A COLUMN or two back the title of our piece on this page was “When it rains it pours.” It was, and still is, about the tight fix that we are presently in.
Now we are like the present climatic condition that is prevailing in the country. Meaning, we are not just experiencing the pouring of heavy rains but we are being submerged in the worst “flood” ever to happen with some kind of superstorm-level tropical upheaval – a deluge.
Maybe for others who will have the same experience that we are now being confronted, perhaps they might lose their sanity. For those who will not when toward the end of the last quarter of 2023 we were confined in the hospital for an operation to extract a mass that was blocking the urinary tube leading to our bladder.
For months we endured difficulty in disposing of our urine and were taking medication to supposedly address an enlarged prostate. But after a month of prescription drugs, our problem of urinating the normal way still persisted. When we saw another doctor and had ourselves undergone the ultrasound procedure, it was found out that our prostates were okay and that it was the growth of a mass that was making it hard for us to urinate.
And that was when we had to go under the knife at a humongous cost. The procedure left us with hardly anything left of whatever resources we have saved over the years. Hence, we just had to survive scrimping whatever there was that came our way.
Fast forward to the last quarter of this year. The wife who is not known for complaining of illness except for a very few occasions while still working and even after retirement, confided to our daughter that she easily gets tired and often hard of breathing despite insignificant body efforts. That was when she had to be brought to the doctor for proper consultation.
It was when imaging was done coupled with laboratory tests that she was found to have excessive fluid invading her lungs and that a lump was seen on her left breast. What was “devastating” was when the doctor recommended an emergency admission. The family, of course, had no other option despite the problem of meeting the expenses that would be incurred.
The doctors had to immediately drain the fluid in our wife’s lungs and four days later, they (doctors) removed her left mammary gland for suspicion that the mass growing there could be contributory to the accumulation of fluid in her lungs.
Now the wife is on her 11th day at the Brokenshire Hospital with bills piling up every day. Our wife appears to be getting well. And it is from here that our story of “When it rains it pours” is now morphing into a much bigger story of “prolonged heavy and massive rains coupled with super=storm level wind is flooding us, submerging even our hope for a happy Christmas in December.
Meanwhile, we are trying as best we can to have our noses above water to be able to survive this most challenging test in our lives. But for how long we have no idea.
******************************
It is heart-warming to know that the City government of Davao sympathizes with the rest of the Filipino nation in mourning for the dead victims of the two successive typhoons that devastated most parts of the Philippines.
It may be recalled that the National Day of Mourning was declared by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. whose administration has for almost a year now been the object of vicious criticisms from the leaders of Davao City under former President Rodrigo R. Duterte and his son Mayor Baste.
However, the enmity due to political differences seems not to deter the local government from rallying behind the national administration in its desire to ease the burden of the families of the victims. And we assume this is one characteristic of ours (Davaoenos’) that is manifested by our leaders every time major disasters hit any part of the country leaving behind deaths and destructions.
The city and its people are lucky enough to be located in an area not known to be a typhoon path. We are spared the calamitous effect. Of course, we cannot be complacent. We have to be wary of the frequent flooding that has been hitting some populous areas in the city including the central business district.
This has to be a cause for concern for our local government leaders.
