Nick came to the flat, with his sister Rose in tow, and knocked on the door.  I asked why he wasn’t in school, and he replied that his stomach hurt.  I asked if he wanted to go to a pharmacy or herbal remedy store or a physician’s office.  He wouldn’t express a preference.  The quickest and cheapest thing to do is to go to a pharmacy and buy Pepto-Bismol or Maalox or Tums.  These can’t be had in grocery stores and convenience stores in the Philippines.

I again asked Nick if he would like to be examined by a doctor, and he agreed.  So I got my umbrella in anticipation of usual afternoon rain, picked up my keys, and we walked uphill to Tuding Road to wait a quarter hour for a jeepney ride to Baguio City.

I thought that we could go to the pediatrician to whom I had taken Andy* twice or we could return to the pediatrician that Nick visited a month and a half ago.  Well, after we checked my post office box for birth certificates for Nick and Rose (not here yet), we walked down Session Road’s sidewalk all the way to the clinic we’d been to previously.  The doc is only there from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., reported the clinic’s receptionist.  So Nick, Rose and I back-tracked up Session Road’s sidewalk to the Anita Theresa Building, where on the third floor are medical clinics.  Rose and I had gone there with Nanay a couple of months ago so that Nanay could be examined and treated by Doctor Montenegro.

Today Nick was interviewed by Dr. Bilog-Roaels then sent to Session Diagnostic Center (several meters away) to give blood and urine samples (which he’d never done before).  The doc said, after the specimens were analyzed, that Nick has gastritis.  She told me, after talking with Nick, that he seems not to be eating enough, often enough.  She said that he misses meals each week, including breakfast.  His stomach acid hasn’t enough food to ‘work on,’ so it irritates the stomach’s lining and induces discomfort.  Dr. Bilog-Roaeles said that drinking acidic soda pop doesn’t help, especially drinking sodas without eating.

So I felt guilty about taking Coke to the neighborhood kids in Baguio Gold back in April and May.  That’s what they’d requested (not juice, water, C2, or tea — and Gatorade, Powerade, and the like aren’t for sale).  However, aside from the caffeine and sugar in Coke, it’s too acidic for the skinny little boys to drink with empty stomachs before or after we played Sepak Takraw or basketball.

Dr. Bilog-Roaels said that Nick must not miss any meals.  He must eat breakfast daily.  He should drink more milk or Milo.  He’s under-height and under-weight for his age (12 on Saturday), as many Filipinos kids are.  I have bought so much powdered milk and Milo for him, Rose and Andy since meeting them in April.  But Nick says that they have none now.  I said that we’ll get more.

Dr. Bilog-Roales gave to us a bottle of Dicymed (Dicloverine Hydrochloride), an anticholinergic syrup for Nick’s tummy ache, to be ingested every eight hours as needed.  She prescribed milk of magnesia for Nick to take a half-hour after meals.

Since seeing a poster showing a childhood immunization schedule tacked to a wall in a pediatrician’s clinic in late May or June, I have been concerned for months about whether this family’s kids have been completely immunized against diseases in the Philippines.  I think that I asked Nanay, their maternal grandmother, who’s raising them in Baguio Gold, if they’ve been immunized against typhoid, diphtheria, malaria, dysentery, tuberculosis, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis and whatever I could think of.  I don’t think that she caught-on to what I was asking.  That may’ve been when she was beset by her own problems with asthma and blood pressure.  And Nick couldn’t say with certainty who’d received which vaccinations.

Today I asked Dr Bilog-Roales’ secretary for a list of children’s immunizations so that I could go over it with Nanay and try to ascertain who’s received what.  After paying for the physician visit and laboratory tests, we walked downstairs to but milk of magnesia in Mercury Drug.  Then we crossed Session Road to eat lunch. I’ve fed these kids many times in the past months.  Both are too small for their age.  And I think that down in Baguio Gold they don’t eat much more than rice and chicken and a few veggies and fruits.  So I have bought groceries and meals for them so that they’ve had thousands more calories and nutrients than they would if they’d never met me.

At the start of lunch, I had Nick take a teaspoonful of Dicymed syrup (for gastritis).  About half an hour after lunch, I had him take a tablespoonful of mint-flavored milk of magnesia, which he hated.  We rode a jeepney to Tuding, then I walked with the kids down to their home in Baguio Gold as rain began to fall on us.

At the family’s home, Jimmy, the father of Rose and Charlotte, was there with Charlotte and Nanay, his mother-in-law.  Charlotte, whom I don’t remember meeting in April, remembered me and rushed to greet me and hug me.  And you should have seen when the sisters reunited.  Such joy!  Charlotte will be eight years old August 11, and Rose will be six years old on Sunday.  I’d heard yesterday that Jimmy would bring Charlotte for a visit on Sunday, and I lamented that she wouldn’t be accompanying us to Riverview Water Park on Saturday.

Well, Jimmy had brought Charlotte on Thursday afternoon to reside with her siblings and Nanay as she had until April.  He’s had a stroke and is unable to work full-time and support Charlotte’s, so he has returned her to Baguio Gold where she’d gone to grade one in the elementary school two hundred meters away.  I don’t know what she thinks about the poverty in Baguio Gold, but she’s happy to be reunited with her loving sister and grandmother — and perhaps her brothers Nick, Pat, and Mack.  And she’s eager to transfer to grade two tomorrow or Monday.  Baguio Gold Elementary School has a record of her; it’s not a huge hassle for her to return to the school where she completed grade one in late March.

So I asked Charlotte if she’d like to go with us to Riverview Water Park on Saturday.  I think that she’d already gotten wind of that outing from grandmother, because she readily said yes.  I asked if she has a swimsuit, and she said yes.

I went over the doctor’s instructions for Nick with Nanay and gave to her the bottles.  I reviewed the list of recommended immunizations with her, Jimmy, and Nick, and they assured me that every child had received all the vaccinations. They were quite sure.  So I horsed-around with Rose and Charlotte while Nick brought out his bicycle and inflated the rear tire.  He wanted to take his sisters for a ride.  Shortly thereafter I heard a jeepney engine revving and a horn honking, so I gathered my bag and umbrella then dashed down the steps to take a ride up to Monterrazas Village. †