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Monday, November 07, 2011

When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I'll have no ego to injure.

Dear insansapinas,


More than a year ago, the co-worker of my friend took a leave from her job. Her husband was diagnosed with liver cancer.


The dreaded disease was discovered when he was brought to the hospital to remove his gall bladder. He got gallstones. The same as my case. But my gastroenterologist postponed the surgery and  advised me to have a liver biopsy with guided catscan He was more worried about his suspicion. Indeed, I was also diagnosed with liver cancer. We got the same symptoms, i.e, body itch and abdominal pain. He was advised to undergo chemotherapy. He could get that in a hospital which used alternative method of treatment but the family chose to go to the hospital near their residence because the wife had to go back to work while she attended to his treatment. 


He was subjected to sessions of chemotherapy which took many months and it was  only after these sessions  when their assessment of the treatment showed it did not work. 


I was also subjected to chemotherapy but it was done in another way, concentrated to the cancerous cells  so that after three months, the medical team learned that chemotherapy really did not work for liver cancer. So I chose another alternative. Another surgery. 


I am not one hundred per cent sure of the effectiveness but the prognosis is more positive.


The husband of the co-worker of my friend died a little more than one year after he was diagnosed. That was last week of  October. May he rest in peace.


Joe Frazier, the boxing champ was also diagnosed with cancer, last September.  Now he is in the hospice. (THIS JUST IN: Joe Frazier died tonight of liver cancer. He was 67). 


Andy Williams has bladder cancer and he is undergoing treatment. He is already an octogenarian. It was in his show where I saw Donny Osmond when he was introduced in the music world by his older siblings.


Nah, this article is not all about cancer. It also discusses compassion. 



It may be true that treatment may be available in some places that the ailing person need not have to go far. But even here in the US, different hospitals use different treatment strategies and equipment. One child who has cancer has to be taken by her parents to a hospital which is far from their residence because of the difference in the treatment.


The family travels to New York for five to seven days for Saiorse's intensive cancer treatments. They decided to take her to Sloan-Kettering because they thought the treatment available there would be less invasive. The treatment is not available locally.
So I am wondering why the treatment of GMA outside the Philippines poses a problem. If she does not come back, it is all in her conscience. Vindictiveness is what makes it difficult for people and souls to move on, here and  in afterlife.


Pinaysaamerika 

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