These days I can only write in the afternoon or at night. 👀 I don’t know why. I started writing I finished an analysis piece tonight in one sitting. It’s devastating in a way because it keeps me from being productive. Maybe this is my body’s way of saying it needs to shut down.

My cats are like the most spoilt cats I know. I envy them sometimes because they have no cares in the world.

Meanwhile, this short video on Instagram somehow describes me.

My kids’ school suspended face-to-face classes for the entire week. I thought it was because of the vog (as Taal Volcano is acting up again), but my sister said (whose son also goes to the same school but is still in elementary) it’s because many students are down with acute respiratory tract infection (ARTI). It’s the same thing that hit my twins a few weeks ago that eventually led to asthma.

This is what our pediatricians told us: since the beginning of the school year—the first time they have been holding face-to-face classes everyday—a lot of children have become sick. It seems like there is an epidemic of rhinovirus and flu and hospitals are filling up with pediatric cases of ARTI. When we were confined in our first hospital, the entire wing was filled up with patients under the care of my older sister’s best friend (who was our attending pediatrician at that time). She told us that it was hard to get rooms for kids in most hospitals in our province. It was same thing with PGH, I was told.

Immunity debt, that’s what they call it. While this theory is still being debated, I do believe the confinement of children at home for two years kept them away from common colds and flu. My kids normally had asthma every quarter or every two months when they had regular school before the pandemic. During the homeschool/online school of the past two years, however, they rarely or never had asthma attacks. I don’t know if this is the reason why Twin A became susceptible to MTB infection. It’s something I have to ask our IDS, when she is already ok.

Well, this works out well for us since FMAB Radiology insisted that our MRI schedule is on Thursday (instead of the 4th week of Oct). That means Twin A doesn’t have to miss too many classes. She can still go online before she gets sedated for the procedure at 1 pm.

This is to remind myself that I can buy myself pretty flowers and nurture them so the beauty will linger. I don’t have to wait for anyone to buy these for me.

I need some kind of serotonin boost these days after living on adrenalin alone the past two months. I swear, the only things that kept me going during the weeks I had been intensively taking care of Twin A were adrenalin (how I functioned with hardly any sleep is still a wonder) and prayers.

Now that things have quieted down, my body is screaming for some kind of rest, like honest-to-goodness rest, and serotonin. I feel like my body is giving out. I’m so tired but I needed to function still.

And to think I was battling Covid as well when Twin A had it. Only adrenalin kept me going even though my body was almost giving in to the symptoms (I had flu-like symptoms and didn’t tell the doctors I was feeling feverish for two days). I couldn’t afford to be bogged down by illness at that time—it was the height of Twin A’s illness. She was vomiting everything, had constant high fever, she was barely eating, had debilitating headaches, weakness, abdominal pains and a host of other symptoms. I had to be strong for her so she would also be in good spirits.

I am not a super woman. Now my body is saying that it’s payback time. It wants to shut down.

My mom basically dragged me to the garden show at the edge of the university campus, several km away from our house. She initially wanted to buy orchids because she killed one, which was a native variety i.e. endemic to the Philippines. She blamed everybody for not watering it 🫠

So there I was acting as her purse keeper while she surveyed what she wanted to plant around her house.

I think she’s better off with succulents since she doesn’t really water her plants and she leaves them all to the househelp 🥴

In the end, she bought three San Francisco plants a.k.a. variegated croton plant (Codiaeum variegatum) while I bought pitimini roses to replace the one that died while we were in the hospital. Roses need full sunlight but I guess the constant rain flooded the roses. Some of my mini roses lost a lot of leaves but the stems are still green and are now growing purple leaves—new foliage that will be followed by rose buds. Some are still good, but I wasn’t able to deadhead them because I was away so the blooming stopped. But I see new buds forming now that the sun has been showing up again.

I bought another basil plant. The first one I bought lost all the leaves because apparently some insect loved it so much that it didn’t leave anything behind. My guess is aphids. But then we have a forest here so it’s fair game. Now I should keep my herbs on my staircase to keep them away from aphids. My celery plant and dill are not thriving so I must change their positions.

It’s hard to take care of plants and animals if you don’t have someone else to tend to them when you’re away. At least when we were in the hospital, I can remind Twin I to feed the cats and clean the litter boxes every night. But plants…she left it to nature 🤦🏻‍♀️

A person who can grow plants is special. I mean it’s not easy and it requires a lot of commitment. For someone like me who carries the weight of the world, taking care of plants eventually would result into murder—I may end up killing half of them because my commitment is sporadic.

But I like flowers…🥹 What can I do?

Oh yes, Europe is agog with news about the bedbugs infestation in France, which has sent the French into a tizzy.

Someone even posited that the bedbugs could be spread to other areas of Europe and N. America via the Paris Fashion Week.

And to make people more worried, someone even brought up the possibility of bedbugs becoming vectors for diseases similar to dengue or the Black Plague.

This is why I make it a point to air and expose my pillows and mattresses to sunlight at least twice a year. I just aired and dried my mattress under the intense noon sun on my sort-of balcony when we got back home from the hospital last month. I also vacuum clean our mattresses regularly to keep those nasties away. I change sheets and pillow cases every week and the duvet covers every two weeks.

So how often do the French clean their beddings?!

I’m not ready yet for the holidays. 🫠 I still have so many things to clear in my to-do list! I can’t face carmageddon yet in Metro Manila 🤦🏻‍♀️

Anyway, I only found out that PGH Radiology doesn’t have sedation for MRI with contrast. The scan needed by my child is full abdomen and that is for two hours. The Radiology staff recommended that I go to FMAB for that, which I did.

That answers my question as to why were we scheduled for an MRI at FMAB and not within the same building when we were still admitted. And because it was difficult to pin down the anesthesiologist on time (before the biopsy), we didn’t push through with it anymore. And by the time FMAB was able to calendar our scan, we were already discharged from PGH.

So that’s what I did this afternoon, try to pin down again a schedule that fits with the anesthesiologist. Tentatively it’s on the 12th but I asked if we could move it to the 4th week so it would exactly be 2 months since taking the anti-TB meds and the CT scan. I told the technician I’m not sure if it’s ok we would be short of 2 weeks…our oncologist is already abroad so I can’t text her today. If the anesthesiologist is not available by our requested week, then I’ll take a chance on the 12th. If the colon walls still have the same thickness as before, then chances are it would still be the same way two weeks later. But still…I have a nagging feeling that the two-week difference is significant.

So I don’t know…I need to wait for FMAB Radiology to agree to 4th week of October before I ask for a paid time off (PTO) from my boss by next week. I plan to take my PTO in time for the MRI, visit to the oncologist, and have rest days as a gift to myself on my birthday week.

Along with the MRI scheduling, I checked out Jjimbang Hotel and Spa in Malate, Manila and see if it’s a viable option for us before the MRI or after the procedure because my body is already screaming for onsen!

HOWEVER, they don’t have hot pools for women—only men have the privilege of having one. Which is terribly disappointing. What’s the point of going there when you can’t have onsen?!

After that disappointing visit, I decided Twin A and I would just have to make do with the hotel nearest PGH and just book Zennya and have my massage there.

My sis-in-law and I went to Rustan’s Makati for her appointment with a skincare specialist that was launching a new product to the Philippine market.

After dinner and buying Silvanas for my brood to take home, SIL and I drove home and stopped at an onsen in our own town. To think I am just 15 minutes away from here—I haven’t bothered checking out this place for more than 20 years!

They’re now offering private rooms with their own onsen (instead of taking the public onsen), book physical therapy, accupuncture, ultrasound therapy, etc. I can choose the overnight, 8-hr, or 4-hr package. Or I can do a la carte for as low as Php 900 (30 mins onsen + 1 hr massage therapy). There’s no reason for me to take the overnight package because I prefer sleeping on my own bed when it’s just 15 mins away by car. I can bring my mom first and try the 2 hr onsen then PT. Or do the 4 hr package (with meal). I will bring my girls later for the 8-hr package. I asked about the temp of the pools, the receptionist said it’s between 38-40 C, which was consistent with what I remember.

I have to fix my schedule!!!

The entire week was gloomy as there’s this typhoon up north that is pulling the southwest monsoon. It’s so perfect for just staying in bed but I can’t.

I want to romanticize my daily life as a way to help myself heal some more. But life has other plans…

In a way, however, my daughter’s illness put me on the right track and brought proper perspective. It somewhat helped me heal in the process because prior to her illness, I was focusing on the wrong things, there were illegal settlers in my head occupying precious real estate there. I was filled with anger and frustration. I took everything for granted.

Now I realize that life is so fragile and it can be taken from you in a snap.

I can see that my mom is already having early signs of Alzheimer’s, which I have seen and experienced from my maternal grandma some 30 years before. Even though I kept on repeating my daughter’s diagnosis to her, she always keeps on forgetting it and my fear is that she will mistakenly tell the UP Manila chancellor that my daughter has peritoneal carcinomatosis when she emails her. My siblings and I will be tricking my mom into having an executive check-up with tests for Alzheimer’s sneaked in. Maybe once we have established it medically, we can have some experimental therapy for her? My grandma had Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s—so maybe she had Lewy body dementia. 🤔 It was so hard seeing her like that…at the end she was like a doll just staring at the ceiling. Not really here and her body was just a shell.

Maybe that’s why my mom’s death wish was to be in the field, even though she was always at risk of getting Covid, which was how she got Covid in August. She didn’t want to go the way my grandma did.

For now, we will take one step at a time.

I would have to make breakfast and work because no other editor is on duty today. Have my cats around while I work my butt off.

This was my mistake. I cooked a lot of chicken when my kids had a late breakfast today. 🤦🏻‍♀️

They’re now stuck in my fridge for breakfast tomorrow.

For dinner, we drove several towns over for my mom’s birthday. For the ambience.

Tomorrow I will be off to PGH again for the MRI docs, interview, and scheduling. I hope I can wake up early enough so I won’t get stuck in Saturday morning traffic. Weekends are such a drag nowadays…Metro Manila streets are still clogged.

I must start the day early. I shouldn’t sleep again after making breakfast because there are three stories up for editing already and due this morning. Then at noon I must go to my girls’ school so Twin A and I can have the virtual consult with our IDS.

Then I must beg PGH Radiology for the Oct 25th schedule on Saturday. I couldn’t go tomorrow because it’s my mom’s birthday and my sister already had the restaurant reservation for dinner. All those things in-between my deadlines. 😭

All the hoops I have to jump through. A solo mom must make it work.

I’m so tired. So so tired.

Whelp, I don’t have any reason to complain in the grand scheme of things…Our IDS has bigger problems on her hands: Her son was diagnosed with leukemia three weeks ago. That’s why she couldn’t meet us regularly as we were about to be discharged because her son was so unwell at that time. 😢

While prognosis for childhood leukemia has gotten better with advances in medicine, the experience of taking care and keeping your offspring healthy throughout the treatment process is harrowing.

I don’t want to be in her shoes.

I’m praying so hard for her and her son.