Two dialysis patients make a wish for 120

BENCHWARMER

Ramon S. Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY-- In a country where millions are poor, it’s normal for legions to pursue dreams of instant financial relief. They queue up daily, hoping to make the audience cut and then to be chosen at random to play, dance or do whatever for cash rewards in those game and variety shows on television.

           

So last October, 31-year old Amor Orpilla an only-child from DPS Barangay here, inched her way in to “Will Time Big Time” over Channel 5. Hours before dawn that day, the Baguio girl arrived in Quezon City for that long queue of the sick and needy  seeking fund support from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. 

           

As she was already in the Big City, it wouldn’t hurt to take another line before taking the long bus ride for home.  A patient suffering from kidney failure, she needs all the support she could get to sustain her twice-a-week hemodialysis treatment necessary for her to survive.

           

“Pumila at nakapasokako at nagbakasali, ngunit  ‘di ako natawag ni Mr. Revillame (I lined up and was let in but I was not called by Mr. Revillame),” she recalled last week, referring to the TV show host.

Over lunch at the city hall canteen, she and fellow kidney patient, Mary Grace Binay-an, 23, of Irisan barangay, continued to day-dream. They had hiked  to the city’s main building to work out free use of two vans for 20 patients going to the PCSO on June 13, a day after Independence Day.

           

“Sulatan kaya naminang “Wish Ko Lang” Amor wondered aloud, referring to the Saturday show over GMA 7 that turns wishes of some of the poor into reality.  

           

The two women’s wish is a long shot. Amor estimates 120 patients have their blood-cleansing sessions at the renal room of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.  At P2,200 per patient per session, the wish would require P264,000.

           

The only child of Moreno Orpilla, a 70-year old widower and retiree now also on maintenance medication for heart ailment, Amor has been on dialysis since January, 2010. Father and child are jobless, yet defy reality by struggling to survive on his P3,000 monthly SSS pension.

           

“We have another wish,” confessed Mary Grace. “Amor and I now and then entertain thoughts of landing a job, particularly to do light office work or take-home clerical tasks  in-between our Wednesday and Saturday dialysis schedule.”

           

Both thought that, like day-dreaming, working and earning a little between scrounging for funds for dialysis would be therapeutic. Both swore they are still fit but understand employers would hesitate to hire them because of their afflictions.   Still, Mary Grace handed a hand-written resume outline while Amor turned over a report on her case prepared by social welfare officer FlorecitaTul-an.

           

The ninth and last child of Patricio Binay-an Sr., a 68-year old barangay aide at Irisan Barangay, Mary Grace was an honor student since elementary and an academic scholar until her senior year at the Benguet State University.

           

A multi-awarded Sangguniang Kabataan chair of Irisan, she had worked under the Special Program of Students (SPES) and under Branch 1 of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities. With just a semester to go for a degree in education, she dropped out due to financial and health constraints.

           

She began her life-time hemodialysis treatment in October, 2009. She has gone this far with a long list of people to thank. They include her former teachers and classmates, barangay officials and residents of Irisan and former SK city federation chair Ysabel de Vera.

“I can still do light work, but who will hire a dialysis patient in any establishment?,” she asked. “My life is now simple. I use most of my time searching for funds of politicians, NGOs and political parties to finance my treatment because my family can’t support me.”

           

In-between the endless search for fund support for the next blood-cleansing session, she still serves Irisan as barangay tourism officer.

Amor lost her mother  in 2004, after a long battle against cancer that left the family indebted, noted social officer Tul-an. Her mother’s death forced her to look for a job to be able to fend for herself.

           

“She is now dependent on her father, a senior citizen receiving a monthly limited SSS pension,” Tul-an said in her report. “His pension, however, is not adequate for both of them because he is also on medication for hypertension.”

           

In her search for Samaritans, Amor would bring along her father’s medical prescriptions, hoping donors would extend their understanding and also reach out to him. It’s a wish that she extends to all her fellow dialysis patients at the BGHMC - if only “Wish Ko Lang” would eventually respond to her wish.

Until last week, however, she couldn’t still write and had to thumb-print her permission to have her story written, “with the hope that readers would be able to know of my plight and extend their support to help me sustain my lifetime treatment”.

           

Her hands remains swollen from the introduction of “arteriovenous”  fistula on her forearm, wrist, upper arm  and even on the edge of her neck or wherever an artery and vein  is found for access to the bloodstream needed during dialysis.

           

Soon, her doctors said, she has to have an “arteriovenous graft” (AVG), or the insertion of a plastic tube required  of “people whose veins can not tolerate a fistula”.

           

The implant is not so urgent, she said. Otherwise, she would be at a loss on how to produce P15,000 for the procedure. Bound by a common ailment, Amor and Mary Grace last week knocked on doors together, on behalf of the rest, especially those on their Wednesday-Saturday dialysis schedule.  Together with their own  papers, they submitted the documents of 18 others who will take the cue with them at the PCSO  before dawn on June 14.

           

One of  the 20 won’t be going, the two said last Monday. They just heard news a fellow patient had just passed on. Last Thursday morning, Amor texted that another had also died.

           

Make that still 20, Amor said. “May kapalit na pupunta yong dalawang nawala.Ang problema baka hindi kakasya yong dalawang van.” If so, then two or four of relatives representing patients who couldn’t travel would have to ride the bus.

Samaritans out there can ring up Amor (09214193776) and Mary Grace (09282179154)..