(Note: The specific date of this entry is not provided, but the following context precedes the entry in Dr. Alzona’s paper: “She was one of the charter members and the first secretary of the Philippine Antituberculosis Society which was founded on 29 July 1910. Towards the end of the same year she was found to be suffering from tuberculosis. She was at her office on the Escolta (No. 105) to attend a meeting of the Philippine Antituberculosis Society. While getting things ready for it, she wrote in her diary…” So for purposes of placement the date November 30, 1910 has been tentatively assigned to this entry.)
…long spells of cough seized me, which left me, for a time, weak and breathless. Often enough I have had before this time similar coughing spells, but as I felt strong enough to work, I did not pay any attention to it.Today, however, because of the cough and the general weakness which was beginning to get hold of me, I was very much disinclined to work and exertion.I was feverish, nervous and dyspneic. …
(Alzona continues, “When Mrs. Martin F. Egan, the presid nt of the Society, and Dr. W.E. Musgrave, member of the board of directors, en tered the office, she wrote,”)
they noticed how I coughed, how ill I looked; so Dr. Musgrave suggested that I go out to San Juan del Monte and promised to have a house built there for me, even though at his own expense, about which Mrs. Egan suggested to have the Society pay for it. Dr. Musgrave made a slight examina tion and was rather rough to me. This same time I remember Mrs. Egan treated me very impolitely by giving me her back as an answer to a just question. I asked her whether she could come to the office the following Thursday, as I had to go to San Isidro to fulfill an engagement she herself advised me to make. Soon afterward I left the office extremely depressed and downhearted, because of my hard luck and unfair treatment I had received.
As soon as I got home, I told the people in the house of the advice of Dr. Musgrave and of the seriousness of my condition; also that I intended to go to San Isidro that day and sleep there that night. After lunch, they very kindly advised me to rest awhile . . . .
At 4 o’clock we left Plaza de Goiti in a calesa for San Juan. When we got there, Dr. Garcia, the resident physician, was very glad to see me!l and was all attention and kindness. We were shown the hospital, grounds, and cottages. We were introduced to his – mother and his only sister . . . We lingered here for 1-1/2 hours and then left – with the understanding that I was to return to stay there that night and that Dr. Garcia was to go to the house to get me. Dr.Musgrave telephoned him that same day about my condition and my admittance.My first insight into a sanatorium, for, when I first went there with Dr. V.G. Heiser and others, it was being fixed and altered only.
At 6:30 Tio Pablo took me to San Juan, seeing that it was getting dark and Dr. Garcia had not arrived. As soon as I got there, I went immediately to Dr. Garcia’s house and was there for a long time talking with the doctor’s mother who told me about Dr. Garcia’s studies, his illness and finally his marriage to which she was very,. much opposed …. After waiting for a long time, Dr.Garcia arrived and we had supper with fun and jokes now and then to whet our appetite. After supper Dr. Garcia took me to the hospital dining hall to see the patients’ meal and to the hospital itself to see the patients. Then we sat down on the piazza adjoining his rooms until ten o’clock, when I retired to my tent.The tent was pitched on top of the stone wall surrounding the hospital grounds, the floor being of wood and the rest of canvas. There were two army cots in it, one for me and one for the nurse, one wash stand, one pitcher and one basin and a clean towel.There was no soap and . …