I should not have gone this far perhaps if my grandfather never had the personal confidence to converse with the inanimate imaginary disease carriers at the bank of Anao-aon River requesting them to depart to save me from a very serious ailment in infancy. He was known to be a Spiritual healer and an expert in herbal medicines. My being saved from the brink of death may have been attributable to both of his expertise. Again as an infant, I was saved from starvation through a surrogate breast feeder---my aunt Elvira---when my mother was hospitalized for a very serious disease which almost cost her life.
During my third year in high school, I was afflicted with an unknown disease, unknown in the sense that I have not been diagnosed having had no opportunity to visit a physician, but a woman quack doctor. For two months I laid in bed bearing the burdens of continued fever and head breaking pains, without the benefit of modern medicines but a drinking water filled with herbs and paper and weekly rubbing rituals of iron bars around my joints purportedly to restore strength. I thought it was my last days. Once while alone at home, I managed to crawl into our dining room and urinate on the side of the wall. Then I was left unconscious; for how much time I did not know. Awakened, I found myself lying on our dining table. I felt kind of being resurrected. As I regained consciousness and a little strength, I walked limping back towards our bedroom. It was later known that my affliction was that of an acute typhoid fever. Providentially, however, I was relieved and was accepted back to school. I was then 15 years old.
From that time since, my physical health turned normal and had sustained me through all the winds of adversity along the path to my most challenging journey.
However, in the main thoroughfare towards my most cherished dreams for growth and development for my family, at age 35, I found myself again afflicted by a disease which until now the exact cause and origin has not been determined and known. It is a chronic disease of the immune system, the sad part of which is that it may be associated with arthritis, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
The first time I held a handful of plaques and almost daily thereafter, I felt devastated. I thought it was skin cancer, until I later knew that it was psoriasis. It was first diagnosed by a dermatologist from a community hospital in Cebu City. I was informed that it is an incurable genetic skin disorder and was prescribed coal tar for plaques and itch control. As the disease continued to get worse, I went to a renowned doctor at Chong Hua hospital in Cebu city. I was assured it is not a killer disease and not contagious and was again prescribed coal tar and a white ointment, with instruction to have a daily exposure of my whole bare skin to direct sunlight between the hours of 10 AM to 2 PM for an hour or two as an ultra violet treatment.
As a bank employee, I only have time during my noon breaks to expose my skin at our terrace for at least 30 minutes. During Saturdays and holidays, I have to go to the beach and find a place where I can lay bare my whole body to the blistering heat of summer. Each time I did such I felt as if my lung is bursting that I could hardly breathe. My heart seemed to pump even swiftly as to cause severe abdominal discomfort. But I have to do it if only to be relieved. It indeed provided temporary and short-lived relief.
Fear struck me when during one of our family week celebration in the church I participated in a family tug of war. As I pulled hard together with the rest of the participants my forearm skin was suddenly cut by the pressure. The two lacerations were long and blood was oozing. Since then I have had many small cuts and injuries as the epidermis of my skin seemed to have thinned as to easily react to pressures. Even ordinary hard contact on my skin caused me pain and even immediate and unwanted injuries. Scars remained printed on my body for a memory of those trying moments. Even the air pressure applied on the sphygmomanometer to measure my blood pressure was very painful. This may have been the result of my regular exposure to direct sunlight and the daily application of ointments. During each of these painful encounters, I sometimes felt I am a ‘dead man walking’.
Once I was treated from several abrasions having fallen into a concrete canal by a doctor who himself was psoriatic. He assured me that it will not be long and there will be a sure cure to the disease. But he did not live long enough to see the fulfillment of his expectations and perhaps even me. Research still continues.
Very generous benefactors assisted me through the church by surprise with a round trip plane tickets and an all-expenses paid medical checkup in Manila of which I was truly grateful. But nothing better resulted. I personally have a medical checkup with the best dermatologist at St. Luke Hospital in Manila. Despite long years of steroidal and pain reliever medications my laboratory results were all normal. Yet notwithstanding new and more expensive medications and modern ultraviolet treatment, still there was no improvement in my psoriasis.
Many times I was crippled by the attendant psoriatic arthritis which often strikes on the knees. Hence, I have to live by steroids and pain relievers to be able to regularly attend to my work in the bank. Many apprised me of the dangers of steroids and pain relievers, but I have to defy all medical warnings if only to live normally and continue to provide for the needs of my family.
I am grateful though that its link to diabetes did not surface. My blood sugar remained always at normal level.
Then the consequent cardiovascular disease associated with psoriasis dawned upon me as I suffered regular pains on my left breast. I consulted with a cardiologist and he suspected that my heart was enlarged. I underwent an echocardiogram, but the result was unclear. During one of my consultation with an internist, I also underwent and electrocardiogram and the results were normal.
Throughout those long years and weary battle with afflictions I find solace as I contemplate on the Lord’s invitation: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28–30).
Then I would plead as did the poet Edward Hopper (1818-1888):
“Jesus, Savior, Pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea;
Unknown waves before me roll,
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal.
Chart and compass came from thee;
Jesus, Savior, Pilot me.” (Hymn No. 104).
I am deeply grateful that despite these lingering afflictions, I still was able to attain my life’s simple dreams. I retired at age 56, just a year after attaining my career goal and with only two years remaining for my fifth and last-born daughter to finish college. During this period of retirement, I confronted the worst of psoriatic flare-up when almost 80% of my body turned red and most of my skin cracked. No amount of ointment application was able to provide relief. My wife had to wrap my body with food cling-wrap. I hate going back to doctors. One day I sat in front of my computer and was inspired to ask Google as to why it happened. I applied the suggested remedy and it worked. Since then I continued to use the medications and miraculously my skin seemed to have restored its strength. I still have my psoriasis, but its associated arthritis now seldom occurs and my skin can now cope with hard pressures. .
It’s been 30 years since when I first spotted those red spots on my skin; 30 years of lingering disease and constant medications. Throughout those years I have witnessed relatives, friends and neighbors and contemporaries in the prime of life being marched to their final moments on graveyards’ lane and their bodies laid in ‘the cold and silent grave’. I have written and spoken several eulogies in funerals and dedicated graves.
Today in my deepest and soul-searching retrospection since those accounts of near death experiences and enduring battle with afflictions, I thought that indeed, I have lived long enough at 65. I acknowledge with deep and profound gratitude God’s infinite love as to bless me of not having stayed even a day in a hospital bed during those long and weary days and years of failing health.
I always asked for extensions of my years in mortality in my prayers of total submission to Heavenly Father’s will. While I will have to wait for the Lord’s appointed time, as death is a certainty in life, I pray that I may be worthy to be “…received into a state of happiness…,a state of rest, a state of peace, where [I] shall rest from all [my] troubles and from all care and sorrow” (Alma 40:12). Where “God shall wipe away all tears from [my] eyes; and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:4).
As the dawn unveils the door of darkness to give way for the marvelous light of a glorious sunrise on this my 65th year in mortality, and as the sun follows its destined orbit and sets at the close of the day consistent with life’s eternal sequence, I wish to God that I will still be able to enjoy the beauty of life and the grandeur of mortal existence amidst the daunting consequences of failing health and the physical realities attendant to seniority.
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