Once, years ago (in an earthquake-prone season), a group of us were at a party on the sixth floor of a tall building. The grim messenger sent us the alarm that there would be a strong earthquake rocking the metropolis within half an hour! Many of the guests ran down the long series of back stairs. A few of us remained at the table, frozen in fear. The earthquake came two weeks later.

In the recent total eclipse, a usually calm and logical friend warned me not to look up at any time while the eclipse was going on. Coming home from a meeting, she herself wore dark glasses and a floppy hat and shielded herself with an umbrella from car to gate. She said there was “scientific proof” that bad luck would befall one if such an exposure took place.

So, of course, I quickly went to the garden to look at the moon. It was half-covered. What a splendid sight an eclipse was! I don’t know if it gave me bad luck but all the illnesses that I had already were of long standing.

Actually, in my ripe age, what I have begun to fear now are physicians. Because as one’s ailments accrue they hint of a difficult end. So every time I have a serious complaint I go to its avowed specialist. This specialist prescribes some tests. The tests yield results that involve other organs, other tests and a new set of drugs. Then more tests “to be sure” (whether the drugs have worked or whether the germ/virus/creature is not just waiting to pounce again). Whatever the results, they bring on another avalanche of prescriptions. I follow them all.

Drug war

Eventually, I fear there’s a drug war going on inside my body. I have a bloated stomach, needle and pin pricks on my two legs, itching on the skin expanse of my torso and back. I am reluctant to consult another physician, for heaven’s sake. I feel I am already overmedicated.

Whom do I go to with my complaint anyway—neurologist, oncologist, urologist, nephrologist, gastroenterologist, obstetrician, psychiatrist? Everyone is a specialist but there is no one to collate their findings. No specialist will overrule the drugs of another specialist.

It used to be the role of the doctor of your main ailment who made the decision. For me it was once Dr. Wilfred Dee (for my heart), but he fixed it and it has been working well since. Fat chance for all the specialists you have recently consulted to have a meeting just for you. Unless you’re in the ICU.

I remember with great nostalgia that when I was a child, old Dr. Tupas with his black bag would make a house visit if I was sick longer than usual. One touch by him and I felt recovered. In “An Advice to Young Doctors,” author Richard Selzer, MD, says: “Do not rely on the X-ray machine, the electrocardiograph or the laboratory to tell you what your hands, eyes and ears can find out, lest your senses atrophy from disuse.

“The machine does not exist that can take the place of the divining physician. The physical examination affords the opportunity to touch your patient. It gives the patient the opportunity to be touched by you. In this exchange, messages are sent from one to the other, that if your examination is performed with honesty and humility, it will cause the divining powers of the augurs to be passed on to you.”

I, too, feel good while consulting a bright new doctor in my dotage until he or she brings out a prescription pad! Do they always have to fill two pages?! People say illness is caused by too many skyscrapers, too many billboards, too many potato chips, trading of sea corals, thieving public officials, cheating husbands, too many tattoos, and no toilet paper in malls.

To make a long thesis short, my only two choices now are to die from overmedication or to stop taking them all. Choose!

P.S. I have just now found the right integrator of all my medical cures—Dr. Deborah Arce Bernardo, neurologist and internist. Hurray!