Walk and talk
I was panicking when I saw an overseas call coming in on my cellphone—panicking because it was already 1:30 p.m., past my Inquirer column deadline, and I was still struggling with writer’s block.
I answered anyway because it was Anita, my closest Dutch friend and fellow professor at Wageningen University, who had a stroke about four months ago. I knew I had to answer because I had not heard from her for weeks.
Because both of us are Catholics but unofficially Calvinists, meaning workaholics, we agreed to keep our conversation short, but still ended up spending an hour on “official” matters.
We both agreed we could talk about our strokes, which I could use for my Inquirer column, as I promised readers some time back, if only to help correct misconceptions about strokes.
So, first, we both agreed with anecdotal reports, still unconfirmed by more studies, that close friends can become “stroke mates,” and common sense tells us that a close friendship means strong empathy, which can extend to illness episodes.
Second, it’s not true that after a stroke you should avoid “thinking work.” Anita and I pretty much did heavy discussions around strokes, including how we both went back to work pretty soon after our strokes, even finding strength in being able to teach and write, including my columns (with apologies to the Inquirer’s Opinion staff handling word counts and spell checks).
Next, we discussed an issue we had been handling in an older project, which is how issues cross disciplines, like how a work colleague of mine who had a whole month of migraines before getting a stroke, and since migraines occur more often with women, we wondered if there was a gender component here crossing over with neurology.
All these mean that research on medical aspects of environmental problems must include what patients feel with an illness, including prodromes—the feeling that something really adverse is going to happen—and the signs and symptoms that follow. Anita, who speaks Filipino, agreed we could adapt the Filipino word “kutob,” a feeling that something is wrong, that something is going to happen. It’s like the canaries that miners carry into the underground. When oxygen levels drop in the mine shafts, the canaries send out distressed signals or even drop dead, sadly. Anita and I both have asthma, and we are certain, admittedly with still limited research, that people and possibly nonhuman animals with asthma know “when we are about to have an attack.”
Out of this research on kutob, we have a project right now involving the University of the Philippines’ (UP) anthropology department, the UP College of Engineering, and Wageningen University, teaching people working in hazardous settings (i.e., vegetable farmers to detect “bad” air and chemicals in their work) and correlating this with kutob. When Anita asked about how our bad air “project” was going, I told her, “You know, Anita, we need to talk about the kutob around strokes, starting with our own experiences.” And she agreed.
Then I moved on to an additional research methodology we should use, which she originally suggested in another project as “walk-talk.” Instead of getting dressed in white gowns and sitting in an air-conditioned conference hall, we should be outdoors discussing some of our latest findings, much like storytelling (kwento-kwento).
Anita started this walk-talk earlier, and I have started it also with my students, but this time, “inspired” by our strokes and the need to do some outdoor rehab exercises. So, why not combine academic work with our rehab and fulfill our Calvinist work ethic?
Oh, but if our newspaper columns could be produced this way, then why not go beyond medical stuff? I would love to do some cultural and political analysis while walking with students (and with Chichi) around the Academic Oval.
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michael.tan@inquirer.net
