A NURSING STORY

[Tinkered edition from June 11, 2012 at 7:59am]

When I was younger, so much younger than today, okay, I mean when I was sixteen exactly, I dreamed to have a nurse for a wifey. It started when a nurse-wife of a friend requested my Nanay to let her two college junior OJT friends who were nurses-in-the-making for a brief board and lodging in our modest residence then.

As a typical full-blooded Ilonggo, my folks did welcome them wholeheartedly. I think I had already narrated here my then-secret crush story regarding “Aubrey.”

I always have a firm belief since then that the purest among them all is a nursing profession. From the start, my only basis for it is their spotless, Tide/Ariel washed and shining white uniform.

And so far, only once did I remember that somebody tried to successfully stain such belief unwittingly, and that was only when a Lady Gaga look-alike nurse wore conspicuous flaming red undergarments for all the world to see.

Yet still, that single faux pas of one could not completely shatter my conviction for the whole white ladies’ gang. My full respect for their heavenly suit and pursuit avocation will always remain even after a thin swan or a fat lady sang.

It’s simply because most of the people closer to my heart were or still are in that profession which has one if not the most expensive college studies and preparation in the country. The most abused lot as, if not compelled to be called for call centers where they rest only when nature calls, they’re the milking cows of hospitals hiring them with minimal wages and salary.

A nurse is the most caring and daring pro because her calling demands her to be so. I should know, I was hospitalized in 2000 due to what they call then “na-impatso.”

But the most embarrassing moment I had as a patient was when I was admitted a coupla years later due to orchitis, an ailment involving half of two worlds of men near their pride in patrimony. During the initial ocular inspection by an intern physician, an attending lady nurse made a mistake in furthering her scrutiny which caused the ‘patriot missile’ to dutifully rise like in a flag ceremony.

Had it not for some ice cubes to the rescue, a great scandal would have erupted in Don Benito. All because of a nurse and her over-eagerness to help and to perform the sworn task she had led. I’m recalling it as I sing a song of the Bee Gees: “And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from the things that I’d said…”