December 2008. It was the first World's AIDS Day that I attended. And I swore that it was going to be my last...
Fast forward November 2010. The day before December 1 (Tuesday), I texted our yogi and asked whether it was OK for me to do yoga practice the day before my CD4 extraction. He said it was.
I was actually trying to make an excuse not to attend another World AIDS Day event.
On December 1, I was called to an emergency meeting scheduled for 6PM. Normally, I would have made a fuss about the timing but I accepted the meeting invite without second thoughts.
I was actually trying to make an excuse not to attend another World AIDS Day event.
Later that day, the meeting was re-scheduled for 4:30PM and finished a few minutes past 6PM. I left the office quarter past 6. I was expecting to reach Ortigas from Ayala way past 7pm as usually happens.
I was actually trying to make an excuse not to attend another World AIDS Day event.
Lo and behold! No traffic along EDSA! And I made it to Ortigas quarter before 7!
I could not make any more excuse to attend another World AIDS Day event!
And I am glad that all my excuses came to naught.
Filipinos have a saying: "wag kang magsalita ng tapos". And this was proven on the second World AIDS Day that I attended.
I was more than happy that I came. Aside from actually disclosing my "kapusitan", the Yoga for Life activity for WAD gave me a more positive (no pun intended) experience of this event.
One of the things that stuck with me about that evening were the words: "times are changing". And indeed they are.
Gone are the days when WAD is about death and suffering.
What struck me most was that during that WAD celebration, we were actually doing that - CELEBRATING!
Celebrating our own lives - whether positive or negative. Celebrating the lives of those who have gone on ahead of us by living our lives as healthy as they wished they could have had they been given the same chance that we PLWHA are being given now.
I do not regret disclosing my HIV status during that YFL session. It was a step for me in finally accepting my status not just in my mind and heart but in my words as well.
Times are changing indeed.
Stream of Life
Eternally flowing...
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
The Little Angel Who Hang on to Life
I spent the whole day yesterday at the wake of my friend's 4 month old daughter.
She was born pre-maturely. So premature that at the time of her birth, the doctors could not even determine the gender of the baby.
She also had a small mass on her lower back which grew with her as she progressed.
Worst of all, she did not have a hole on her anus, so her body had no way to discharge the waste.
She was a fighter. From the moment she was born, the doctors gave up on her. A pediatric surgeon, however, had the wits to check on her condition. The doctor pulled on her little arms, testing her will to survive. The little baby held her fingers securely as if telling the doctor: "I want to live".
Right there and then, the surgeon decided to operate on her to help her with the most pressing concern, that of providing her little body with a means to discharge body waste.
That was when we first heard about her situation. The management of our company sent out an email blast informing us of our friend's and her baby's conditions (both her parents work in the same company as I do).
That was more than four months ago.
Last week she had another operation. It wasn't a planned operation but her doctors said it was necessary.
She got out of the operation fine. She was stable. She was still fighting on.
A few days after the operation, sepsis began to take over her frail body.
Even as my physical body decays and the virus traps me into a life resembling the living dead, I will look up to that little angel who, despite her physical deformities and the hardships she had to endure at a very young age, fought with all her might to live.
She was born pre-maturely. So premature that at the time of her birth, the doctors could not even determine the gender of the baby.
She also had a small mass on her lower back which grew with her as she progressed.
Worst of all, she did not have a hole on her anus, so her body had no way to discharge the waste.
She was a fighter. From the moment she was born, the doctors gave up on her. A pediatric surgeon, however, had the wits to check on her condition. The doctor pulled on her little arms, testing her will to survive. The little baby held her fingers securely as if telling the doctor: "I want to live".
Right there and then, the surgeon decided to operate on her to help her with the most pressing concern, that of providing her little body with a means to discharge body waste.
That was when we first heard about her situation. The management of our company sent out an email blast informing us of our friend's and her baby's conditions (both her parents work in the same company as I do).
That was more than four months ago.
Last week she had another operation. It wasn't a planned operation but her doctors said it was necessary.
She got out of the operation fine. She was stable. She was still fighting on.
A few days after the operation, sepsis began to take over her frail body.
The details of the treatment and her death are not clear to me. I wasn't listening anymore as her mother retold the story of how they fought to keep her alive when her doctors were already quitting on her one by one.
I was already immersed in my own thoughts. In my own fragile mortality. In my own possible end.
But the little girl lying in that little box showed me how it was to fight. To hold on to life to the very end.
Even as my physical body decays and the virus traps me into a life resembling the living dead, I will look up to that little angel who, despite her physical deformities and the hardships she had to endure at a very young age, fought with all her might to live.
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