A bag's life

Doctor X: You’ve got aneurysm. Me: a new what? Aneurysm. Defined by Wikipedia as a localized, blood-filled balloon-like bulge in the wall of a blood vessel, they can commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain and an aortic aneurysm occurs in the main artery carrying blood from the left ventricle of the heart. Doctor X: When its size increases, there is a significant risk of rupture, resulting in severe hemorrhage, other complications or death. Aneurysms can be hereditary or caused by disease, both of which cause the wall of the blood vessel to weaken.... I was swiftly brought back to four years ago when they said I had a tumor in my brain that they had to take out. Surreal. I did not know how to channel my reactions – these things only happen in movies. Since when did I get on the Truman Show? Avant art? No. This is a CT Angiogram of my cerebral arteries. Doctor X: You have a 2% risk of rupture and it will increase at that rate every year that you leave it alone… A

photo by: Carmie B. Dulguime And it hit me like a boulder tonight... In the darkness of my room, I weep a year's worth of emptiness and sadness. I fall into an ocean of regrets at what could have been and what I should have done in the first place to keep him safe. My loathe to self heightens and my endless 'why's' resurface.  And with the sound of deep sleep to keep me company, I can only shake my head and sob some more.  I thought I was okay already. Work keeps me occupied. And in idle time, I take refuge in baking fruit pies which I give away if the sweetness at home goes beyond acceptable levels. I focus on Malakai's needs in school and I am more visible inside Dasma these days. It seems to motivate Kuya to study harder, which is a good thing. And on days that I feel like waking up earlier than Daddy, an interesting feast graces our breakfast table.  I've fallen into a routine of visiting bunso on weekends at the Shrine...and towards end October, I

A child was asked to write a summary of The Holy Bible. This is what he came up with. It’s hilarious, especially near the end… And I can so imagine Kai coming up with a similar, if not a worse version than this one…enjoy! (I did!) XD The Children’s Bible in a Nutshell In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas.  The Bible says, ‘The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, ‘Give me a light!’ and someone did. Then God made the world. He split the Adam and made Eve.  Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren’t embarrassed because mirrors hadn’t been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden…..Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn’t have cars. Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel. Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, w

Wednesday, March 11, 2009 – I was told people who experience loss cope with the loss in different ways: some eat, others sleep…still others want to be a recluse, and yet there are some who need company and would not want to be left alone. I simply wanted life to continue, like there was never a disruption in our lives, no respite in the day to day activities. I wallowed in my own misery and loss whenever I can – in the car, alone and in traffic, in the middle of the night when my sleep would be disrupted by a bathroom break and thereafter I’d have a hard time going back to sleep, in the bathroom where the shower muffles my sobs and rinses my tears away. There is no definition for this ache and I doubt that anyone who gets to experience what we’ve gone through can find a suitable definition for it in time. It’s the kind of pain that wants to drive you to death, where death becomes the sweetest escape possible. Perhaps that’s why bereaved individuals shout “…bakit mo ko ini

Friday, March 6, 2009 – For forty days now, my mornings have not been the same: it is emp ty and its emptiness is beyond description. I don’t like wakin g up knowing my only dest ination was going to be just my office; I’ve been so used to making multiple stops between leaving in the morning and going home at night. I don’ t like brushing my teeth, becau se doing so makes me remember that the time I used to gag when I would brush my teeth some seven months ago, Kai would slightly punch my bulging belly, blaming his poor little brother for making Mommy sick. I don’t like the way the morning sun hits my eyes everytime I’d leave our village to go to work; it seems brighter thus more hurtful to the naked eye. Perhaps I need a new pair of shades. Plus, Kai never seems to want to bring me to the village gate anymore these days… I don’t like having soup with my meals anymore – I never liked it in the first place anyway but I had to prepare myself for when Zak comes home and wi

What’s in a name? With my two boys, it says a lot obviously. Choosing names for our children was something I took seriously – as in, career! Let’s see, Kai, who has always been “Kai” to me even when he was still in my tummy, was born barely three months after Max and I got married. When he came out, I was working on the pre-production requirements of Project Jerry for Greenwich. I’ve had time to surf the net for baby names then because I was going in and out of St. Luke’s beginning end July. Back then, Max wanted to be surprised if the baby in my tummy was a boy or a girl so I kept everything to myself, and “Kai,” pronounced kye, is both used to name boys and girls. So where did “Kai” and “Malakai Rei” really come from? I think maybe I still had a hangover from the wedding because Kai stayed faithful to our wedding theme then: water. Kai is Hawaiian for “sea,” where both Max’s and my Dad worked/still works. It is also of Welsh, Scandinavian and Greek origin, which means

(Note: this is not to re-live the nightmare. On the contrary, it is to preserve my memory of my little angel. I’m still in a state where anyone, please, anyone, pinch me so i wake up from this bad dream and I can go back to visiting Zak at the ICU….please….) I grew up thinking its just an urban legend when they say “Moms know best” or “mother’s instinct yan…” When I had Zak, I had three episodes of my heart literally jumping into my throat and an ominous feeling swallowing me: the first, which I thought did not count, was when they said Zak had pneumonia day after his birth – I remember noting when the LRT stopped and started operations (10 pm and 430 am respectively). But the real first fear was on the day of Kai’s Christmas program – Max and I went to NICU right after lunch and left earlier than usual at 230 because we had to get Kai to school by 4pm. When we got home, I asked Max to call the hospital to check on Zak and true enough, his levels were going down which

Saturday, December 13, 2008 – Kuya meets bunso in the flesh for the very first time this afternoon. Until today, Kai has only heard stories of his kid brother lying with needles in the hospital ICU, seen only glimpses of his smaller version from three feet away, and in fact, has seen only captured images of Zak from Mommy’s camera phone. He wasn’t prepared to be given his ticket to see his brother today, but he was ecstatic just the same. Excitedly, Kai put on the smallest breastfeeding gown available (of course the gown still reached the floor, but I knew he felt so grown up in it); slipped into the oversized rubber slippers that can be worn inside the ICU, and ran to the sink (gown in tow) to wash his hands. He knew my routine by heart. Then very slowly, he made his way (a little too awkwardly though) to where his brother lay. I sat on the tall stool by Zak’s bed and Kai climbed his way up on my lap. Kai will see Zak for the first time today – the realization of it

How do you choose between two beautiful boys? All my life, I have loved one man at a time: growing up, no one measured up to my Dad’s dedication and unconditional love – and that hasn’t ebbed – more so now, that love is cemented by immense respect for the sacrifice he continues to pour into his family. Then came crushes and boyfriends, which, of course, came one at a time and ended in matrimony with Max. Then came Malakai Rei, absolute center of my life for the last four years, so when news came that I was pregnant again this year, I fervently prayed for a girl, but Kai was destined to have the brother he so wanted since news of my pregnancy came out, little Zakkari. Both born on a Tuesday, 4 years and 107 days apart, my two boys look exactly the same – came out small like the both can fit in the middle of your palm, no more no less, same facial features, similar skinny structure, same amount of hair on their bodies and head…the list can go on. The big difference was,

I thought that November 25 th 2008 was just going to be another day at the hospital, where I’ve been secluded since the Saturday weekend when Max and I checked in with my OB for routine check — but it turned out to be the most special day of the year for me. I’ve already spent four days of solace and frustration from a monster complication called preeclampsia (my OB told me not to research in full on this so that I do not get dejected, which, of course, I will later on) before then. My condition was so severe that the swelling reached my face and the balls of my eyes, my back, my legs, and my face, literally got squared! And yet, I accepted visitors, which, of course aggravated my blood pressure. By the end of the day, I wasn’t going down 200 over 120. And protein was dangerously spilling over my urine – a verification of a bigger problem that the condition may be damaging my liver and whatever else inside (these are things I remember my OB tells me at pre op). At 4pm,