Reality Bites & Coming Clean

I attended the 2006 Urian Awards last Thursday. My prof gave us admission tickets. I sat behind Eddie Garcia (Urian Lifetime Achievement Awardee) and in front of Robin Padilla (Best Actor) who was with Regine Velasquez that night.

Moving on to Friday... This was one day which had its fair share of ups and downs. I was on leave from the office because of my scheduled neuroscan exam in the afternoon. As instructed, I didn’t take my medicine. I was there in the hospital on time but my neurologist was an hour late which actually turned out to be a blessing.

The test itself took around 20 minutes. My limp returned but not as worse as before the healing mass. After that, he confirmed his initial diagnosis. I have a rare disease that they don’t know much about yet. Needless to say, this brought me down. I was disappointed. The sickness is so rare he got my blood sample, took a video of my movements and made me sign a waiver that said I have no claim whatsoever to the results of the exam. He’ll use it for further research on the disease. He also asked if I could get my cousin to give her blood sample too because she has a related disease.

I mentioned that his lateness was a blessing mainly because I had to rush to the campus to attend the 5:30 pm mass. This gave me no time to think and dwell on his prognosis. I was still late for the mass. After that was the scheduled SFC-CLP. While waiting for it to start, I read my notes for class the next day. I was lined up by my officemate to share the miracle of the healing mass I attended. Due to my disappointment, I begged off. She understood my situation.

I have a new good friend, thanks to the CLP. She’s a professor. We actually hit it off from the first session till now. Since I was surrounded by people and I was listening to the sharing in the CLP, I postponed thinking about my health. I even told all the people present there to watch the Urian that will be aired that night.

When I got home, I watched the Urian on TV. Thoughts about the diagnosis entered my mind but I was successful in putting it off till after the program. Then I had no reason to postpone thinking about it any longer. I honestly can’t remember the thoughts which entered my mind then but I can recall the acute sadness I felt that night.

Before I went to sleep, the miraculous things which happened to me the past few days dawned on me:
1. I was able to attend the healing mass and walked as normal as I can for 3 days.
2. I was able to consult with the country's top movement disorder specialist.
3. All my medical-related expenses were cut dramatically.
4. I heard all the right encouragements to get me through this series of events with a positive outlook.

I slept feeling a bit better. I thought, maybe, I have this sickness so I may contribute to further study about it. Call it philosophizing but I felt I was serving a higher purpose. I got to sleep feeling a bit better.

COMING CLEAN

Today is Monday. I told 4 more people about my sickness. This is a real record-breaker for me. I usually keep these kinds of matters to myself. I don’t even answer direct questions about my limp. Talking about it over and over again throughout the day served as my catharsis. After the last person I told, I was so fed up with my medical history I just wanted to just get on with my life as usual.