With the radiation scare in Japan these days, I couldn't help but look back at a time when I went crazy with radiation fear...
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Ever had one of those days when everything that can go wrong does and everything that does go wong is, you think, because of you? W-e-l-l, I had one of those episodes recently.
It all started when one after the other the wall-clocks in our house stopped working. I dutifully brought out my double A batteries and started replacing them. I adjusted the time, turned the clock around...and nothing, they refused to tick. I took the batteries out and put them back in again. Still nothing, Weird, I thought clocks today must be so low in quality that they don't last longer than a year. Well, I left the clocks at that.
Needing to relax, I plugged the vcd to watch a movie. Hmmm, I checked the cartridge, I hadn't forgotten to insert a cd. I checked the connection, it was okay. I checked the plug, okay din. What the heck, I thought, and left it at that.
"What time is it?" I asked my husband.
"Ewan", he replied. "Huminto yung relo ko." I had worn that very same watch the day before and it was functioning, my mind screamed.
Then, something in me snapped -- the pc (modem and sound had stopped and died sometime in December), the vcd, the clocks, the watch! Why did everything I touch suddenly seem to break down? What was wrong with me?!!
It must be the radiation, "Praning Me" told "Logical Me".
After my near whole thyroidectomy, I underwent radiation treatment and stayed holed up for three of the most loneliest days of my life in a little sealed room in St. Luke's hospital.
"Oh no", I panicked, "I'm radioactive!" I declared and wondered what I should do.
"Stay away from me", I told Ned hysterically and informed him about my radioactive theory. "I might be dying. At any moment, I might just burst into a million of radioactive pieces. The clocks have stopped working, the computer's dead, the vcd won't play, your watch's not working," I babbled nonstop.
"It's 12:30", he informed me.
"Huh?" I paused from my senseless outburst, "I think I'm dying and you tell me the time?!"
I'm trying to tell you", he said dryly, "that my watch is working".
"Oh", was all I could say, so embarrassed was I. It turned out that he had just forgotten to push the button of his watch to get it ticking. The vcd? Turns, out it had just gathered moisture. The computer? The modem just needed to be re-installed.
My mind? It's just a little crazy.
Praning lang actually.
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Written March 2001
