Everything Is Funny, Eventually

Belated birthday Substack

When I was about 23, I had a rotting leg. I’m not even kidding, my leg was actually rotting. Though the doctors used the term “necrotic.”

So 12 years ago, I wasn’t at the gym working on my intrinsic foot muscles or my balance or the muscles that keep me erect at all times. I was actually out of town, some obscure town, climbing mountains, getting sprains every single time — all in the name of love. I kid you not. I was at a point in my life where I was saying yes to all these new and weird experiences mostly to 1) get over a failed romance, or to 2) jumpstart a new one.

I’ve always been a hopeless romantic. I could never do anything casual. The one time I tried, I literally married him. Which is why I empathize with my U-haul lesbian sisters. If we’re going to smash, we’re gonna smash because we love each other bro. I sometimes think it was my christian upbringing, but it seems most likely the trauma I have from the adults around me whose marriages never lasted.

So anyways, klutz is forever, no matter what your gym trainer says. Okay fine, my balance has improved and I’m able to recover from tripping over fast that I never actually fall, but I still trip over myself, a lot. And 11 years ago, I was on an island in Puerto Galera, asking my situationship to take a photo of me while I stood on some beach rock.

And I fell. I fell off the rock. Turns out the rock was also part dead coral and pretty sharp at that so it ended up digging a deep wound into my right calf. And it was pretty deep right, like you could see the inside of my leg which looked a little like marbled meat. Red with flecks of white. Oh and the blood. There was a lot of blood. We had to find the nearest health center which was just some far flung bahay kubo and the doctor on call could not have been much older than me. I don’t know why, but he decided to stitch me then and there with thick black thread, which looked almost like cross stitch thread. Gave me a prescription for whatever frontline antibiotic and we called it a day. Set an appointment with whoever doctor to remove the sutures when everything’s dry and good.

So I’m home, right. Back to my 9-5 in Manila. My kinda prestigious government job. The kind that had me wearing heels on the train. But two weeks go by and I’m still dripping yellow liquid from my wound. My mom is alarmed, as all good moms are. We call my aunts and uncles, and one uncle looks at it and says we need to redo the entire thing and he redoes the sutures in the backyard of my cousin Jake’s house. In front of everybody.

A month goes by and there’s no improvement. Things are looking worse and now there’s a pain element that wasn’t there prior. I’m crying to my situationship BJ every night about it. We call my grandma, specifically my grandma’s girlfriend. She calls her equally geriatric surgeon, whose office smells like moldy leather, who then passes me on to a much younger, bald, surgeon. I forget his name, but before I came in he was playing Calvin Harris-esque EDM on his speakers.

He turns it off. Takes a look at my leg. Listens to my journey so far. Orders a swab test and then tells me to come back once the results are out.

I get the results: pseudomonas aeruginosa. A monstrous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria. When I take the paper to bald, EDM enjoyer surgeon, he looks at me and says, “We’re going to have to confine you now.”

In the hospital room, I’m thinking about Calvin Harris, and whether he inspires any confidence in what’s about to happen to me. Wound debridement is what the procedure is called. We have to remove the necrotic flesh and clean the wound bed, or something. Hopefully we don’t need to hit the muscle. I’m going to be fully sedated. My mom comes. I know they’re worried about how to pay the bill in the absence of health care. Thank you mom, thank you grandma.

BJ is there, watching the Oscar Pistorius trial with my mom. This is the most time they’ve spent together at that point. Take note he’s not even my boyfriend yet. Nothing like trauma bonding to seal the deal, I guess. After a day of fasting, I’m wheeled into the pre-op room. The nurse turns me over, and tells me to count to three. She’s about to sedate me. One, two…

I wake up in the recovery room, a little disoriented. I know time had passed, but everything was just pitch black for a period of time. Maybe that’s what dying is like, I think. Then the lenses of my eyes focus and BJ comes into view. I don’t remember if we said anything to each other. I sleep some more.

When I wake up, I say I need to pee. BJ is the one sleeping in the hospital with me. He helps me get up. Lifts me by my underarms, and I let out this massive fart as soon as I’m on my feet. He guides me to the toilet. I think that the situation is horribly embarrassing, but I also think that, oh, it’s like we’re an old married couple…

When I tell my doctor friends about pseudomonas aeruginosa, I get the same reactions of shock and fear. They ask me questions. Ask me how long it took to heal. What kind of antibiotics did I have to go on. It’s my favorite hat trick for studious med students. It’s true, everything is funny eventually. At the time, I was crying nightly because of frustration. Crying on the train in pain.

The scar on my leg is massive and I have not worn heels regularly since. I’m not the same girl—I have healthcare now. I’m not standing on rocks. I’m still asking BJ to take photos of me. I fart in front of him, and he hates it, but I’m no longer embarrassed. Not one bit.

While this is not in the usual theme of my birthday substacks, I figured that when you hit 35, surely life’s got a bit of material worth writing about. Worth remembering. Worth re-living again. While we still have this one life to live.