We’ve been having beautiful weather the past two weeks and it would have been lovely to just drive to the beach and chill.

But no, I must face the stressful unknown next week.

I hired my mom’s driver so I don’t have to stress over parking slots that are in great scarcity in Manila, particularly in Malate. If we have another round of habagat rains and flooding, I don’t have to worry about my car being flooded within the PGH compound.

Ahh work is calling…

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Errr… I was wrong. 🤣

It rained hard in the afternoon. It was hard but not long.

Et voila!

It flooded. Mountainside road getting flooded is…🤦🏻‍♀️ I mean there are trees—an entire rainforest above us—and yet here we are driving through flood. How did we even get to this stage?

I had no choice but to plod through because my mom needed to have her hearing aid cleaned at the nearest Manila Hearing Aid branch, which is in the next town.

I needed to do all the chores within today and tomorrow because the Singapore president will be dropping by our uni campus this weekend. The area will be closed off and heavily guarded so vehicular traffic will be horrendous.

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Uh oh…

That’s why I prefer to have massages at home. I’m sure spas do not change sheets after every customer.

Oh dear…

I’ve been trying my best to be a good mom so I had packed my girls lunch on Monday. However, I didn’t have enough time to cook a vegetable side dish so I opted for the shortcut cucumber for fiber and dried mangoes for dessert. I cooked their favorite salmon (with salt and pepper) in butter and parsely because it’s the easiest to prepare at 5 am.

My Monday was full and I had to do a lot of admin stuff, writing and editing stories at the same time. Had long phone calls. Then my manager killed me again 😵‍💫 I finished the stories and had them published late into the night.

Tuesday is back-to-back press briefings, one online and the other is in Makati so I had a very narrow window to travel and make it to the presscon on time. 🫠 Then I had a discussion with another editor about the hullabaloo the previous night. He advised me to finally talk to our APAC head, to tell her why I had been wanting to quit. Of course, I won’t say I’m already advanced in my application process with a competitor because she would put me on garden leave or fire me directly and I would end up jobless with a sick daughter.

I will be having that talk later today.

In the meantime, my manager was killing me again when I was having my story from the presscon edited.

I’m so tired.

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My girls’ second-hand PC monitors are on their last legs (or the connectors are blah) so after uploading and having my stories published after the presscon, I went straight to Glorietta 2 to buy them new monitors.

I was able to snag Samsung monitors with discount at PC Express. I was debating whether I should get them the 27″ or the 24″. I couldn’t find good deals on a 27″ and the price difference between 27″ (non-discounted) and 24″ (discounted) was almost 3k for any brand. They don’t need a 27″ but it would be fun to watch Netflix on it.

I should have gotten the two 27″ and passed down my current 24″ monitors to the girls… But I don’t know if my MDF Ikea workdesk can take the weight of two 27″ mounted on my heavy iron VESA brackets. My current setup already made a deep indentation on my workdesk. I bought from Lazada metal plates specially made for VESA brackets so the gromet will not further sink into the MDF board.

Now that I think about it, I really should have gotten the 27″ for myself. My workdesk in Singapore is dual 27″ so I know bigger screen real estate helps in productivity.

Meanwhile, I had my mom’s laptop fixed the same day we brought it to the Acer service center in our town.

The technician did a bit of sleuthing and he figured that Microsoft did an automatic download and update and my mom didn’t let the update finish. This corrupted not only Windows 11, but also the hard drive.

My mom had to admit that yes, the update “probably didn’t finish” because she had to send an email. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I love my mom but I swear, she should stay away from Windows and maybe use a Mac because that OS is so simple, like it’s made for non-techie users.

Ubuntu and its many distros, would have been ideal for senior citizens, since the UI is meant for those who cannot cope with Windows and its maintenance. But Ubuntu maintenance is a nightmare for a non-techie person due to the Linux updates and plugs.

I was somewhat comforted after a long tearful prayer while I was driving home last night. I told God I was laying all my fears at His feet. I may be alone in this fight for my daughter but I am not really alone. God has always been with me. If it weren’t for Him I would have crumbled a long time ago because I’m weak.

Trial after trial, I am being broken into many pieces but I am going to be built over and over by my Maker. He is making me stronger so I can give my strength to other people. I must be strong as well for my daughters.

I started the day appreciating the sunshine and flowers. I haven’t stopped praying.

Prayer of thanks that I have a roof over my head and resources to support my daughter’s medical needs. I’m so thankful that I have my family to support me. My mom will be staying in my house for a while to cook Twin I breakfast and see her off to school while Twin A and I will be in PGH. My sisters will look after my household and take care of Twin I’s meals.

I can’t emphasize enough how good it is that we have already transferred here when this medical crisis had sprung up. I can’t imagine managing my life if we still had been living in QC with Twin I left only with the househelp.

I can get past this. I have to.

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Tomorrow is the first day of classes for my 8th Graders. I’m back to waking up at 5 am 😴🥱

But I’d rather have this than being awakened every hour by nurses and fellows/residents as they poke and pry my patient. Plus Twin A had to go to the bathroom with assistance if she’s hooked up to the IV.

Just like a year ago, I’m here waiting for a vacant room at the pedia ward. It’s a long queue.

The earliest we can be admitted is Aug 20. IDS said it’s fine, it’s not an emergency procedure anyway.

My stomach is full of acids because I had been so tense the past 24 hrs. The admission still says “GI TB rule out lymphoma.” We were never in the clear. 🥺

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This morning when I left home, the traffic was horrible inside the university campus. I thought it was college admission test day. My guess was confirmed because there were a lot of people milling around outside UP Manila. I heard the staff at the PGH admissions office talking about the test.

I remember my exam 29 years ago… I didn’t do any cram studying. I just relied on the review sessions we had at our high school during the summer break until the first quarter of the school year. Then on the exam day itself, I brought with me bars of Snickers and a jug of water. Easy-to-eat sugary stuff was best for brain-numbing exams, I learned. I thought I breezed through English/Filipino reading comprehension and abstract reasoning. Science was ok but I was squirming in my seat during Math. I would have been confident about my high chance to pass but Math made me doubt my whole existence.

The results were out by mid-January. I passed my first choice course. After I saw my name on the board (in those days, you can only see your name on physical boards), I immediately computed my grades. I figured if I flunk all of my subjects in 4Q, I would still graduate from high school. From that day on, I stopped caring about my academics and just concentrated on enjoying the remaining days of high school. I carried a point-and-shoot film camera and took photos of random stuff, people, and the rehearsals for the school play (I was part of the principal cast). I was documenting memories. Most of these photos ended up in our yearbook and the playbill.

It was as if the university admission test was the end-all and be-all of my young existence. Getting in my university was my parents’ goal because 1) they don’t have to pay for tuition again as part of the faculty privilege; and 2) they thought our prospects for employment would be brighter.

I would worry about this when my kids start 10th grade. Review/cram school starts in 11th grade but I have to prep them at 10th.

Our infectious diseases specialist dropped the bomb a few minutes ago: We need to be admitted again at PGH for biopsy.

She was concerned about the lymph nodes and still thick intestine walls seen in Twin A’s last MRI.

I’m scared. Super scared.

I will secure the admission orders from our hema-oncologist and will soon start the admission process, which is long and tedious.

Please Lord, don’t let it be something else…

😭

Good thing I had the brakes adjusted this afternoon because I had an impromptu drive to SM Sto. Tomas this evening. I had to go back to Acer there to have my mom’s laptop checked because one of the latest Microsoft updates has a fatal bug that rendered the OS unusable. Windows Explorer keeps on hanging. I don’t know if it was a late Crowdstrike update or an equally devastating one. I had been tinkering with it and was trying to get to Task Manager but the whole thing freezes. I could have reset MS at BIOS but my mom insisted that we go back to Acer, so I couldn’t argue. Besides I couldn’t extract the files before resetting the laptop.

So off we went but it was late, the service center guys already went home and only the sales team were there. 😩

I have to go tomorrow morning to the nearest Acer Service Center, which is luckily in our town. My mom is nagging me to have it done earliest tomorrow morning because she has a meeting at 1 pm. As if files extraction and Windows reset are quick. 😣