Maziar suits up for a fun birthday dive.
Today I was scheduled to do a Discover Scuba lesson with a group of five Filipinos that live in Los Angeles. Alli basically led the whole program while Grace and I helped out. For one of the skills we had the students descend to the deep end of the pool. I took one of the students, CJ, down but she had problems equalizing. We surfaced and she told me that her ears hurt. I was scared and she looked scared too. I handed her over to Alli for advice on what to do. I felt so bad for the student and found it hard to concentrate on anything else.
After doing all the required skills in the pool we geared up for an open water dive at Sabang Point. Alli, Kjell, and Grace looked over the 4 Discover Scuba students while I buddied up with CJ. We dived slowly and shallow to a maximum depth of 2 meters. CJ was underweighted, had a leaky mask, and had problems equalizing. We took it slow by descending slowly and even surfacing from time to time. Eventually I got CJ below the water swimming around towards Alli’s group. Unfortunately, we didn’t see anything very interesting underwater. I was concerned she was having a really bad dive.
When we surfaced, I saw something I never thought I would see—a smile. CJ grinned with excitement from her underwater adventure; she was amazed to see a common blue starfish, something that I normally pass by and ignore. It’s nice to see someone get so excited about diving even on something I’ve become jaded to. I know Alli has over 7,000 dives she’s logged and she still enjoys diving. No one dive is ever the same.
A bristle star hangs on to a coral.
In mid afternoon I went with Maziar and Grace to the “Hills” dive site with Ruben leading. It’s Maziar’s birthday and we all decided to go out and do a birthday dive with him. Maziar and I like going to “Hills” because it’s relatively shallow and there’s lots of little creatures to take pictures of. I saw another waspfish, some shrimp, a black frogfish and some interesting looking coral.
Waspfish trying to stay calm in the current.
Two shrimp make home in an anemone.
After the dive we went straight to the pool where Maziar and Grace needed to do their equipment exchange exercise for their Divemaster course. This skill involves the two divers to “buddy breathing”—sharing breathing from just one regulator underwater. While they do this, they must swap all their equipment except their weights and wetsuit. It’s a stressful exercise that takes good planning. They did it quite well and both passed on the first try.
I got a text from my friend “Bob” who I’m suspecting actually has a serious drinking problem. He texted me asking me to go buy some beers for him as a favor. This is someone who recently told someone I know that he needs to see a doctor because of a drinking problem. I talked with Bob who sounded very jittery on the phone. I told him I will see what I can do.
Warren gives Maziar some good vodka for his birthday.
Maziar's birthday cake.
Maziar's birthday cake in his face.
I went to the Point bar to see Maziar and celebrate his birthday. Warren was there and I asked him for advice on what I should do with Bob. Warren texted some people and came back saying not to worry about Bob and that people know about him, even the embassy. I wanted to at least visit him because I was concerned about his health and so decided to bring him some food from McJims. Grace was kind enough to come with me.
When we delivered the food to Bob, I was shocked to see him; he was in worse shape than I thought. He was in his bed uncontrollably shaking. He stuttered when he spoke, could barely type on his cell phone because he shook so much, and couldn’t even stand up and go to the bathroom. The only food he barely ate was a little donut pastry. He didn’t remember the last time he slept but said, “Maybe a week ago”. I immediately went out to get him some Gatorade, some cookies, and some water to help replenish some vitamins. When he tried drinking the Gatorade, he threw it up. I decided he needed to see a doctor immediately.
I contacted Warren and told him the situation while he was partying with Maziar at his friend’s house. He told me there was a 24 hour doctor in Sabang and would try to get a hold of her. After a lot of calling around, Warren tracked down the doctor who conveniently was in the area. In fact, the doctor heard about the condition of my friend previously from someone else. Seems like a lot of people knew about Bob’s problem but didn’t bother doing anything about it.
The doctor arrived with her bag and assistant. I was relieved to see her. To my surprise, when she saw Bob she wasn’t shocked at all. I guess he will be all right. She setup an intravenous and hung it on a clothes hanger in the bedroom. Bob’s shaking was from a lack of vitamin B and nutrients which happened because he hasn’t eaten properly. The doctor was out of the vitamin B complex that Bob needed and said she will come back later to give him some. Additionally, the doctor gave Bob something that would help him sleep.
"Bob", hooked up to an IV, feeling tired for the first time since he could remember.
Sometime late in the night, Bob was feeling tired for the first time and I could notice his shaking was slightly reduced. I was happy to see this. Grace and I told Bob that one of use will stay with him the night to help him walk to the bathroom and drink water. Grace agreed to stay with him and I went home late to sleep. At least I could relax knowing he was in good hands. I hate to think what would have happened to Bob if Grace and I took the advice of others and didn’t worry about him.
- jason
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