Blog Posts on neurosurgery

Keep moving. Nothing in between. by Life isn't so much a puzzle as it is a plan on Feb 10, 2013Exactly a year ago today at 6:00PM, I went under the knife. Something I did not want, laminectomy due to herniated disc at L4, L5. I was made to believe that it’s something I needed. Only after the surgery that I knew that my decision to be in...

Lost Saturdays by Ronibats.PH on Feb 10, 2013“Inday, kakalbuhin ka muna ha?” Eric Reyes said to her 13-year-old daughter Ofelia as she lay restless on the operating table. I sat at the head end of the table, scissors in one hand while the other adjusted and focused the light on her...

You Can Only Take So Much Grief by Ronibats.PH on Nov 18, 2012It is hardest to talk to somebody mourning the sudden loss of a loved one. You are faced with questions that demand exact answers, but no explanation is ever enough, no course of action justified. Grief takes away all reason, leaving only an impenetr...

Being the Happy Resident by Ronibats.PH on Aug 29, 2012Earlier today, as I was walking past the guard who checks employee IDs at the hospital entrance, my attention was called by a colon cancer patient whom I took I care of as a general surgery resident a couple of years back. “Doktor Baticulon!...

Forgiveness and Redemption by Ronibats.PH on Aug 18, 2012As if the anguish of having been raped by a drunkard were not enough emotional trauma, Ofelia Reyes found out–two months after the atrocity–that she was pregnant. It was a memory she had been trying to supress: she going home late because...

It Takes Just One Person by Ronibats.PH on Aug 6, 2012At one point, I gave up on Eric Reyes. The 30-year-old was abandoned in the ward by family and friends. He had no wife or children. He was left to care for himself, which he could not do because of the severe head injury he sustained when he fell six...

50 Spine Surgery Practices to Know by Natural Medicine Free Naturopathic and Homeopathic Resources on Jul 2, 2012Tim Adamson, MD, is the developer of the Cervical MED and was the first in the region to use an artificial disc for treating degenerative disc disease. The practice includes X-ray, a mobile MRI and upright MRI. ..... The practice includes a surgeon w...

That Uneasy Feeling of Knowing All Effort Was Futile by Ronibats.PH on Jun 17, 2012Thirteen-year-old Eric Reyes only wanted to help his six-year-old neighbor cross the street. In an ironic turn of events, a tricycle hit Eric on his way back. The impact immediately rendered him unconscious. Bystanders took him to a local hospital wh...

That Curious Feeling of Knowing That You’ve Saved a Life by Ronibats.PH on Jun 6, 2012A few hours after her son, a nurse, died from cancer, Ofelia Reyes bled in her cerebellum. The stroke (“brain attack”) immediately put her in semicoma. There was just too much blood, too close to the part of her brain that controlled her...

The Risks You Do Not Take by Ronibats.PH on Apr 15, 2012The irony is that everything happened in front of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, a 200-meter sprint from the Department of Justice building. I had just attended a mentor’s Christmas party and was walking home just outside the hospital wh...