Gifts For Mother’s Day

Gosh, it has been five days since my last post here.  I didn’t even notice that yesterday was my 15th year at WordPress. Until now, I am still waiting for the results of my latest lab tests. Yesterday, The Medical City Hospital e-mailed me back twice and said they were not yet ready.  Such endless waiting. Stressful.

Nissa called me up early this morning and told me to expect a delivery today. The package arrived an hour ago. I cried (tears of joy) when I saw the contents of the bag. She gave me a brand new Samsung Galaxy 05 cellphone, her gift for Mother’s Day. Along with it are her ‘pasalubong‘ from their Korean trip last January. Keychains, ref magnet/paper weight, a set of knives, peeler and scissors and Kimchi and Bulgugi laver. I now have two cellphones and two tabs…haha🥰

I tried gardening early in the morning for three days now. I planted four o’clock seeds of different colors I bought from Lazada. These plants are easy to grow, they just need watering. Yesterday, I was done reading The Cider House Rules by John Irving. I gave it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Irving is such a terrific writer.

By the way, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY in advance to all the beautiful moms in my reader feed. Let us celebrate the beauty and challenge of motherhood.❤️❤️❤️

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Hello Mom

I just saw this early this morning on my Facebook’s Memories app. It was taken several years ago. I had to copy it on my tab since I am not sure if it was copied to my hard drive.

Miss you so much Mommy.🥰🥰🥰

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A Safe Place To Land

I always nurture the gifts of family and friends. There will always come a time in one’s life when you want to pour out all your insecurities, the fears and tears and when you  need someone to talk to and they are there to listen. Their presence bring you joy. You can smile despite the tears and you can be brave despite the fears. When you have a strong moral support, it lightens the burden somehow.

Yesterday, I was at TheMedical City Hospital for almost the entire day, to get the hard copy of the result of my JAK 2 Mutation assay and submit  it  to the hematologist who is also an internist. I don’t know what she is really looking for because the test was negative. She requested that I undergo MPL and CARL, two more specialized blood tests which were more costly than the JAK2 test I had before at the staggering amount of P78,000.00 pesos. She might be looking for signs of cancerous cells and I had to undergo those tests to make everything clear.

It took me so long to wait for the hospital’s statement of account at the Ambulatory Care unit. Although Intellicare has already approved it, the hospital can’t decide to issue one because according to one of the triage nurses, they have increased the price. They extracted four larger vials of blood. Run time will be a week after.

I discussed the procedures with my doctor friend,  a classmate from grade school last night and she asked me if I am losing weight. I told her no, I even gained a kilo since my doctor visit two weeks ago. You lose weight if you have cancer. She recommended for me to have a PET Scan to rule out cancerous cells. Higher platelet count with a little elevated WBC may just be unseen  infection in my body, according to her. We discussed so many things mostly about health.

I am deeply aware of the large question mark to the small dot in my life. Prayers, always prayers. And my family will always be a safe place to land.

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Lazy

I lost my muse.

As in, I could not think of a blog content  to write about. Having that almost five thousand blog posts was not an easy feat. Almost fifteen years of blogging. I formally customized this blog on May 9, 2009 after a year of procrastinating to transfer here at WordPress. All I had was one entry of a poem for about a year. I feel like I have written about anything under the sun, shared my life here as a cancer patient and survivor, talked about my health issues over the years, my family, my faith and love of books and my small garden. Ventured into macro photography a few years later. I have another blog I call Colors. (https://arleneariston.wordpress.com)

Occasionally, I would reflect and meditate on life and the journeys I am presently going through. I love collecting quotes from some books I’ve read over the years. I have three notebooks of them.

In this heat, I can’t think of doing something worthwhile. Would you believe, here in our  town in Cainta, heat index reached 44°C yesterday around noon. Classes in some schools are allowed online. Good thing, Nate has finished the school year. I read a lot now and do my numbers painting a bit at a time. Even the latter doesn’t hold that much interest.

The Cider House Rules (1985)  was written by American writer John Irving. It was adapted later into a 1999 film and stage play. It tells of a young man who grew up in an orphanage under the guidance of an obstetrician and abortion provider. It consists of 560 pages but I am only in chapter six.

I noticed the very low engagements on my blog posts lately, a few comments,  an average of 20 likes and about seventy to a hundred views. Maybe because I am not blogging regularly now and does not even visit WordPress.

Consider this my month-ender blog.  Tomorrow we’ll begin another month. Welcome May, I hope you’ll be colder than April.

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The UST That I Knew

I could not count the times I blogged about University of Santo Tomas, the Royal, Pontifical and oldest university in the Far East. It makes one proud of being an alumna there from high school to college.  We fondly call it USTe. I had so many photos of it which I took over the years whenever I had time to take a visit. I remember that the last time I visited the place was when Nissa had her thyroidectomy first week of September 2019 at the UST Hospital.

The very first time that I set foot there was during the summer of 1969. As I graduated from the province, I was quite late in taking the entrance exams for high school students. Since my dad also worked there, I was allowed to take the high school entrance exams at the office of the principal. At first I had a hard time adjusting to high school life. Most of my classmates were honors students from known schools in Metro Manila. I just garnered First Honorable Mention when I graduated from grade school. What I liked most about high school? The friends and classmates I got to know better, our English, Science and History teachers, quite disliked Algebra and Trigonometry. I loved  Chemistry and Physics though.

When I was in college, I worked for a time at the UST Main Library, Humanities Section. I was proud to be called student librarian and I gained lots of friends in the process. That’s where I learned to appreciate serious reading. I loved the rituals of attending early morning student masses at the UST Chapel. Finally earned a degree in Economics when I left the university.

It has changed a lot, more buiĺdings, pavilion and research center over the years. Proud to say that Nissa, Josef and I are alumni of UST embracing a good Catholic education in the process.

Got some photos from the net since I already uploaded most photos I took over the years.

This is the main building of the university.

HAPPY 413TH  FOUNDING ANNIVERSARY USTe.

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Losing Myself In Books

The past few days, I’ve been trying to forget the ‘would be’ outcome of my JAK 2 mutation assay.  Not  inspired to blog for several days but just lost myself reading.

Found three books that I rated five⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ each.

The Warsaw Orphan by Kelly Rimmer was inspired by the real-life  heroin who saved thousands of Jewish children during WWII. Read that book and wrote a review a long time ago. Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the  Warsaw Ghetto by Tillar J. Mazzeo.

Hurt and hope, loss and love along with anger and forgiveness, such speaks The Warsaw Orphan.  If you are a historical fiction fan, this is an absolute must-read. It speaks of the power of hope, love and survival during one of the darkest times in history.

I also love Kelly Rimmer in The Things We Cannot Say giving it another  five ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. It is a moving,compelling and heartwarming story that covers so many topics such as war, love, loss and friendship. A coming of age story that speaks of love amidst the dangers of war-torn Poland. It speaks of a family’s desire to know its roots.

I haven’t read David Baldacci in a while. He is brilliant in A Calamity of  Souls, another five ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ for me. A white lawyer defending a black man. Taking up the fight against racism, the subject is nothing  new but this was written well. The author explained that it took him a decade to write this book. I just love courtroom scenes.

Done with 37 books out of 75 I promised myself to read this year.

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How Nate Looks Now

Nate is learning Taekwondo lessons this summer.

It was their recognition day yesterday. More photos at https://nonnaarlene.wordpress.com  Would not want to upload them all here since I am saving on space.

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More on JAK 2 Mutation Assay.

So I had my JAK 2 mutation assay yesterday morning with three vials of blood extracted. I’ll get the result on Friday.

My medtech friend, a Filipina who is in the US and used to work at a hospital there explained to me what JAK 2 means. If you have it, it means you have a bone marrow disease. If it turns out negative, there are two others that she told me for further testing, CALR and MPL mutation which are equally expensive like the JAK 2. Those were what the hematologist told me. I just didn’t know the names.

In one of my youngest brother’s messages, maybe this has something to do with my previous cancer almost fifteen years ago and never drinking  milk in the process so my bones are weak. According to mom, I was breastfed when I was a baby. I have never drank milk in my life except  that one month stay at the hospital when I was seven months pregnant with Nissa so she will grow inside my womb. She was born prematurely at 3.9 lbs. And was left at the hospital two weeks after birth. Imagine pinching your nose every time the nurses give that glass of milk every morning for the whole month. I didn’t like the taste and felt nauseaus. I had preeclampsia before and that started my ordeal until now.

Sometimes I feel so down but I am not losing hope. Lifting it all up to Him.

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Hope And Dreams

Hope is an effulgent thing

Don’t lose it.

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It’s Done

So I went back to my endocrinologist after three months. My blood sugar is normal although my platelet count is still high and my creatinine is a bit elevated. She advised me to observe three more months if I want to go back to Kaibigan sa Kalusugan. I texted the assistant of the naturopath practioner and she said it is up to me if I would continue the food supplements or not. My endo said, I am spending a lot on medication  and she believes with proper care my diabetes would be controlled.

I need to consult a hematologist though and since they don’t have one at the clinic, I have to go to the main hospital, The Medical City to look for one. My next check-up would be in July but my medical insurance will expire at the end of June. I hope  Nissa and Josef would renew it again for another year. Can ‘t afford the too expensive laboratory tests on my own. I told them both and Nissa said it’s a ‘no issue’ for her. Since Josef’s work insurance is under Intellicare, he would take care of it. Thank God for loving kids. They take care of me.🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

I just finished reading a lovely book entitled The Music of Bees, a unique story about beehives, honeybees, drones, worker bees and their mother, the queen bee. So nice to encounter a book that speaks of people in an Oregon town, one is a beekeeper, a teenage paraplegic and a young man who was a felon. It speaks of the power of friendship, the courage it took the people  to defend their farms against a pesticide company that would destroy everything even the rivers and nature itself. I rated it four stars. Beautifully uplifting, warm and moving. It was a debut novel by Eileen Garvin.

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