Healthier Choices

Growing up, every time I got sick, I was always brought to the hospital to be treated by a traditional, conventional medical doctor. We always brought home with us, my mom and I, either a bottle of candy-flavored liquid medication or, as I got older, bitter and dull-colored tablets or capsules. I’ve taken countless types of broad-spectrum antibiotics, paracetamols, decongestants, expectorants, pain relievers, and other prescription and over-the-counter drugs. I get sick when I forget to take my multivitamins. It’s a miracle my liver and kidneys are still functioning just fine. I’ve been raised with the belief that modern medicine can prevent any illness, can cure any disease.

Lately, though, my body hasn’t responded that well to prescription drugs. Recently I went to my doctor to have a minor infection treated. She gave me a broad-spectrum antibiotic. I’ve taken this particular drug before, although I think its side effects second time around are more apparent. First 24 hours I experienced mild dizziness, and then a metallic taste in my mouth up to a few days after I stopped taking it. Another side effect  was oral thrush a few days after I completed my prescribed dosage. Obviously, the broad-spectrum antibiotic she gave me was a little too strong that it killed all the healthy bacteria in my body, thus making it conducive to a fungal infection. I didn’t want to go back to the doctor to have another prescription drug given to me to treat this rather harmless fungal infection. So I took the matter into my own hands.

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Role Reversal

This afternoon I went grocery shopping with Mum after office hours. She said she needed to pick up a few items. I was the one driving the car to the supermarket, she sitting relaxed on the passenger seat, looking out, windows rolled down, the wind caressing her face. I always like driving for Mum. For many, many years she has been the one driving me to school and to wherever I needed to go. She’s in her 50s now, and some health issues that come with age are starting to set in. She’s slowly yielding and giving the wheel more and more to me and my younger brother. Another reason why I like driving for Mum is that she’s able to see things she isn’t able to see when she’s the one driving. She notices the new building being constructed around the block or how plenty the people are that flood the streets during rush hour.

I parked near one of the supermarket entrances so that we wouldn’t have to walk too far. At the side entrance there were shopping carts lined up, ready to service grocery-deficient customers. I went straight inside while Mum lagged behind. She got one small cart before entering. I asked her why she got a cart when we were only buying a few items. She just smiled, said it’s good to have one anyway. I chuckled, thinking this might turn out to be an impulse buying spree. First, we got what we really needed like some fruits. After the first item, I took over pushing the cart. The more items you got, the harder it is to push the cart. I didn’t want to tire her more. So I followed her wherever she went, whether she was just window shopping for an item or actually selecting one to put into our cart.

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Cookies That Taste Like Flour

In a previous blog entry, I suggested things to do when one is sick and stuck at home. A friend commented that I should try and cook, and I told him I sucked at cooking. We all have something that we’re good at, and we also have something we’d rather have other people do because we suck at it. For sometime now, I’ve been thinking hard, trying to trace where this ineptitude stemmed from. I looked back on my childhood, and there I found some answers.

When I was still a toddler, according to my mom, she fed me almost nothing but Gerber or Cerelac or whatever synthetic baby food there was on the market. So growing up, I was so picky with my food, I often frustrated the hell out of her when it came to feeding time. I preferred fried food to fruits and vegetables, and I was one hell of a sweet tooth (still am, by the way). I remember I used to eat Milo (chocolate powdered drink) in its solid form mixed with powdered milk and sugar.

Growing up, I also wasn’t actively involved in the kitchen. I had little interest in how food was prepared and cooked, and my mom and aunt did all the cooking. I don’t remember helping out in preparing ingredients like washing a vegetable or slicing a fruit or chopping an onion (and crying from doing so) or salting a big chunk of meat or eviscerating a fish. None of that whatsoever. They didn’t force me to be involved, which looking back I now regret because I realized if I were to live by myself now at this moment in time, I’d probably die of a heart attack because I couldn’t cook a decent, healthy meal.

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Childhood Noms

Ever associate a particular food or drink with your childhood? Like every time you eat or drink it or even just see it or remember it takes you back to your childhood in a high-speed time machine? Some foods do that to me. Some of them I haven’t tasted in a long time, but I can still remember their textures and how they tasted. We Filipinos love to eat. Aside from the usual three big meals a day, there’s always merienda  in the morning and in the afternoon, and sometimes even a midnight snack for the late sleepers or insomniacs.

When I was in grade school, my parents and I lived in a small, close-knit compound. Most of the kids in the neighborhood were my age. We played a lot, almost every day. My playmates and I were loyal customers of Aling Anding’s sari-sari store, feasting on salty chips or on cavity-causing candies and chocolates. Sari-sari stores are basically small mom-and-pop retail stores. You can buy anything from junk food to canned goods to laundry bar soaps to cigarettes. You name it, they sell it. You can even have a beer or two as long as there is something to sit on just outside of it. Some of the kinder owners even allow credit or what is more popularly known as utang or lista in Filipino. (more…)

My Drug of Choice

I started drinking coffee when I was already in college. When I was young, being the inquisitive kid that I was, I wanted to know what that hot, brown liquid my parents were drinking every morning. I wanted to taste it, but they forbade me to. Like alcohol, they said it was for adults only. Knowing what I know now about coffee, I had to laugh at the trash my parents and older relatives told me about it just to discourage us kids then from trying it. They warned me that I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I drank too much. It’s true that hypertension and heart disease run in our family, and they said coffee is bad for people like us who have a predisposition for such conditions. Yet they still drink it! How inconsistent is that?

As I got older, they gradually let me taste the damn thing. I guess they realized they couldn’t fool me anymore about it not being good for my health. When I was in my fourth year in college, doing my thesis, sleepless nights became a common thing, and I really needed some help either to stay awake at night to revise my manuscript or to get me out of my zombie-like state in the morning. That was when I started to drink coffee regularly. My first job out of college required me to come to the office at 6:00 AM, and that just reinforced my newly adopted habit more. As I transferred from one company to another, one constant was that mornings were not complete without coffee. If we either partied the night before or stayed late to render overtime, we badly needed it the following morning to get us going.

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Homesick

Since I started working in Makati in December 2005, never a weekend has gone by without me coming home to LB. I didn’t realize how nice it is in LB because I have always been here my whole life, from birth through college.

I miss:

• The fresh air. My God, Manila is so damn polluted! My first few weeks, I didn’t want to breathe the minute I got out of the office. It is just suffocating. Even though I don’t smoke anymore, I think I might die from lung cancer.
• The scenic view. I never thought I’d miss looking at Mt. Makiling. Skyscrapers are okay, but they get boring after a few weeks. And the squatter area is such an eyesore; it’s depressing.
• The trees. Hardly any trees in Manila. There’s a couple at the back of our office building. But that’s just about it.
• The animals. Yeah, I love animals. Our neighbors have a mini animal farm; they’ve got dogs, chickens, ducks, geese, goats and cows. Waking up in the morning hearing them is better than hearing the rush of city life.
• The home-cooked meals. Tinola, sinigang na baboy, sinigang na sugpo, nilagang baka, adobong baboy, adobong manok, pesang tilapia, chopseuy, and the list goes on. I’m gonna grow wings sooner or later from eating fast food.
• The cheap food and drinks. A bottle of beer, around P25. A serving of sisig, not more than P100. And IC’s Café’s spicy tokwa, the best.
• The drivers. Yes, believe it or not, I miss them. City drivers are such assholes. Always honking their horns and cutting your lane.
• The safety. I can walk around Grove at 2:00 in the morning intoxicated without having to worry about muggers or rapists. You can get robbed in broad daylight in Manila.

And of course, I miss my family and friends.