The Story of Teamwork

Written By: Mikee Pasaporte

We can’t help everyone. But everyone can help someone.”-Ronald Reagan

We have a 57-year old patient who is diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer. She lives alone and has been branded to be “difficult to live with”. She keeps things in place and if you move anything out of order, she gets overly agitated.

She used to beg in front of a major mall in Dasmariñas City, where the TRF team found her in 2013, since she couldn’t find a job because of her condition. When her cancer worsened, she couldn’t stay on the streets for too long. She was then home bound. Being non-ambulatory and relying on the kindness of others, she verbalizes being helpless. Helpless but not hopeless. She shows her determination to be independent as much as she can.

Most of her siblings have given up on her. Most of her neighbors are turned off by her. The little world she has created around her is limited to a handful of people, which our team has the privilege to be a part of.

Our nurses and volunteers give her baths and assists her with activities of daily living. She enjoys painting as art therapy. We want to do so much, but the most that we can do is visit once a week, perhaps twice at the very most. That’s when it came to the realization that we had to “expand” our team. Expand, in the sense that we had to tap different agencies to assist this patient.

She can be alone, but she doesn’t need to be lonely.

The medical team, with our social worker, went the extra mile to call out and empower the community. They gave basic lectures on caring, first aid and the like for free. In exchange, the barangay visits her frequently to take out her trash and even brings cooked meals for her. The City Social Welfare and Development office of Dasmariñas provide her with diapers. The City health office now gives free wound cleaning materials while the local barangay health office sends over community nurses to clean her wounds on days when our team isn’t there to assist her.

I believe that our patient’s world has now grown. The next step is to make her realize that though she was turned down by those she expected to help, more than a handful of people outside her circle are willing to lend their hands to care.

Three Stories: A Father’s Day Tribute

Written By: Mikee Pasaporte

My tribute this month is for all the fathers out there. I have three stories to share.

Story #1:

Just like a flashback scene from a telenovela, a man was left by his wife four years ago to join her lover. She abandoned their two kids and left them in the care of the father, who in this story is a patient of ours. The eldest is a 19-year old boy and the youngest, an 8-year old girl. Four years made a huge difference. Adjusting to life without a mother and having their father diagnosed two years after with Stage 4 Nasopharyngeal cancer, these kids discovered their own ways of coping. The eldest shows his detachment, a mix of fear of losing his father and anger since he was the most affected when his mother left. The youngest is still a kid. She still takes time to play with her father. Placing colorful rubber bands around his now thinning arms, picks on him with tickle fights when she sees that he isn’t in pain, and just acts as though everything else is normal.

Though sick, he finds ways to care for his young ones. He is currently getting weaker by the day. He is cared for by his aunt, who actually raised him, since he was actually abandoned by his mother as a he young child too. The cycle goes on, you may think. He promises that up until his last breath he wouldn’t abandon his own children.

He tries to be strong, despite his physical limitations. He is strong in their eyes and that’s all that matters.

Story #2:

Fathers are normally the bread winners of the family. Our next patient, confessed to be a workaholic for the longest time. Working late nights as an IT programmer, the late shifts and long working days got the best out of him year after year. Then something changed and though it was difficult for him to quit his job, he had to, since he was diagnosed with bone metastasis with an unknown primary etiology leaving him physically weak and eventually bedbound. (Definition: Bone metastasis occurs when cancer cells spread from their original site to a bone. In his case the original site of the cancer is unknown.)

With his condition, he stays at home with his family who had lived in the shadows all these years. He always thought that providing for his family’s financial needs was all that mattered. Only now has he really had the chance to get to know his family. He says that he sees his current condition as a blessing in disguise, since now he can spend more time with his 4 children. He says that at least, now he can help them with their homework. He could actually get to have those ‘talks’ with them. He now has the ‘time’ to show how much he really loves them. When asked if given the opportunity to have his strength back, he answers that he would honestly want to work, but this time balance his work and family life but definitely spend more time with his family.

Story #3:

This isn’t actually a story, but a poem I read sometime this week. A simple tribute to fathers who have already finished the race.

Father’s Day Poem

You never said “I’m leaving”, You never said “Goodbye”

You were gone before I knew it, And only God knew why

A million times I needed you, A million times I cried

If Love alone could have saved you, You never would have died

In life I loved you dearly, In death I love you still

In my heart you hold a place, That no one could ever fill

It broke my heart to lose you, But you didn’t go alone

For part of me went with you, The day God took you Home.

-Anon.

SpeedOne Auto Show

Written by Mikee Pasaporte

The SpeedOne Auto Show was held at V-Central Mall and was organized by Wigo Club Ph and Bayang Magiliw Pilipinas Productions last June 6, 2015, Saturday.

The Ruth Foundation was taken in as a beneficiary of this mall event by surprise (we were discovered through the Uppercase Band Album Launch, where the advocacy of Care, Dignity and Hope is shared whenever an opportunity arises).

Team Building and Strategic Planning

written by Mikee Pasaporte

The Ruth Foundation team building and strategic planning was held last May 14-16, 2015 at the Hills at Silang. Our staff, consultants, hospice care providers and core volunteers were given the opportunity to come together to be refreshed, enjoy each other’s company, share ideas and brainstorm for tactical plans for the rest of the year.

Big steps, small steps, leaps and jumps for the win.

A decent jump shot for the win!

1…2…3.. game on!

Time to think and strategize.

Main session

Brainstorming at its best

Nurses Care

Written By: Mikee Pasaporte

Nurse Carlo

For the month of May, National Nurses Week is being celebrated worldwide.

Nurse Carlo

Up to this day, I still can’t find the right words to explain how nurses do what they do. Day in and day out they give a part of themselves to the patients they assist. The ones that stay in the home care practice choose to take care of their patients regardless of their personal lack of sleep, hunger pangs, own illnesses, and times when their “me- time” becomes “shared time”, especially when their patients or the patient’s family members call at odd hours in the night.

Nurse AJ

Sometimes they complain, they breakdown, and they feel tired, but it does not make them less of a nurse. It makes them a genuine one—One who can be in touch with how they feel and know how to cope with it. Despite the way they are treated by some hostile patients; the pressure they feel on their lower backs when they carry a patient heavier and taller than they are; the pressure wounds they try their best to heal… regardless of all these and many more, they still find it within their hearts to smile while explaining which medicine to take, be their patient’s crying shoulder and a hand to hold on to when they experience sporadic episodes of intense pain, and still have in them encouraging words to share with both the patient and their families.

In hospice care, we need nurses who provide consistency, excellence and true passion, that in spite of the reality that our patients may leave at any moment, they feel cared for.

Nurse Emma

“They may forget your name, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou