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Thursday, October 29, 2015

In the house of the terminally ill



Mel Amarillo
Blurb…
In the House of the Terminally ill…
So sorry for the long share..
Tita Bybs my wife for forty years is no simple homemaker. She had been very active in the running of our business all her life. A hardware and trucking company.
When in 2005 I became disabled after a heart surgery and a stroke, she was there with strong heart to go on When we got out of St. Luke’s Hospital, it was not only my impending disability that worried both of us but also the financial viability of our business. Tita Bybs asked my doctor the probabilities of recurrence of my heart ailment. The answer was perhaps 8 years but please observe and follow very strictly the new lifestyle I told you and you might go longer. And so I am terminally ill ‘may taning’ I said to myself. After a year we decided to sell our business entirely. Then we left for Singapore and lived with the family of our eldest son.
In Singapore..
We did not go there sitting down. We had our expertise in food preparation in Manila. Tita Bybs went to the market everyday to collect pork skin that were actually given free. With a big woke and a bigger gas stove we made special crispy Chicharon Then we also had ‘tocino and skinless longanisa’ all packed at 5$ each pack. Then Tita Bybs with her push cart pushed downstairs about 15 kilos of Pinoy products to a waiting taxi and deliver them to Citibank in downtown Singapore where her customers were about 200 Pinoy bank employees. After three hours she’s back home where our 4-year old grand kid asked ‘Mame why you have more money than Dad?
Anyway, after more than a year we have to go back to Manila for the wedding of our youngest daughter. Here, we decided to stay.
But Tita Bybs again did not take this sitting down. We bought a small store at the public market near our village, Yet, aging now at 63 she felt getting tired easily. July and August 2014 we both had cataract surgery. It was then that Dr. Junio discovered her eyes and skin yellowish. The eye doctor told her, before going home go to Dr. Lopez clinic upstairs for further consultation. The next day we went back for various examinations and tests ‘Perpetual Hospital that is. The next day we were told to prepare for the surgical operation. In all these time, she was still the one driving the car. It took 12 hours before she was out of the operating room . The next day with all of us present Dr, Yap reported advanced cancer in the pancreas. It has been eleven months since that day. Now out of the hospital but under pain management by two doctors at home. In the house of the terminally ill.
“Since the day I became disabled this strong hearted woman became my caregiver my driver my manager and most of all my loving wife.”
Now in severe excruciating pain, this morning she was shouting to herself ‘bakit sila hindi naman nag sisimba kung saan nakarating nakakatawa bakit ako bigat ng pamato patong sa ulo ko” blaming God? Perhaps out of frustration and exhaustion. I could not say a word. Tita Bybs is a lector in various parishes we go Pasig, Singapore, Korea and now in Pilar, Las Pinas, At times of severe pain attack I could also feel death is a sanctuary.
I am sharing this my own experience to those who are in the same situation as mine now Please tell me what you did. You might lighten my way. Think of the saying,’A problem shared is half solved’. # Mel

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