Holy Thursday, Good Friday. Two days, two deaths. One (T.V.) was a dear, dear friend from ICANSERVE Foundation (www.icanserve.net); the other (T.L.) was the mother of my husband’s best friend from college. Both battled cancer, both fought valiantly. And when the time came, they both bid adieu peacefully and in God’s grace.
Since my last test (February 2, 2006), I have gone to seven doctors seeking advice on the right course of action for that lone lesion found on my neck. It is too small for treatment says six of seven doctors. Only one wants me to undergo another course of chemotherapy, which would be my third in as many years. I have decided to leave this one to God Almighty…literally living on a pray’r. I am on monthly observation to ensure any changes in the lesion could be checked.
I am currently on antibiotics for UTI (urinary tract infection). I had no symptoms. I was diagnosed after the routine urinalysis that was part of the annual physical exam for the office. On my fourth day on antibiotics, I started having blood in my urine. On the sixth day, I started bleeding. There was no pain nor difficulty in peeing. Just a lot of blood. My antibiotic regimen, which was supposed to be for seven days, was extended for another seven days.
It’s so easy to take this whole UTI episode for granted. But on Good Friday, we learned that T.L. had died from UTI. There were no symptoms and when the infection eventually became manifest, it was too late. She had completed chemotherapy and radiation last year but her immune system had not been able to recover. Her white blood cell count was much nearer to zero than low normal. She could not fight the UTI even with the strongest dose of antibiotics in a hospital ICU (intensive care unit). I had to check my own blood counts, which praise God were all in the low normal range.
Sometime during my roll of doctors’ consultations, the website (www.ourownlittleway.org) that helped me raise funds for my treatment started helping its second beneficiary, also a cancer patient in PGH. I thank especially my donors who have found it in their hearts to also help Jenelyn, a 21-year old Dean’s lister in La Consolacion College (Caloocan) who holds much promise to make the world a better place.
After helping Jenelyn reach out to donors, and in between finding out about my UTI and the two deaths, I was in a vehicular accident. I was driving, nobody was hurt. My vehicle needs repair, and an FX taxi driver is visiting me at home to make me pay for his day’s damages.
I sometimes rue the fact that people with cancer (like myself) seem to treat everything else as unimportant. We are just so grateful to be alive that we try to live each day in sincere thanksgiving for the many blessings of the Lord. But the world has a knack for yelling at us when we start living in an almost dream-world, where just being able to breathe in the morning is absolutely good and true. Like an FX taxi smashing into the vehicle you’re driving, the world shrieks into your ears: you still have bills to pay; the children’s tuition for next school year is due in a few days; there are plenty of people who need your helping; now you have a vehicle to repair; and don’t forget you still have UTI!
I just happened to submit a feature for a Sunday magazine about a healing priest, who quoted to me another healing priest who called death “perfect healing”. For at death we enter the fullness of life, where there is no illness, no pain, no suffering. With this perspective, I celebrate the perfect healing of T.V. and T.L. They are indeed my new allies in heaven.
Still, I cling on to dear life. Perfect healing is not so attractive to a wife and mother of growing children. I will take up my cross, Lord; fight my illness, withstand my pain, embrace my suffering; pay the bills, earn for my children’s tuition, help as many people as I can, have the car repaired and drink antibiotics for UTI.
I am definitely most grateful for this life---and accept all the aches and pains and troublesome things that come with it. For my joy remains in seeing my husband and children smile, hearing their laughter, feeling their hugs and kisses---and smiling, laughing, hugging and kissing them back for all the world may care.
