I think I’ve written here about things that have come to pass and the things that have yet to happen have no bearing now? The most important thing right now is living in the present. I think the reset that happened the past weeks prepared me for this. I have yet to completely let go, but at least I know now that nothing really matters except for what I have right now, where I am now.

More tests are needed, adding Covid into the mix made it more complicated because my mom is positive and Twin A was exposed to her during incubation period. So we’re more isolated now until the RT-PCR comes back negative. I can’t even go outside the corridor to walk, to release my tension.

I don’t know when can we transfer to PGH. Until the covid test comes back negative? No MTB found in the sputum so it’s not in the respiratory tract. How about the other tests for GI TB? How about the other markers? What other biopsies should we do??? I have no idea. I can’t retain accurate information because I haven’t slept in a week. It’s rare that I can sleep for an hour straight because my patient needs to go to the bathroom every hour and a catheter is not an option at this point.

I never thought I would be so happy about necrosis. Because you know, as the best friend of my sister (who is also a hematologist) said, the presence of central necrosis is the reason why they’re leaning towards TB. Lymphoma doesn’t usually exhibit that. As a childhood GI lymphoma survivor herself, she told my sister that lymphoma is still curable and if Twin A’s condition doesn’t go the TB way, at least I still have an assurance my child will live. It won’t be easy though.

The reason why everything is inconclusive at this point is because GI TB and GI lymphoma mimic each other. My grandpa died of it because it went undetected until the last moment. Same with my aunt.

I don’t know if the third possible condition, that advanced peritoneal cancer, is still being considered. Or maybe that’s the reason why they need the bone marrow biopsy—???

I don’t know what else…my brain is barely functioning. I can’t think straight.

My girl has been very brave. She hasn’t cried one bit—except for the RT-PCR nasal swab because that hurt a lot. She is putting up a front because she doesn’t want mommy to worry so much. She downplays her abdominal pain even though it’s causing her fevers. She is terrified of the thought of having tube shoved down her throat to get samples in her gut and search for the presence of MTB.

The therapy I went through in 2021-2022 trained me to get hold of myself together. To train myself not to sink into the dark abyss because I’m carrying this alone. Their dead-beat father is—I have low expectations from him so he doesn’t count. He knows about what’s happening to his daughter that’s why he sent money but just enough to cover 1-1.5 days of our running hospital bill.

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Whelp. She’s Covid +. Got it from my mom, who is the suspected carrier and is + as well. She came from Masbate then cuddled with my daughter before I got her admitted to the hospital. None of us traveled during the 14-day incubation period except from my mom.

We got transferred now to the isolation ward.

So this complicates matters. Definitely no biopsy in the coming 7 days and it would depend if PGH would admit us after Covid.

Lord, let it be TB because at least we’re already medicating her for that for four days already.

I never thought I would be praying for TB. 💔

Where did she get it? Well, my cousin, who frequently comes to visit or we visited their house several times in the past 6 mos or so, was diagnosed with TB of the larynx-—the most transmissible form of TB—either in Dec or Jan. She didn’t exhibit any symptoms except for hoarseness of voice. Our infectious diseases specialist (specialization is GI TB) also said my daughter could have gotten it from school or her primary complex (which they had when they were in pre-school) resurfaced. Our TB doctor said it is not surprising for anyone to contract th disease from out of nowhere because TB is everywhere in the Philippines. It is endemic.

Yeah, even Filipinos who have already migrated to the US still had carried their dormant TB only to emerge in later years, just like the case of fairy gaymother K’s dad, who was later diagnosed with TB meningitis. At first the doctors were baffled because they couldn’t find the cause of the inflamation of the brain and the swelling caused him to be almost comatose. Only when they tried to test for TB (probably they had a Dr. House moment) did they catch it before it was too late. Because TB no longer exists in developed countries, except when it was caught from migrants from Philipines, India, and Vietnam.

So, our attending physicians are treating Twin A for TB but are not ruling out the other two possibilities given the complicated situation. Plus family history.

I’m getting antsy about the delay in biopsy and other tests. If it’s the other direction, I would rather we start the treatment/s right away.

Lord, please let it be TB.

Our hematologist asked me this morning, “How do you keep calm amid all this? You’re so strong.”

My reply: I had already given this to God. It’s out of my hands.

I haven’t had any real sleep. I can’t get sick; I have to be strong to take care of my baby. Prayers and adrenalin are what keep me going. Otherwise I would have collapsed now and sunk deep, down to the bottom of the barrel.

We will be transfering to the Philippine General Hospital in two days, after we’re done with some tests for the other probability. Our attending pediatrician is more confident about doing the bone marrow biopsy there and she found a hemato-oncologist who could take us in.

Genetics is shit.

But you know, that’s what we were given and there’s nothing I can do about it.

All the trials I’ve gone through led me to this. They were nothing compared to this. Heaven hardened me so I can be strong for my girl.

And I believe in miracles.

They still couldn’t find it, why her abdomen is bloating. Why she’s skin and bones. Ultrasound didn’t yield anything.

It’s faith that is holding me together. Faith is the only thing I have now.

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I don’t know how I will keep calm and collected because I don’t want my daughter to be scared. But I’m dying bit by bit right now.

Oh God, please have mercy on my daughter. Let it be me instead.

I don’t know if I can handle this anymore.

Praying that the mass found is benign.

Nothing else matters now.

I finally got these from the framer this evening. They looked like real paintings 🤣

Perfect! I finally achieved my dream of having an art gallery for a house. Part of my dream is to have a library but of course, due to space constraints, I can’t have a library. Well, I do have spacious book shelves in the living area. But I know that does not count.

I can still put two small frames above the Chinese street scene but I’m reserving that for future prints that I may be able to get from the central bank. I would love to have an Amorsolo or Manansala print. I just messaged the head of corporate affairs of the central bank and sent him these photos. I said that I’m looking for more prints from their online store but they’re not available. *hint hint* I know what I usually get as souvenirs from BSP are limited editions and are not available to the general public. So maybe they still have excess…??? Hopefully, I can ask my friend, M, if they still have extra prints of other national artists. 😊

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Before I start working tomorrow, I decided to go to another town for a bit of a break. I brought my girls to Victoria (20 minute drive south) to have a late lunch. Just for a change in scenery.

Food was ok, they have big servings at The Aviary and my kids were happy.

We were supposed to drive to Paete but Twin A wasn’t feeling well. Her stomach has been bloated for quite some time and tomorrow I will request her pediatrician for a referral to a gastroenterologist because I suspect her rapid weight loss has something to do with that. She has been complaining about tummy aches but we were just addressing them with antacids.

I got her thyroid result yesterday and her TSH is out of range–several units higher than the maximum. But her T3 and T4 are ok, which puts her in the category of subclinical hypothyroidism. But that doesn’t explain her weight loss because hypo means she has to gain weight. I would know tomorrow what the doctor would recommend. I need to find what’s causing her rapid weight loss—the way how my daughter looks now is so alarming.

I will be attending a press conference while waiting for our turn at the clinic because lines at the OPD pediatric wing in tertiary hospitals are normally long. Visiting the pediatrician is a day-long affair (oh the horrors of waiting at the MAB of St. Luke’s QC!) when we still had to regularly visit the girls’ pediatric pulmonologist. When the girls were slightly older and no longer needed constant monitoring from the pulmonologist, we shifted to visiting the polyclinic near our apartment and all I had to do was take the tricycle. The waiting time is less than an hour to a maximum of an hour. The lab and radiology are also at arm’s length so it was very convenient.

Now I’m back to visiting OPDs of tertiary hospitals 😩 and back to long queues.

Speaking of which, I haven’t had my breast scans…

Oh God, let this be just a case of tape worms and not some kind of serious gastrointestinal illness or an autoimmune disease. I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with this 🥴

A friend and I (we used to cover the stock market together before she became a lawyer) were chatting a few days ago about the impending market crash as predicted by Michael Burry. He was the astute trader who predicted the crash of 2008 and became famous after he was featured in the book and movie, The Big Short.

Actually, naysayers said he is wrong but I believe his prediction since we are still on the inverted yield curve and it is persistent. Investors are still pessimistic about the economy, with the sticky elevated inflation and cost of money still high. How whacked is that the 2-year US Treasury bond carry a higher yield than a 10-year bond just 10 days ago??? Corporates are reluctant to borrow now (I just written about it a few weeks ago), startups cannot raise funds, hence, the lay-offs and stalled expansion plans. VCs and PEs are having a tough time raising funds and exiting their portfolios as well.

“I’ll ready my money,” I told this friend. “It’s how I also made money after the Lehman crash.”

She said she is also readying her money but instead of speculative buying, she will be buying for dividends. She stopped forex trading for a while because her toddler demands more attention now and she can’t be on the screen all the time.

Last week, I bought a few ETF shares for less than PHP 100 apiece. This is the first time I bought ETFs below 100—this is how fucked up the equities market is. This prompted me to contact my bank’s treasury department so I can top up my UITF. I know it will be tracking lower towards the end of the year but you cannot catch a falling knife so might as well do cost-averaging for the time being.

Now I’m thinking about using my legal fund to go all in once the market crashes but…I dunno. I need to pay my lawyer, right? But I need to break my contract with my first lawyer because filing my case in QC is no longer feasible and my legal fees would climb if I insist on doing it in QC. Plus it’s impractical.

Anyway, let’s see when and how deep is the crash. Good thing I’m done with the house expenses and I’m no longer renting. The fear of being homeless if I lose my job due to recession or whatnot no longer hovers above my head.

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I haven’t gone anywhere. It’s sad. We haven’t gone on a short road trip because I always end up exhausted; the constant cooking and cleaning gets to me. Yes, my house is small and we’re only three people but still, the effort involved in cooking and wash up is the same. And I constantly need to clean and keep everything neat because, as I said, the house is small. It can easily become cluttered and it will drive me nuts.

I somehow need to learn how to be wiser about my housekeeping. I cannot be constantly cleaning all the time. The girls have their chores but still the bulk of the cleaning falls on me. Maybe I should just order food instead of cooking at home? Well, that’s what I plan to do anyway with my girls’ school lunches. I will jack up their weekly allowances so they can buy lunch in their cafeteria. If the food is not good, then I will just have delivered daily by a caterer referred to me by my high school friend. It has been delivering lunches to high schools around here when kids had face-to-face school days.

I already contacted the school bus and and the girls will be fetched at 6:30 am because classes start at 7:30 am, so that means I have to be up at 5:30 am to prepare breakfast—quick ones like white rice, whatever I had prepared the night before, and miso soup or veggie side dish. Or I will have an abundance of bread like pan de sal or monay and stock up on cheese, jams, and UHT/sterilized milk. I think the latter option is more doable.

After they leave, I will take a nap then wake up at 8:45 am to work at 9 am.

I took the easy route tonight and we dined on tuna sashimi—sort of. I had to sear the surface of the tuna to take off the fishiness for my girls.

Oh, the travails of mothers—especially single mothers—have to endure daily. It’s exhausting. Just thinking about waking up at 5:30 am every single weekday terrifies me. I miss Ate C, who now has a baby boy to mind now. When she was around, I had the luxury of waking up at 8 am and not worry about what to have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was so spoiled.

No more late-night/early morning Graham Norton binge-watching.

Hmmm, that photo above shows the emptiness of that wall behind my computer setup. I was wondering whether I should install picture ledges there or hang that woven fabric from Zamboanga and the malong given to me by my university after my commencement exercise keynote address last year.

I just had the Arturo Luz and the Juan Senson prints that I received from the central bank last year framed locally.

Ah, I should have known that view is Angono, Rizal. Just like many Fernando Amorsolo and Carlos “Botong” Francisco paintings.

The location of this scene above is this in real life:

Unlike many women today, I’m not obsessed with taking selfies everyday and posting them on social media (such a security risk, by the way). I am obsessed with looking at sunsets and taking photos of them though. I cannot have enough of it.

I had early attempts of doing watercolors of Laguna Lake and sunsets over it but I’m such a failure at it. Let’s see if I can do it now.