Showed up at our local pediatrician’s clinic to request for a uric acid test order and also to update her on the diagnosis and what are the home care orders. She said Twin A’s tummy has shrunk compared to the time she sent us for hospital admission a month ago. And she assured me that it’s ok, the joint problems are normal since it has only been more than a week since my daughter is back on allopurinol.

Classes were suspended today because our stupid mayor heeded the call of irresponsible students (NOT from our university and the private schools around/within the university) who chanted “class suspension” for Monday because they attended the hotspring festival last Saturday and they were out until the wee hours of Sunday for the revelry. 🤬 Because the mayor wanted to be popular and “cool”.

And to think he already suspended classes on Friday in preparation for the festival. 🤬🤬🤬

Ghad, no wonder the reading comprehension and general literacy and numeracy of Filipino kids today are the lowest in Southeast Asia. Wasting precious school days for something stupid like staying up to party.

Yes I partied hard in my youth but I made sure I still come to class, even if I was so wasted and hungover. Because that was my only profession at that time—be a full time student, so I better haul my butt over to class, even if my blood vessels still contained 90% alcohol.

Yes, I sound like an old crone. I don’t friggin’ care. I care about not producing vapid and shallow people who only know how to TikTok and be “content creators” and post several selfies a day, everyday, but they couldn’t spell properly, even in Filipino, and resort to writing using jejemon language 🤮. I’m triggered. As an educator who had come from a family of educators, this really pushed my wrong buttons.

To melt my anger today, I just sought the company of my cats in between editing and blasting emails.

Meanwhile, my solar outdoor light is working well but I need to buy another one for the lower staircase. Then solar fairy lights for the balustrades and the trees.

I’ll see tomorrow if I encounter deep discounts (lights and other DIY stuff, and a new vacuum cleaner) in Filinvest Alabang tomorrow after I claim Twin A’s TB GeneXpert assay and MTB PCR results from RITM.

Even though I know that my daughter has TB and the meds are working wonderfully, I still have this debilitating anxiety over the possibility of it might not be TB…so I have apprehension about what I would be reading from the results from RITM tomorrow. What if the AFB smears show it’s negative???

But it’s there staring at me in the face, the surgical pathology report (of the lymph node from the biopsy) says chronic granulomatous inflamation consistent with a tuberculosis etiology. This was the basis of our IDS’ order to bring back the anti-TB meds. So I shouldn’t doubt… Maybe I should have contacted my pathologist friend in PGH and asked him to do the pathology work for us, to give me some comfort. But then probably it won’t make any difference. Granulomas are granulomas with necrotic debris. Consistent with the CT scan that showed there is central necrosis. The misreading in our first hospital said there are nodules on the liver (a characteristic of lymphoma). But CT scan reading in PGH said there are no nodules on the liver but rather they are calcification (as told to me by our IDS fellows). Dr. Google told me calcification is caused by caseous necrosis—a very distinct characteristic of TB. While lymphoma may exhibit necrosis, it does not result into calcification.

But I shouldn’t believe Dr. Google.

So I’m still terrified. What if GeneXpert, PCR, and AFB show negative for MTB? Lymphoma and TB can coexist in one body, according to literature. That’s why our hema-onco is still not letting us go.

I should sleep now. I am creating my own monsters in my head.