Updates on my Existence Part 3

I was really down during the first three weeks of April. It was because the night after my graduation, my father and I had a really huge shouting match. I planned to leave the house and spend the whole summer reviewing with Neil and his girlfriend [as i partly mentioned here]. I already paid the house and the reservation in a review center as early as late February. But for no reason, my father retracted his decision. I didn’t have anything against the review center here, I just felt bad because I have already laid a two months worth of plan in my mind and his abrupt change of heart really frustrated me.

I didn’t have a reservation in the Review Center nearby, so when I enrolled, they put me in section two. I know some of the people there but I wasn’t really close to any of them. It was really difficult for me. Everyday was a torture until the time came when I was already doubting my self. Thoughts of boycotting the review and even the June board exam visited me everyday. My heart was so heavy, and even though the lecturer was really good I decided to cut the class last April 18.

They say that sex is the best stress reliever, but since that cannot be arrange at the moment, I settled for a second Plan. Last April 19, I decided not to attend my class anymore, the next day [April 20] I dropped by the section 1’s building and asked the administration if I can be a regular student there. Some of my friends are there. Angelo, Hanzel, Lallaine, PrinsesaMusang, Asase, and even some of my classmates way back in Freshman attend the class. I felt so relieved.

Though they are two subjects ahead of me, I was still able to cope. They were really supportive. Yesterday, since my father left for Manila to attend my sister’s open heart surgery on Monday in Philippine Heart Center, I went to Lallaine’s house and asked her to teach me. I was always among the top three in the exams in section 2, still, my scores are considerably miles away from Lallaine’s scores who is always in the second or first spots here in section 1 [my new section], and I am really happy that she said yes when I asked her to give me a tutorial. She joked that her tutorial fee is really expensive while feeding me with their own version of halo halo (halo halong fruit cocktail). She’s one of the nicest people on earth… really.

About my sister’s heart operation. She was the one who decided to undergo the operation. Early last year, she started complaining about some symptoms of her disease. My oldest sister accompanied her to Makati Med and they found out that her heart condition is worsening. Her lab results show that she was already developing a left sided heart failure as evidenced by her Left Ventricular Hypertrophy (meaning, due to her underlying heart disease, her heart has to pump harder to nourish her whole body, which resulted for the cells inthe left lower chamber of her heart to rapidly multiply. Imagine your biceps, by the fast cell multiplication your biceps’ mass increase when you exercise. This increase in size is good for our skeletal muscles but is greatly detrimental for our heart muscles.) and pulmonary edema (meaning, fluids in the lungs. This happen because the left chambers of the heart receive the oxygenated blood from the lungs, but due to my sister’s heart problem, her heart cannot pump out all of the blood coming from the lungs to her other body parts. As a result, the blood that was not pumped to the systemic circulation flows back to the lungs resulting to her pulmonary edema… in Filipino term; pamamanas ng baga).

My father left yesterday morning to be with my sisters. He’ll be there until April 30, they were expecting that my sister will be discharged three days after the operation. So I was left here alone. I am optimistic because she has a very positive outlook on her upcoming operation. She was the one who decided this. She was waiting for this moment. In fact, for the last three months, she was using GlutaThione to withen her skin. I even joked, “Baka mamaya di mo hinihilod yang singit mo nakakahiya sa nurse.” It turned out that she didn’t know that they are going to strip off all her clothing, she only thought of baring her breast so I said, when she looked at me disbelieving, “Eh pano kaya nila ipapasok sayo yung catheter kung di mo huhubarin yang panty mo?” She posed for a moment then said, “Ano kaya kung sabihin ko sa Nurse ‘pwede ba ako na lang yung magpapasok nyan?’” Then we both laughed.

I really wish my sister well. I know she’ll be okay, but a heart operation is still a heart operation.