(August 9, 2019) Walking Alive with *Patrick and my *dad
(August 9, 2019) Walking Alive with *Patrick and my *dad
I had a parish involvement required for my first year Catholic high school. I met Patrick who was a leader of altar servers. When I was in college, I went to LRT-Anonas train station in the morning. I saw Patrick in front of me. We were young male adults. During our conversation as we climbed the stairs, he told me to walk very slowly. He informed me that his congenital heart disease was similar to my father’s case: having dead cells without holes needed for surgical treatment. Within that year, I visited the wake of Patrick as I was informed by fellow altar servers in high school that he might have overworked by only minimally causing his eventual death. When my father and I talked about his death, my father mentioned how my mother would have preferred that he walked faster while with her. He argued while laughing that he might have died earlier in life since he believed that my mother’s “instinct” about health is mostly inaccurate because she relied only on perception. He told me that the several instances when I had blood stain of my underwear in 2016 would only have merit for her if I would “portray” someone who was expressing pain. I remember when I insisted to be medically supervised as I could only barely walk feeling intolerable headache and body pain. My mother and her two sisters told me that I was simply a vain person not worthy of visiting a hospital, only to be convinced that I was ill after I vomited. Prior to vomiting, the three of them were telling my father and cousin-guardian not to believe my imagination because of vanity as a teenager. I was later confined at the ICU of World Citi Medical Center because of Dengue diagnosis, thinking what would have happened if I did not vomit. When I was still in college, I visited Dr. Anunciacion, MD of World Citi Medical Center because of frequent urination. The physician told me to monitor my urinalysis as frequent as symptoms may occur even if I would not be able to avail of insurance in any form because a disease may only be slowly progressing and my immune system has a limit in response. He referred me to urologist for consult but my frequent urination already controlled to a feeling of normalcy. Today I am realizing the absence of my father. Before he died, he told someone while using mobile phone almost beside me that I was already an accomplished person including both the physical and mental aspects. Then he opted to move inside a room because I might hear their conversation. I heard him telling the other that he was already entrusting me to my mother’s care only and not any other person except for my health, arguing that it may be on how my mother and her sisters were nurtured (raised) by parents socially that their insensitivity on health may be very risky. Citing as an example was himself who would not be perceived as having a congenital heart disease that was very sensitive to movements. Prof. Dickerson Moreno, PhD specializing in Medical Physics even told me that based on medical imaging, though he did not mention how he accessed the medical information of my father, I had to thank God that my father was still alive in his 50+ years of age able to walk though he warned me to keep him walking for a total of not more than 30 minutes per day. I narrated this to my father because Prof. Moreno was familiar with his mother (my grandmother) in college. He told me that Prof. Moreno only confirmed that his transition from basketball to karate (limited him to brown belt because of congenital heart disease) as a teenager was for his survival in order to “walk” further in *life.
Richard Benedict Baltazar
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