MARINDUQUENEWS International
MISSION POSTSCRIPTS
My Eyes, My Heart 
Volume 1
By Ching Jao Manalo
6
After the mad flurry of last minute e-mails from Thelma, Macrine, Dr. J, Hector and various mission participants, I embarked in late January for home and hearth. I marveled then at how far we have come just from the communication aspect of our mission alone. Ten years ago, we used snail mail, telephones, simple cameras, and even had an abortive attempt to conference call at a designated calling facility...! Now, we have the Internet, cell phones, text messaging, global satellite guidance systems, video-cams, Power Points and countless technical amenities tht just make my senior head spin..! The only thing that remains constant is our desire to help our needy kababayans and make an impact on the future ofour younger generation. I pray we never change.
Her name was Lolita. She was 48 years old, with 8 children, jobless with a jobless husband. She had bilateral cataracts. She was blind. She came to see me at my brothers house and after a short examination, I gave her a referral to the provincial hospital so that she can be scheduled for eye surgery, She was one of the first patients operated on by our Optha Team headed by Hector and Raymond Sulit and those fabulous, young surgeons from U.S.T.

She came to see me 3 days after the mission ended. She was guided by her husband but the smile on her face said it all. She said I was beautiful and the world was beautiful. She brought 5 of the sweetest, most delicious kaimitos for me to taste. I told her not to bring me anything, just sell them instead. I ended up buying stuff from her because she kept coming back with more fruit and honey. She was Mission IV for me.

He was 12 years old. His case was thought to be a simple undescended testes, a 30 minute surgical job. Instead, both his testis was fouond to be housed in one scrotal sac and the empty sac had to be resected before it could accept its appropriate load. Despite very poor overhead lighting and the minuscule operative site, Dr. Rudy Almace came out of the operating room, 2 hours later, drenched but ecstatic. He said he never operated on a case like this but he was confident that this child will have a normal genito-urinary future. I am sure this child was Mission IV for him. We do need to address the issue of better operating room lighting for future missions. Dr Caballes said it would cost P500,000 to get new overhead rotating O.R. lights for the operating room. Something to think about.
While we are on the subject of "thinking, we need to address the issue of medicines more strongly. Wehave to develop a mechanism by which we could easily dispense adequate and appropriate medications to our clients and be able to track the amount distributed with equal ease. The Pharmacy team, led by Vivian Jao, labored long into the night, preparing the list of medications for the next day. We may need the assistance of local professional organizations to assist us in preparing the list and the contents of the boxes. Thoughts anyone?

Mission related ailments fell quite a few of our members. Sad news cut short the stay of Drs. Senen and Almace. We have to adjust future mission schedules to give our "volunteer missioners" time to rest and recoup their energies. We must take care of our missioners health, safety and well being.

Marita Jao-Stuppy and Grace Regan channeled the energy and the skills of a select group of computer wizards from the Marinduque National High School toward entering statistical information related to all the medical, surgical, pediatric and dental cases seen in all 6 towns.

It gave our young students a sense of being a part of our mission. They became adept in medical terminology and cross-referencing. All statisstics gathered will be used for future fund raising activities and the planning our next mission.

We gloried in all kinds of massages - reflexology, pressure points, foot spas, facials, and the special version delivered by the one and only Doctor Belen. Having them daily was worth the trip and helped to ease the aches brought about by long hours of patient care.