maneuver an out triggered canoe, in and out of a mangrove forest, to an island where a 360 view deck of mangrove (Bakhaw in the local dialect) forest awaits. I’m with a fisherman co-pilot with me, serving as a guide as I traverse the vast mangrove forest.
Mangroves are various types of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes 25° N and 25° S. The word is used in at least three senses: (1) most broadly to refer to the habitat and entire plant assemblage or mangal, for which the terms mangrove forest biome, mangrove swamp and mangrove forest are also used, (2) to refer to all trees and large shrubs in the mangrove swamp, and (3) narrowly to refer to the mangrove family of plants, the Rhizophoraceae, or even more specifically just to mangrove trees of the genus Rhizophora.
I’m fairly good at swimming, but I paddled a banca alone only several times in the past. I had a traumatic, near death experience with paddling an out triggered, small sized banca in the past. Our boat capsized and my two companions almost drowned in the middle of a channel. Over all though, I’m comfortable in these types of outdoor challenges, having survived a few other more dangerous situations as a result of my wanton risk- taking habit.
So on with this adventure challenge…
After just ten meters of paddling from the launch site, my paddle snapped, breaking into pieces with the handle bar – shaft severed from the blade. Despite it being newly built from a kiln dried tree, the paddle broke at the junction of the outer cambium layer and the hardwood.
I’ll be damned! I was already picturing out me idiotically paddling out into the mangroves in a dreamy- idyllic fashion. Then the snap. The boat slowed, I stopped paddling, my copilot stopped paddling. He was observing me. I was observing myself. The flight or fight adrenaline pumped in and I began to figure out scenarios and survival plans. I vividly remember the boating-turned-survival swimming that me and friends went into many years ago.
My first reaction is to curse at my dreadful luck. Drowning from a broken paddle is a long shot, but paddling with a broken paddle exhausting!
Then came the posit of trivial dichotomies. What shall I do? What if? Shall I proceed or shall I turn back and ask for help. Questions, in which the only true answer is the one you chose. You only get to experience your choice or answer.
Survival experts have taught us to be calm first and then assess your situation next. So I tried composing myself and assessed the “environment” with this dumb question.
“Na-a bay bu-aya dinhi sa bakhawan nong?” (Are there crocodiles in these mangrove?) I asked the boatman in the local dialect. “Wala uy!?” (No there’s none!), he half jokingly retorted.
I laughed, more to relax myself and the other, to befit my seemingly idiotic predicament. Panicking, just because you broke your paddle is seriously idiotic for a self professed outdoor guy like me. So I laughed.
Another banca have overtaken us. “Can you continue paddling with that blade alone?” Asked the boatman. “Sure!” I said. Reassuring myself than the boatman. I started paddling with a paddle blade alone, without knowing how long can I sustain moving the boat forward. On the way I asked fishermen if they have extra paddles I can borrow. None. Fishermen rarely bring an extra paddle I thought.
Their extra paddle is themselves.
I continued paddling to my destination while laboriously figuring out escape plans in the event of emergencies. This preoccupation to surviving, of figuring out ways to survive in case something happens (even if there’s 99.9% chance of it not happening) turned me away to what I’m supposed to be doing inside this “forest”. I forgot to slow down. I forgot to “listen”. Heck, I forgot to even take pictures. I crammed my mind to surviving but never really gave my self a chance of discovering itself.
What did I miss? Where was it in that forest? Was I too late?
When I saw the end of the ride, I began to slow down and loosen my uptight stance. I realized what I missed. I was too preoccupied with surviving I never really listened to my inner self. I could have enjoyed the ride, take pictures, wrote poems (even if I’m terrible with words) or just even draw strength from the past experiences I survived! I could have enjoyed a whole new ride.
Standing on the 360 view deck and tracing my route within that mangrove forest, I can only sigh at my experience. Nevertheless, it was all part of a journey, some sort of an inventure. You lose some, you learn something about yourself.
This is my blogging story.
In the past, I have been tunneled into ‘surviving’ my blog, drawing plans to adapt at the handicap of doing poorly in grammar and spelling difficulties (even up to the present actually 🙂 ). I forgot to enjoy it, the writing for pure adventure into myself.
Am I late to learn something new? Perhaps not. I am a late bloomer. I have qualities within me that I never really accepted before for fear being adjudged as pretentious. I am in fact drawing strength from these qualities now.
Today, blogging is my journey inward as much as it is outward. It is a journey to self realization. I blog for my advocacies, to fuel my chosen work, to inspire people, to paddle my life. It is an inventure into my soul now rather than an adventure to obscurity.
*inventure (invention+adventure) – an adventure of mind, creative and engaging intellectual action. (Urban Dictionary)
The Orthopedic Logbook- Best Business, Finance and Career Blog 2013 Award
(When I started to write this piece, I received the news that this blog won the Best Career, Business and Finance Blog 2013 in the recently concluded Mindanao Blog Awards. I was not in the podium to received my awards trophy during the awards night. I was in Baguio City at the exact night conferring with like minded doctors (ULF-Bakhawans) on various advocacies and projects we’ve started. I was teary-eyed happy when the news reached me. There’s no shortage of congratulatory hugs and handshakes from fellow bakhawans. Messages of congratulations beat the cold Baguio weather. Tweets and facebook greetings from my Sox Blogger family flooded my wall as well.
I’m honored. I’m truly inspired. It’s one heaven of a feeling to know people appreciate your work. I was blogging because it is an adventure for me. Then I realized, it was really an inventure that touched my life and a few others . That is more than an award to me.
Thank you Mindanao Blog Awards, organizers, judges, sponsors, supporters. Thank you my SOCCSARSKGEN BLOGGERS family and my social media friends.
I’m very thankful to my supportive family, from whom I draw strength and the stories of my life.
I thank the nameless patients who taught me the value of listening to their voices, so I may listen to my inner voice too. I couldn’t have learned those from any academic institution.
To my readers, who I believe is just holding their horses at my dastardly grammar and spelling, you all are my inspiration. This blog is all about you and me. You taught me to listen and tell others too, my very stories.)
[dropcap1]D[/dropcap1]octors talk about medical stuff many ordinary people will cringe and consider foul. Stuff like STD’s or bloody eviscerations get discussed lengthily without them missing a bite of their breakfast. When discussion shifts to money matters however, you’d hardly get discussions beyond few sentences. Here are the top reasons why:[check_list]
Doctors don’t want to be heard as “bragging” their ‘high” income. Physicians generally earn more than the average worker. When doctors discuss money, it is often seen as “bragging” about their income. “Why would physicians talk about money when they’re earning more than anyone else?That’s just bragging!”
Doctors are rich people and rich people don’t talk about money. While doctors earn higher than most workers, it’s nonsense to automatically consider doctors as rich people. Despite that flawed conclusion, even the truly wealthy people discuss financial matters carefully.
Doctors find it hard to accept they have money issues. Not a very nice thing to say about people with big suffixes after their names. The long years in med school and training gave us a sense of entitlement to spend our income wantonly. Coupled with higher than most income, this sense of entitlement often bar us from facing head on, money issues.
Doctors feel that money issues only affects them, alone. “The other doctors, they probably don’t have any money issues at all.” But there are telltale signs that doctors have money issues even if they don’t discuss it in public. Complains of not enough compensation, HMOs and claims underpayments, etc, are all telltale signs that money for us too are issues that needed to be sorted out. Since doctors rarely discuss money issues with their colleagues, that feeling of money issues isolation is propagated unknowingly.
Doctors don’t like to ask “stupid” questions. “Who would, when I belong to an intelligent profession?” Intelligent and paid well, why would I ask such questions, hah? When you ask someone, even colleagues for example, about money matters, the throwback question would most likely be ” Didn’t they teach you that in med school?“. There’s practically zero money learning in med school. Our professors would tell us “Ah, you’ll learn those when you go into practice. Learn from who? From experience? Thus we take this stance of “yeah I know it” when we actually do know nothing. I don’t know, but I’d look very stupid pretending to know something about money matters when in fact I don’t know anything.
“It’s taboo discussing financial lifestyles, it’s not us, doctors.” The dilemma most doctors have today is that as role models, we’re just here to deal with the health of our patients and communities. Nothing else. We’re not supposed to deal with finances as it confabulates our practice of the profession. Most people think we’re super humans, that all we do for eternity is heal, care and work without having to feed our family. It’s really a good thing to render charity service but it’s not immoral and illegal to earn from services you rendered. How can you possibly continue to care for patients when you’re wallowing in debt or without housing? Please tell me.
“I’m busy saving lives, I have other more important task to finish than talking about money.” Correct. But until when? Should you wait being thrown of your mortgage house or default in your new car because you were busy and didn’t care to check on your financing? How can you save lives then when you can’t even save a part of you thats sustaining your service or profession? Again, lets not succumbed to the idea that we’re super humans and that financial woes exempt physicians. I’m sure nobody thinks he or she can still go on hospital duty 24 hours when they’re already 60 simply because he/she didn’t plan out a retirement for him/herself. Busy you said?
We really have not learn money sense from our parents. Again, the more we should strive to have some sort of financial literacy or we’ll just pass that legacy to our children. For many Filipinos, financial maturity is being equated to frugality or thriftiness on everything. “It is the only trait I wanted to learn“. Well, being frugal and thrifty will surely save you money and expense but how will you plan out your retirement, your children’s education etc etc?
We’re afraid the internal revenue agency is eavesdropping and will hunt us down and tax us to the max. I’m not sure whether eavesdropping or maxing out on taxes is the mantra of that agency, but there’s only one reason I can think of if you’re afraid of that agency- You don’t pay the right taxes. It doesn’t matter if your excuse is ignorance about taxation laws and hence you don’t have any idea how much you should pay. It is still not paying the right taxes and in the legal parlance, that’s still cheating. Again, If you’re at least financially literate, you would know the right taxes you should pay and which one will legally exempt you.
[/check_list]
Why am I enumerating these? These are the same stumbling blocks I encountered when I started learning personal finance as a physician. The taboo like treatment of money issues inside the conservative hippocratic institution is painfully hindering me from gaining financial freedom. It is only by learning personal finance that I finally come to terms with these undeniable facts: Even doctors aren’t exempted from financial woes and that financial freedom is not the same as getting rich. So, for as long as I needed to learn something for me to achieve that goal of having financial freedom as a physician, I’d willingly talk, discuss and listen to money issues within my profession. Taboo or no taboo for others.
I too believe that having a physician member of the in the family offers some distinct advantages. The best example of course is the relatively access to healthcare professionals. Medical information, drug prescriptions, when needed are easily obtainable. With a physician relative, navigating through the maze of complex healthcare system seem a bit more bearable for the average patient.
Such advantages though isn’t without compounding problems. Complex family dynamics often interfere (sometimes negatively) with physician’s ability to be objective medically. Thus, it has been a norm among physicians to hand over treatment of sick family members to their colleagues. In this situation, that physician family member is often relegated to a healthcare facilitator. [pullquote] A healthcare facilitator, by virtue of his knowledge about the ins and outs of the prevailing healthcare system efficiently facilitate the carrying out of different medical procedures for his or her sick family member.[/pullquote]He or she also acts as the official medical information person for the family and translates these medical information into something understandable by the family members. In the bureaucratic parlance, a “fixer”. Not the best of titles for someone with lots of suffixes in their name, but yes that’s what we do, when a member of our family gets sick.
A physician may chooses to manage his or her sick family member, despite this potential bias. It will never be easy though and may sometimes take a toll on the personal life of that physician.
I squirm at the sight of my mom being stung by needles. If she winces in pain, I wince in pain too. I feel terrible whenever she complains swallowing several pills even if it is exactly what she needed. When she asks me “are you going to cut me again?”, my heart melts. In these moments, I hate to be the doctor in the family. Nobody likes to inflict pain on your patients in the promise of them getting well. Try telling that to my mom.
Is it easier then for physicians to manage a sick member of the family? Again, the simple answer is NO, IT ISN’T.
I don’t find talking about medical illness to our family less painful either. Simplifying a medical information is a bit challenging too. Despite aiming for a shared decision making, you ultimately end up making the decision yourself, being the “more medically informed” in the family. Ergo, a bigger responsibility. Sadly, you cannot make a “no decision”.
There is an inescapable reality that families with doctor are exempted from the problems besetting an average Filipino family. The costly health care system, the complex Filipino family dynamics and other multitude of problems, does not discriminate whether you have a doctor in the family or not. The power of the stethoscope doesn’t discriminate patients, family or not.
The hardest part I think is taking responsibilities should medical knowledge fail to address a medical condition of a family member. I have yet to meet a physician who boasts that he or she “healed” a family member from sickness, but I can practically name a few who took on their lives for “failing” to even ease out the pain his or her relative feel from sickbed.
Would you call it then an advantage, having a physician in the family? I, a physician and a son, ultimately don’t think so.
Mavik Banner: physician; scientist. Searching for a way to tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have… then an accidental overdose of gamma radiation alters his body chemistry. And now when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs. The creature is driven by rage and pursued by an investigative reporter. The creature is wanted for a murder he didn’t commit. David Banner is believed to be dead, and he must let the world think that he is dead, until he can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him.
What would we do baby, without us?
I bet we been together for a million years, And I bet we’ll be together for a million more. Oh, It’s like I started breathing on the night we kissed, and I can’t remember what I ever did before. What would we do baby, without us? What would we do baby, without us? And there ain’t no nothing we can’t love each other through. What would we do baby, without us? Sha la la la.
Here’s the story of a lovely lady
Here’s the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls. All of them had hair of gold, like their mother, the youngest one in curls. Here’s the store, of a man named Brady, who was busy with three boys of his own. They were four men, living all together, yet they were all alone. ‘Til the one day when the lady met this fellow. And they knew it was much more than a hunch, that this group would somehow form a family. That’s the way we all became the Brady Bunch, the Brady Bunch. That’s the way we all became the Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch!
Who can turn the world on with her smile? Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Well it’s you girl, and you should know it. With each glance and every little movement you show it. Love is all around, no need to waste it. You can have a town, why don’t you take it. You’re gonna make it after all. You’re gonna make it after all.
In time of ancient gods, warlords and kings, a land in turmoil cried out for a hero. She was Xena, a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle. The power. The passion. The danger. Her courage will change the world.
Being evil has a price. I hear a lot of little secrets. Tell me yours, and I’ll keep it. You oughta know my name by now, better think twice. Being evil has a price. I’ve got a nasty reputation. Not a bit of hesitation, you better think twice. ‘Cause being evil has a price.
Chosen from among all others by the Immortal Elders – Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles
The time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights. It’s time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight! It’s time to put on makeup, it’s time to dress up right. It’s time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight. Why do we always come here? I guess we’ll never know. It’s like a kind of torture to have to watch the show! And now let’s get things started – why don’t you get things started? It’s time to get things started on the most sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational… This is what we call the Muppet Show!
Chosen from among all others by the Immortal Elders – Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury – Billy Batson and his mentor travel the highways and byways of the land on a never-ending mission: to right wrongs, to develop understanding, and to seek justice for all! In time of dire need, young Billy has been granted the power by the Immortals to summon awesome forces at the utterance of a single word – SHAZAM – a word which transforms him in a flash into the mightiest of mortal beings, Captain Marvel!
