By JESS DUREZA
(Continued from yesterday)
ISRAELI TECHNOLOGY
He described his instruments and techniques as “Israeli technology” not practiced by traditional western medicine.
For example, after some preliminaries, he put Beth in a “balancing machine” that electronically measured and examined her body balance.
To our surprise, we learned for the first time that her left side was shorter by .25 centimeters compared to her right.
Simply, this means an imbalance that triggers the recurring pains that had been troubling her for as long as we could remember.
He used a skeletal scale model in explaining how the pains were triggered if one side was shorter than the other.
To correct this, he simply recommended that Beth’s left shoe or footwear be “padded” with a .25-centimeter shoe padding.
A cushioned portable seat with the same padding thicker on her left side every time she would sit down was also prescribed.
Then Beth had to go through a nine-day therapy session that normally consisted of therapeutic ultrasound, extra corporeal shock waves therapy, acupuncture, physical therapy, traction and muscle relaxant injections in the neck guided by ultrasound imaging shown on the screen.
Every daily session lasts for an hour. Now Beth hopefully need not agonize taking painkillers that will further threaten her already precarious kidneys that had bounced back somehow after her fresh stem cell treatment in VILLA MEDICA in Germany two years ago. (As I write this, Beth is on her sixth day therapy session. I will continue to track her treatment and share updates from time to time.)
PAYBACK TIME
A simple man with simple dreams, Doc Gani is now bringing to his hometown in North Cotabato what he as a young boy always dreamt of – seeing in person Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) players in flesh and blood.
No doubt, PBA player-patients whom he treated are just too glad to visit his hometown barangays in Cotabato in appreciation for his :magical” treatments that keep highly paid basketballers who are injured or in pain back on the hard court in a jiffy.
Being the resident sports doctor of Most Valuable Players, the Azkals and Talk & Test, he makes arrangements to have PBA players visit his native town to do clinics and exhibition games. Boxing champ Manny Paquiao, I was told, had consulted him on some muscle-related concerns.
Still determined to help his fellow Mindanaoans who could not afford to travel to Manila, he agreed to meet with patients at the Alexian Wellness Center in Matina, Davao City once a month before he motors to his hometown three hours away.
He said he is in solidarity with the missionary zeal of the Alexian Brothers who run the center in Davao.
Someone described his medical fees as de lastico, meaning socially elastic to suit each one’s capacity to pay.
Here is a local boy who surmounted poverty and now the only musculoskeletal expert in town doing payback time for the less fortunate.
He remains to be a simple provinciano with his unorthodox methods of healing.
SICK PHILIPPINES
One last hirit if I may: We must all still continue to search for that unorthodox doctor to treat our country’s ailing body politic that is so sick today that conventional ways will definitely no longer work! Are you with me on this? Let us know. (jessdureza@gmail.com)/PN
