Hospital

Time flies by so fast, it’s now December. I haven’t been blogging for a while, too many things going on. But generally, I feel very blessed these past few weeks.

Around three weeks ago, my younger sister was experiencing intermittent fevers. My mom, being the worrywart that she is, had a feeling that this may be another case of dengue fever (my sister was struck with dengue just last May 2011). So we had her platelet count checked over two days, and as soon as we saw the drastic drop, we decided to bring her to the ER. Another check was made there and another drop in her platelet count. So, she was confined yet again.

The dengue wasn’t that bad. A few days later, she was feeling a lot better. As the doctor says: “she is clinically well and no fever for the past 72 hours.” But before she will officially be released, the doc wanted another round of xray because the xray that was taken during her second day in the hospital showed a small sign of some liquid in her lungs (and by then, some antibiotics were being administered to her).

Surprise surprise, the second round of xray revealed that this whitish thing in the scans dramatically increased from a small block to the whole left and right lungs! The doc panicked like crazy, called up both infectious and pulmonary doctors to do some consults.

Turns out… my sister caught a very severe case of pneumonia! From then on,the doctors administered the “ultimate” antibiotic to clear up her lungs. If that didn’t work, whatever that was inside had to be drained. Administering the antibiotic had to take 10 days. We ended up staying in the hospital for three weeks. Finally yesterday, she was discharged.

We all know that getting confined in the hospital is very expensive. And in this case, it’s mostly the antibiotics that’ll kill the bill. Amidst all these though, what a blessing that it was only this year that I enrolled my sister as my dependent in the HMO in my company (my parents used to have her under blue cross but discontinued it starting last year). I just realized how important these health cards are! Although we do pay for it, but at least during these cases, we can utilize them. Subtracting philhealth and intellicare, we ended up paying just around 70k in total. Thank you Lord.

What’s important though is that my sister is safe, she’s alive and kicking, and she’s going back to school tomorrow after three weeks out! haha Good luck to her catching up on schoolwork.

And finally my mom can sleep soundly now – she was the one staying in the hospital the whole three weeks.

Hunger Games Official Trailer

Finally!

Hunger Games Official Trailer

random thoughts

My sister, for some reason, was hit with another strain of Dengue late last week. Around April/May this year, she already caught the dengue virus and was confined to the hospital for around a week. Now here she is again, struck with the 2nd strain of dengue in just a span of a few months. Now she’s confined again, and been there since last Thursday.

On another note, my sister, who is preggers with twins has just confirmed to us that they just had their ultrasound check and well, lucky them, they will be having twin girls by early next year! That’s two new baby girls coming just around the corner to add to their family! Grant will have two new sisters! Sorry Grant, you will no longer be the baby of the family!

Hike at Mt. Batulao

I have never hiked in the Philippines so when a friend invited me on a hiking trip, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Unfortunately, due to my impulsive nature of saying “yes”, I didn’t even think of how long the hike will be and how the trail will look like.

I only had a look at it a day or two before the actual hike and I was surprised that the hike would take around 4-6 hours and the trail was open! No trees whatsoever to block the sun! I wanted to back out but since I committed already to the trip, I went on with it.

So with a heavy heart, I woke up 4 am the next day, and we went on our way.

Mt. Batulao is located just near Caleruega. It’s just around 1.5 to 2 hours from Manila.

The hike was long and arduous. The heat was terrible. Good thing I brought sun block because I would’ve been cooked up there. But as it turns out, hard work usually pays off because at the end of the day, the view you get to see from the top is amazing.

Not sure if you can see it in the picture above, but there are actually people hiking here. They’re already on their way back at this point!

My companion was not as prepared as me, so we ended up taking a break (even before we reached the peak) for almost 40 minutes! Technically, the hike would’ve been just 3-4 hours, but we finished it in 5 or 6 hours. We reached the peak at around 11:30 AM, and we got back to the car around 3:00 PM already.

All in all, for a first time hike, it wasn’t that bad. I sure hope that the sun was cooperating with us, but then again, I wouldn’t mind doing the hike again but definitely minus the scorching heat of the sun. I would highly recommend this to first time hikers. It’s not as hard and the view up there is very pretty and is worth the hard work.

Until next time!

For more info, you may visit this website: PinoyMountaineer

One Week Vacation!

The past few weeks have been crazy busy. I haven’t done much except work. But I finally was able to take some time off this week (one week vacation!!).

Few things I want to accomplish this week:

1. Renew my license (done… almost)

2. Apply (finally) for my SSS Card ID (done)

3. Go back to badminton training (started yesterday, check!)

4. Meet up with the girls

5. Shop

6. Relax and bum around!