We bought 3 VCD's at HMV in SuntecCity... they were on sale... 3 VCD's for $29, good huh. One of the VCD's we bought was “Awakenings”... Robert de Niro and Robin Williams starrer. I've seen it a lot of times before but I still get so affected everytime I see it. I mean, I do cry at movies but if I see it again and again it does wear out. But this one can still get to me.

It's the year 1969 and Dr. Strayer (Williams) was a newly-hired psychiatrist at the hospital where Leonard (de Niro) was a post-encephalytic patient suffering from... the scientific term they used was 'dementia of unknown origin'... the condition of the patient was stupor, as differentiated from comatose, cause they were awake although totally immobile. Dr. Strayer experimented with the patients using the newly discovered drug L-DOPA. The drug did good for a while cause the patients were able to move (hence the title of the movie) but side effects bore on them in the long run and they were back where they started.

I worked at the Philippine Heart Center for 5 years and Dopamine was given to cardiac patients through IV pumps for a certain period of time. I'm not sure if the drug is used specifically for cardiac conditions but for this purpose, it acts to regulate heartbeat which is produced by cardiac muscle contractions. A logical premise would then be that dopamine acts, again probably in part, on muscles. Working with cardiac patients, I've seen the same effect on them after a while... tremors, spasms... but the drug cannot be stopped immediately as this would also have far more adverse effects. So the way we use the drug, we scale it down gradually when the heartbeat is observed to have become regular for a certain period until we are able to give the 'last dose'... then the patient is put on oral Prednisone. That's as much as I can remember.

In the movie, Dr. Strayer did the opposite... he increased the dosage of the drug. I don't claim expertise on the drug, but at the time they experimented on it, it was newly discovered... and, at the time, probably didn't know any more than I do... but still, they cared enough to try.

The scriptwriter gave Dr. Strayer one line... "What could they be thinking?" If Williams has portrayed the real Dr. Strayer accurately, the character would have earned my respect. I think a doctor, who would look at a patient and consider figuring out the person, and not the body alone, is the best kind of doctor anybody could hope to have.

Oh... and de Niro should have won best actor... what could the Oscar people be thinking?... damn!