A Love Letter To My First Patient Ever: Melonio

I'm guessing he's around 9-10 years old and no, I did not cure him of any grave disease whatsoever or prescribed any drugs that can alleviate any "wrong physical feeling" that he had. All I did was helping him get through a rite of passage to becoming a man, a rite fulfilled by almost all boys here in the Philippines.

Oo. Marunong na kong magtuli. AS IN. Gusto mo? Masaya siya, sa totoo lang. Yun nga lang talaga, dapat hindi ka takot sa dugo dahil madugo rin siya kahit papano. Pero sobrang madali lang siya. Hindi na nga siya tinuturo sa med school ngayon eh kaya din sinunggaban na namin ang pagkakataon na matuto. Aba, pagkakataon din yun na matuto, kahit minor operation lang yun, astig pa rin. Para kasi saming intarmed na pinupuno ng subjects na katulad ng math 17 na hindi namin alam kung anong kinalaman sa medicine (sige na, may hihirit na may magagawa rin yung kaalaman na yun pag naging doktor na kami. okay fine. ang punto lang naman, hindi pa rin siya medicine na talaga), sobrang naaastigan na kami kapag tinuturuan kami ng mga bagay tungkol sa medisina. Siyempre, gusto na rin naman kasi namin malaman kung kaya talaga namin at kung gusto talaga namin maging doktor. At sa pagkakataong ito, sa pagtutuli, napatunayan kong kaya kong mag-opera, kahit minor pa lang yun, at na hindi ako takot sa dugo o kahit nandidiri man lang sa paghiwa ng balat o kung ano pa man.

But, I did some errors when I was doing the circumcision of my first patient's dick. No, you don't have to say "oh no!" because I was able to make up for it. After all, it wasn’t my fault at all because the doctor that was teaching us what to do told me to cut further the foreskin of my patient’s penis. Unfortunately, the cut skin was too far from the corona of the penis so I had to sew it back before sewing the uppermost skin to the second layer of skin of the boy’s penis. The cut that I did was clean and smooth but the blooper that I did forced me to make almost six sutures to correct it and to finish the operation. To make matters worse, the skin of my patient was too thick that inserting the needle through it took too much effort to do and that my two other sutures got loose so I had to do it all over again. Thank God that Melonio, my first patient ever, was very brave. I knew he could already feel the pain when I was just doing my second suture but due to the limited supply of anesthesia, I can’t give him more so he had to endure the pain. Even so, thankfully, I finished successfully.

Nakakatuwa dahil 17 years old pa lang ako, marunong na akong magtuli at nagkaroon na ako ng unang “pasyente” samantalang kahit kalian yata ay hindi ko naman talaga naisip na magdodoktor na ako. Achievement to! Hahaha. At nakakatuwa ring isipin na kaya ko pala. :)

To Melonio: Thank you for helping me wake up, once again, the curiosity and thirst for knowledge that have long been sleeping inside of me.