Toasting kindness

BENCHWARMER
Ramon Dacawi

The kindness of strangers, her high school batch mates and an aunt who declined to be identified will give 23-year old Sheryl Cacay Degay a two-month respite from the gnawing fear of missing her twice-a-week dialysis treatment for kidney failure.

Degay, ninth of 11 children of a 71-year old farmer and carpenter, came out the other week to tell her condition, hoping Samaritans out there would reach out to her. The graduate nurse admitted her family had long been exhausted – especially financially -, and groping for support for her survival.

Last Thursday, she e-mailed how her high school batch mates (Audie,
Melody, Arrianne, Brenda, Graal, Banagi, Lyn, Esam, Audie, et. al ) pooled and delivered to her P1,800. They all belong to Class 2005 of St. Mary’s School in Sagada, Mt. Province.

Teddy Espiritu of Hawaii come see her with a P10,000 personal support. So did “Manang” Aileen Lomong-oy from Besao with a P1,000 assistance.

A certain Sarah G. deposited P5,200, good for two dialysis sessions, to Sheryl’s Banco de Oro Account No. 5180083428. So did “Ate” Sabel course through the same account P1,000 while VTA International Realty Corp.-VTA Foundation deposited P2,600, the cost of one session.

Sheryl’s aunt Tabuk, Kalinga who requested anonymity sent P3,000 through Western Union, to bring the total to P24,600.

The first response came last Sunday, as soon as expatriate Igorot and karate teacher Julian Chees read Sherry’s appeal through the on-line news from home in his home in southern Germany.

“Just came from a week-end seminar with Master (Hideo) Ochi in Munich and just opened Baguio news and read about Ms. Degay’s situation from your article with Alfred (Dizon),” Julian e-mailed. Ochi is the head of the traditional Japan Karate Association in Germany.

Immediately, Julian texted fellow martial arts teacher Renate Doth to send 440 euros pooled by their students and donors before the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan. Doth is the secretary of Shoshin, a small humanitarian foundation Julian and his karate students in Germany founded in 2004, after they saw on television the devastation wrought by typhoon that struck on Christmas in northern Philippines.

Shoshin, which means “Beginner’s Mind”, is also the name of the traditional karate school that Julian, a fifth dan blackbelt under the JKA, established in southern Germany.

Julian earned his brown belt from fifth dan Edgar Kapawen Sr., now the chief instructor of the JKA-Orient based at theYMCA of Baguio. Prior to transferring to Germany, he served for three years as “uchi dechi” (inside or live-in student) of shihan Kunio Sasaki, the JKAS’s permanent representative to the Philippines and from whom he took his blackbelt.

Chees became the first non-German by birth to be drafted to the German national karate team. For years, he ruled the kata (formal exercise) event in various European and international opens, and later at the World Shotokan Championships in Saarsbrucken.

Shoshin’s 440 euro support, converted by Western Union to P25,792.03, upped Sheryl’s assistance fund to P50,392.03. The foundation of martial artists has so far extended over P2 million for Cordillera patients and calamity victims.

Among those Shoshin reached out to earlier were kidney patients Ashley Sabling and Aelfric Paquitol, lymphoma victim Mark Anthony Viray and two families who lost two children and their common house in Banaue, Ifugao during that December typhoon in 2004.

Sheryl, who finished nursing at the Pines City Colleges here, was diagnosed for total kidney failure last October while she was serving as a volunteer nurse at the St. Theodore’s Hospital in Sagada, Mt. Province where she grew up

After finishing high school at St Mary’s in Sagada, she moved to La Trinidad, Benguet under the care of her elder sister Emmaline, enabling her to finish her nursing course.

The dream-shattering diagnosis came just when she was trying to figure out how to prepare for the nursing board examinations. She felt and showed no sign of her ailment, until family noticed swelling of her face and feet last October.

To survive, she has to undergo twice-a-week dialysis or blood-cleansing session, set on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Benguet Renal Center, within the compound of the Benguet General Hospital in La Trinidad.

Her support fund would have been used up by July or earlier, depending on her other needs that may arise, including occasional blood transfusion.

As we toast the kindness of people out there, others may find inspiration and follow suit. Sheryl can be reached at cellphone number 09068948532 or during her dialysis schedules on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (e-mail:mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments.)