Noemie Joy Cabildo
May 2021
Noemie Joy
Cabildo
,
RN
Medical-Surgical
Divine Mercy Wellness, Tuguegarao
Tuguegarao
,
Cagayan
Philippines
I was a junior back then, but I told myself that there has to be someone to take over and look after the babies.
When I was a fresh graduate nurse with 6 months of working experience, Super Typhoon Haima, also known as “Lawin” struck our country. It was the third most intense tropical cyclone worldwide that year. It made its landfall in Penablaca, Cagayan, within the vicinity of the hospital where I was working. That day, I was scheduled for an interview for my US application, but I knew that I was needed in my unit. I decided not to attend my interview and went to the hospital. I was a staff nurse in the med-surg ward, but I was recalled to work in the PICU to cover the understaffing.
I was handling 3 babies that time, 2 of them were on mechanical ventilator because of the prematurity of their lungs and 1 is on room air. I was a junior back then, but I told myself that there has to be someone to take over and look after the babies. Oh boy did I feel afraid? No, I was terrified. But I thought about the lives of those defenseless babies- that there’s gotta be someone to step in for them and I felt brave. While at work, while the babies were sleeping, thunder and lightning rolled, food and clean water were scarce. Power supply was always interrupted, I was alone on duty because other nurses couldn’t make it to work because of the situation. Heavy rain started to slip to the unit through the ceiling and I had to transfer the babies to a safer room from the second floor to the first floor while manually ambu-bagging them, with the help of the patient’s relatives, sometimes the bagging lasted for hours. Though there were also other nurses attending to their own patients in the other areas, I was on my own. I had to depend on my knowledge, my critical thinking, and prayers.
I had to work for almost 36 hours straight because no nurse was available to relieve me. I still remember going home and dreaming of the ambu-bagging, call lights, and cries of the patients from the other wards. When the typhoon passed and the rain stopped, I felt like it was the happiest moment of my life. The doctors were able to make their rounds, the babies were stable, my senior nurses and chief nurse commended me for the work that I did…and the parents who thanked me. I will never forget that time when a father of one of my patients approached and thanked me in their dialect, though he was really trying to speak in Filipino and tried to slide some coins in my pocket to buy snacks into which I refused. Even though I can’t understand some of the words, I can feel how thankful he was. I was about to cry too when he started crying to me as he said, “ikaw yung andun maam nung wala kaming magawa. Ikaw ung naging nanay nila.” (English translation: you are the one who were there when we can do nothing, you were their mother that time,) which left me speechless.
Back to this day, I am not working anymore in that hospital, in that unit…but that experience was one of the foundations of who I am now, that there is bravery in the darkest of times, that I will always gladly say that I have no regrets that I chose to be a nurse..
I was handling 3 babies that time, 2 of them were on mechanical ventilator because of the prematurity of their lungs and 1 is on room air. I was a junior back then, but I told myself that there has to be someone to take over and look after the babies. Oh boy did I feel afraid? No, I was terrified. But I thought about the lives of those defenseless babies- that there’s gotta be someone to step in for them and I felt brave. While at work, while the babies were sleeping, thunder and lightning rolled, food and clean water were scarce. Power supply was always interrupted, I was alone on duty because other nurses couldn’t make it to work because of the situation. Heavy rain started to slip to the unit through the ceiling and I had to transfer the babies to a safer room from the second floor to the first floor while manually ambu-bagging them, with the help of the patient’s relatives, sometimes the bagging lasted for hours. Though there were also other nurses attending to their own patients in the other areas, I was on my own. I had to depend on my knowledge, my critical thinking, and prayers.
I had to work for almost 36 hours straight because no nurse was available to relieve me. I still remember going home and dreaming of the ambu-bagging, call lights, and cries of the patients from the other wards. When the typhoon passed and the rain stopped, I felt like it was the happiest moment of my life. The doctors were able to make their rounds, the babies were stable, my senior nurses and chief nurse commended me for the work that I did…and the parents who thanked me. I will never forget that time when a father of one of my patients approached and thanked me in their dialect, though he was really trying to speak in Filipino and tried to slide some coins in my pocket to buy snacks into which I refused. Even though I can’t understand some of the words, I can feel how thankful he was. I was about to cry too when he started crying to me as he said, “ikaw yung andun maam nung wala kaming magawa. Ikaw ung naging nanay nila.” (English translation: you are the one who were there when we can do nothing, you were their mother that time,) which left me speechless.
Back to this day, I am not working anymore in that hospital, in that unit…but that experience was one of the foundations of who I am now, that there is bravery in the darkest of times, that I will always gladly say that I have no regrets that I chose to be a nurse..