Mama’s Progress and Other Stuff

As planned with our oncologist, I accompanied Mama last Tuesday to consult for radiation oncology. As per her doctor, Mama was to have radiation therapy in parallel to her chemotherapy sessions, after her 5th cycle session. The consultation went very quick, but I didn’t see it coming that her CT-Planning ---the actual procedure of CT-scan and other diagnostics before the actual radiation sessions --- would happen the next day. I didn’t file a vacation leave for Wednesday, and so Mama had to go alone. Whatever guilt I may feel , I can’t find a way to work it out. I only asked permission to go on leave on Tuesday and Thursday, the latter for Mama’s 6th chemo session. I’d have asked for emergency leave, but I had already moved a meeting with project leadership from Tuesday to Wednesday. Such is my life nowadays. My vacation leaves revolve around Mama’s medical sessions, but at the same time I try to minimize them. I had missed a lot of crucial management meetings already, plus the fact that my team seems to be needing guidance more than usual. I feel tired, really. I know my mother needs me more than ever, especially since our helper (a cousin twice-removed I think), had no plans of returning after spending New Year’s Eve with her family in the province. Further, I assume the radiation therapy, in tandem with the chemo sessions (we still have 6 more to go), will weaken her further, so I will need to be around her more. While in the office, there’s my work piling up. It’s a bit funny, in a chicken-and-egg kind of argument , that I need my work to fund my Mama’s recovery but Mama’s condition is the one that affects my availability for work. I’m really feeling the stretch, and just thinking about how I can manage all these pulls (my on-going house construction included) makes my head hurt. It’s a good thing that Mama is resilient to the chemo sessions: she started with 4 sessions of Epirubicin and is now on her second session of CMF (Cyclophospamide, Metrotrexate, Flouronracil). I had initially thought that the scenario I am in now would happen during the initial stages, but it didn’t. So I guess I should be thankful I had some months of reprieve.

Sometimes I get to think (and mentally ask), how long and how much is still needed from me, my Mama, my family for her to get really, really better. I can only imagine the total cost of everything so far, from the initial hospitalization to the MRM, to the chemo sessions, to this. I seldom go out now with friends, as I want to be home as early as possible. I prioritize, well, most of the time, the schedule for treatments and check-ups, even if it means delay in some work I do (which I think is not boding well for a newly-promoted manager). My nanay-nanayan and my ninong also help out in managing the house construction and in feeding the dogs there. My mother has been very diligent in following the doctor’s orders (except wearing a facemask), and is now more health-conscious in what she eats: no pork, mostly vegetable and fish. I know I should not be disheartened, because as like everything else that got me to where I am, this is just another test. Another challenge of faith, which then makes me wonder why I seem to be a magnet for life’s tests. Could it be that I didn’t pass most of those I’ve taken? I’m in my thirties, living with my mother who’s ill, no car, house on-going-and-even-if-finished-is-not-that-much, no six-digit-monthly salary, no girlfriend, no kid. To be very honest, that was all I wanted: a family of my own, a wife, 2 kids with my healthy mother doting on them like anything, living in our own nice house, going around in our car. And yet this picture of a life seems to be not meant for me, too, making me wonder what is.