Emergency Trip to the Philippines

After several days of just relaxing and cleaning up small piles of paper throughout the house, I was thinking that I ought to update the blog.  So here I am, on Monday night, at Singapore’s Changi Airport waiting for my flight to the Philippines.  I booked it today.

I have a four year old brother in the Philippines, the unexpected outcome of my father searching for beaches, pizza and beer.

Yesterday he was mauled by the family dog.

As it turns out, my dad is in California right now, frantically trying to get a flight back to Asia.  And as it turns out, I am relatively close by.  A four hour flight.  I land at 4am and will take a taxi to the hospital to find his mom.  Luckily we visited the Philippines a few months ago so it is not completely unchartered territory.

My brother had plastic surery yesterday but I am not sure how extensive his injuries are.  I am going partly for support, and partly to help pay the hospital bill.  Hospitals in the Philippines pretty much run on a cash basis.  No cash in hand, no service.  And given the amount of corruption and fraud there it is very difficult to wire money quickly.  In the end it may actually be easier just to fly there.

Today was mainly a scramble for airline tickets.  Amazingly only $200 round trip on a budget airline, hopefully we won’t have to get out and push.

I also stopped by a book store and Toys R Us.  You know how after a break-up, every song on the radio is a love song or break-up song?  It is a similar thing with books.  The first three titles that jumped out at me, all in appropriate, were:

• The Dangerous Alphabet
• How Daddy Lost His Head
• How Dogs Work

I got the Babar collection and some Transformers, then raced home to cook dinner, shower and pack an overnight bag.  I hope to be back in Singapore by Friday.  In fact, I must be back by then because Elysia has to stand watch and the following week we are going to try to head to California.

This is not the kind of excitement I was expecting this week.  I thought I was just going to go bowling with the milspouses.

Not to sound like a martyr but right now it feels like I am always first on the scene even if that is not entirely true.  When my grandmother entered the hospital on Christmas Eve I got there days before anyone else.  When my mom was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer I made it to California practically en route to Singapore.  When my brother had his shoulder separated and had surgery in Arizona, I flew down.

There is little that I can do here I go, off to see a four year old in the hospital.

Poor little guy.