Aypee, my younger son spent three days in the hospital and was just discharged the other day. His ailment: amoebiasis.

I’m pretty sure he did not get his sickness from home as we use only purified water from an accredited purifying station for drinking. And true indeed, from the doctor’s interview, we found out he went to a friend’s house few days before he became ill where he had lunch. According to him, they get water from the tap for all purposes - washing, bathing and drinking.

Dr. Mondoñedo, the attending physician said that the quality of water in the locality has been tested many times to be unsafe for drinking. Because of the great number of households relying on the city water supply and also due to poor maintenance from the water district, the water that runs through the underground pipes going straight to the kitchen sinks have deteriorated dangerously.

The doctor also advised us not to use water from the tap when cooking food that require less than 15 minutes cooking time. Examples of these are veggies and instant noodles. Veggies are commonly blanched briefly to retain freshness and crispiness while instant noodles are cooked only for 3 minutes or sometimes even less.

I already sensed something wrong with my son days before he got downed by fever. He would complain of chills and sick, dreary feeling accompanied by muscle and joint pains every afternoon. I advised him to take Vitamin C and drink more water and fruit juices to enhance his resistance. (I knew there was a foreboding ailment because I remember too, several years ago - when I got sick of dengue fever. Two weeks before the physical symptoms appeared, I would unusually feel feverish and weak every afternoon. It continued on until one day, it became full blown and I was already having very high fever. On the second day, the rashes and mosquito bite marks started to appear on my arms and not long after - my nose bled - enough to alarm my husband that he immediately rushed me to the hospital for treatment and confinement.)

So, for three days we were temporary residents of Villaflor Doctors Memorial Hospital.

In our stay at the hospital, I learned a very valuable lesson.  The speedy recovery of a patient depends partly on the watcher. The watcher must be knowledgeable of his/her patient’s ailment. H/she must know the schedule of administering medicines, and must be vigilant all the time particularly when the patient has fever. Constant temperature monitoring, taking note of other physical symptoms and changes, serving only the proper diet as per advice of the doctor - these are important things to be consciously noted by the watcher. Also, the watcher must know the basics of medication. For instance, when a nurse is about to give an injection on the patient, the watcher must not hesitate to ask questions, like - what the medication is, and what it is for - and most importantly - ask whether such injections will not have allergic reactions, and if so - won’t it be better to have a skin test first before directly administering it on the patient. Of course, this does not mean encroaching upon the nurses’ work. It is your right to know. Besides, from experience and observation, there are many nurses out there who are not prudent and careful enough in their work. Take the case for instance when my nephew underwent an operation for inflamed appendix - the nurse on duty directly administered a particular pain killer intravenously without conducting a skin test. It  turned out that my nephew had allergic reactions. Lucky for him and the nurse, the reaction manifested only through swelling in the eyes. In some cases where the reaction is more severe - there can be fatal results.