I haven’t taken down the Christmas curtains because I was too lazy today.

Come to think of it, I haven’t had a good rest this Christmas break. I spent 9 days in the hospital, barely sleeping because my mom needed all the help she can get.

When I rushed her to the ER on Dec 23, her intestines were already dying as they got more and more entangled. CT scan showed that there was severe adhesion and there was definite obstruction.

We transfered to PGH because the surgeon who was a consultant at TMC who operated on a friend’s dad (colon cancer) was still at PGH. From ER, my mom went straight to the OR. At that time I was already more than 24 hrs without sleep.

After 4 hrs of surgery, our surgeon called me to explain what happened. My mom’s hysterectomy scar (from way back 2017) adhered to her intestines. As her scar healed, the more it got stuck to her intestine. The duodenum then adhered to the large intestine and everything got twisted. The mind-numbing pain that my mom experienced was the sign that her duodenum was gasping for the last oxygen/blood before dying. So when my mom’s pain subsided at the ER before she entered the OR, that meant the duodenum already died and it was not because the pain killers were working.

The surgeon said if the surgery got delayed, my mom would have died because gangrene would have taken hold.

She showed me the 34 cm they cut and she told me the intestine was supposed to be pink but here she was, showing me a blackened intestine that clearly already died. There was too much blockage as well, hence, my mom’s vomiting and difficulty passing gas.

They reattched my mom’s healthy intestines and it took us 8 days before her bowels were working properly.

I could no longer describe the difficulties both of us experienced during her recovery.

I just thank God that 1) we were already in Metro Manila when my mom started vomiting as we were only a few mins from TMC, which made it possible for us to have a CT scan within a few hrs we were in the ER. If this happened in our hometown, it would  have taken forever to have a CT scan and I doubt if there would be a consultant available in minutes given that it was already almost Christmas. 2) Thankful that we were able to transfer quickly to where the very good colorectal surgeon was and the emergency surgery was made possible, just right in time. 3) That we were in the hands of very good UP doctors. They made sure that my mom, being a professor emeritus from the same university, was given the best care and respect. 4) That everything wasn’t expensive since PGH is a national hospital.

My mom is 76 years old and she is recovering well, considering that she just had a major bowel surgery. It’s not easy for anyone at any age to recover from such.

I just realized that Twin A’s hospitalizations in the past two years trained me to become unemotional, unflustered, efficient, and practical when taking care of patients in the hospital. Messy green diarrhea every 10 mins and all.

First off, my mom and I spent 9 days in the hospital because she had to have an emergency surgery to untangle/cut and staple back her intestines. More of that later.

We got discharged in the afternoon of December 31, just in time for New Year’s Eve celebration. My mother was still weak — well at 76 years old who had a major bowel surgery, what do you expect? — but was in better spirits.

We checked in at Seda Makati Residences as planned several months ago. We were joined by ny sisters, my nephew, and my girls. However, it was only Twin I and I who braved the long walk to the Make It Makati New Year’s countdown, which was near the intersection of Ayala Ave and Makati Ave.

Even though it’s not SB19, Twin I still wanted to watch live music.

I enjoyed the Cup of Joe segment.

The encore was Eli Buendia. I was disappointed with his set because the songs were from the old Eraserheads hits. I’m not probably aware of his new music but he didn’t play anything fresh that night.

While Eli was singing, Twin I was livestreaming SB19’s performance in BGC. 🤦🏻‍♀️

The fireworks lasted 15 mins and it was so pretty.

And as usual, the rest of Metro Manila looked and sounded like a war zone at midnight, as captured by several Pinoys that night.

After all the noise and spectacle was the long walk back to our hotel along the stretch of the very empty Ayala Ave.

My mom and sisters just stayed in the hotel on New Year’s Day while the girls and I shopped for unnecessary things. 😬 I just bought a scented candle from Anko to treat myself, for surviving 9 days in the hospital to take care of my mom.

Right before we checked into the hotel in Ortigas Center this afternoon, my mom started vomiting and was twisting in the hotel’s clinic bed because of intense abdominal pain in the lower left side that spreads to the upper left abdomen to the center. Not appendix, the hotel’s nurse said. I rushed her to the nearest hospital’s ER. (A hospital that I had regularly written about). Dehydration for senior citizens is dangerous.

The surgery consultant ruled out food poisoning after lengthy interviews with him and the residents. Physical exam showed that there is no hardening in any part of the abdomen and the pain is not radiating to the back (so not kidney and gall bladder stones). What they’re looking at now is a possible bad case of UTI (the most beign possibility) or an inflamed colon. Her youngest brother is battling GI cancer now so…

Off to CT scan.

Hoping that it’s just UTI. The urinalysis and CBC aren’t back yet so we’re still groping in the dark. Otherwise, we’ll be spending Christmas in this hospital and a colonoscopy or surgery as noche buena.

Welp, for emergency surgery. Blockage in the colon.

The reason why this meme resonated with a lot of people is that this is the vibe of the 35+ year-old people around the much younger crowd. They do their thing, we do ours, immersed in our own nostalgia, feeling the rhythms of our youth.

The original music that Jon Hamm was dancing to in this clip was mehhhh, but now it’s overlaid with Kato’s Turn Your Lights Off makes it more relatable and resonates with people my age. This is the EDM that we danced to in late 90s to early 2000s. I remember getting in the car with my cousin who just learned how to drive and we went to a club in what was then Marco Polo. There was no alcohol involved but we danced on the ledge later that night. It was the summer of ’95, right before my senior year in high school.

I also went to a gay bar with fairygaymother K in QC when were still in our 20s and all I remember was I was really hammered one time and was dancing on the ledge with some gorgeous gay men. I didn’t feel unsafe because I knew the men there will not harass me.

So yes, seeing Jon Hamm immersing himself in this EDM that is already 15 years old is somehow…joyous melancholy. A time before marriage and kids; a time when we were carefree even though we didn’t have money. Jon Hamm here looked so… free.

I miss that.

It has been exactly five years since I’ve been thrown out the window and watched myself break into a million pieces. I didn’t realize it then, but that is the best thing that happened to me because that forced me to slowly rebuild myself.

It took a while before I found myself. It took me years before I can finally tell myself, this is me.

Have I forgiven the person? No, not necessarily. It’s just after five years, I no longer cared whether I have forgiven him or not for treating me badly, for treating me like a human appliance. Like it no longer matters whether he’s alive or not. 🤷🏻‍♀️ It’s not true that you need to forgive someone to move on. Time does that for you. In the end, forgiveness doesn’t matter anymore when you’re free. Because forgiveness is for the person who needs to forgive, and not for the person who should be forgiven.

So if it doesn’t matter, why do I still remember the exact time I got broken? It’s because it’s the start of my journey to myself. It’s like doing a deep dive into myself and now that I’ve found that little girl lurking underneath all that mess I had become, I’ve come to celebrate.

No one knew the struggles I had to go through. I was directing my energy at the wrong things. I remember the exact moment that a voice in my ear told me this: focus on your children. Look at them closely. The exact moment was when I saw this sunset.

And a week later, Twin A was sent to the hospital to fight for her life. I didn’t see that she was sick. I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t see she was wasting right before my eyes.

All of it was part of my five-year journey into myself.

I needed to love myself so as not to be self-absorbed and see the world through a different lens. I needed to become me so I can give myself grace and other people that same grace.

I needed to love myself so I can let go and be kind to myself when I finally admitted that I am not happy managing people and I’m bad at it. The younger me would have berated myself and be ashamed that I quit because that meant that I am a failure. The more mature me has recognized that stepping back and down meant that I am recognizing that my strengths lay in journalism and not in management. That it’s ok to step back and I’m not lesser for it.

Five years I’ve learned to be alone and be happy about it.

I had lunch and coffee chika with some people in the last 2 days, just keeping in touch so I wouldn’t lose the personal and professional connection. This is what I like about my profession, it’s the connection with people and the knowledge-sharing.

Surprisingly, the traffic was not as bad as last week. Only took me 1 hr and 30 mins or less to get from my place to Makati or BGC and back.

I had my last interview in the morning with an executive from a US company and I have to write that story on the last day of my working day for the year. 😭 My editor from the land of bubblegum pop has one of my stories last night arrested and it seems like it would have to be carried over next week. WTF!

I won’t work next week. Let that story die.