2 more dialysis patients reach out for Samaritans

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- Jaime Dalida, 65,  and his wife, Jimena (nee Valdez), 61,  should be taking it easy now. Well,   they just can’t, for, as Billy Dean’s country song goes, when it comes to a parent’s love, you know count the costs. The couple nowadays spend most of their waking hours searching for Samaritans or charitable institutions.

                

The daily search is for Sharon, their 27-year old daughter who was diagnosed for end-stage kidney failure in July last year. She’s been on twice-a-week hemodialysis treatment since then, every Monday and Thursday evening,  on the 8 p.m.-11 p.m. shift, at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

                

Last Sunday, the couple ended up empty. As in previous tries, they were unable to pool P2,200,  the basic cost of one blood-cleansing session done by a machine over the four-hour shift. Probable donors on their list had already been tried or tapped – some even repeatedly. They’d ran out of names, and there’s this thing called “donor fatigue”.

The pressure to sustain the cost of blood-cleansing also continues to be bloody for Bernadette Domingo, perhaps even more so. The 34-year old laundrywoman and mother of two has to have P2,200 early every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

                

That’s when her husband, Rolando, is attached on the machine, under the 6 a.m.-10 a.m., three-times-a-week shift.

                

Rolando, who’ll turn 35 on Nov. 16, learned the other Christmas his kidneys could no longer function. The following January, he began his dialysis treatment  work as chief tanod of Lourdes Extension Barangay here in Baguio.

                

“(Bernadette) does laundry services once a week to provide the basic needs of the family,” wrote social welfare aide Janine Abalos in a social case study report on Rolando.

Recently, Rolando asked that a news item “about my life” be written “because of my condition”.   He’d also ran out of would-be dialysis sponsors and must have to tap strangers out there. What keeps him and his wife going is the constantly precarious gift of seeing his sons – Kyle, 10; and Kiro, 8 – grow up.

                

So did Sharon give her permission to have her pain be written about, published and aired, believing “Samaritans out there would know and be able to extend their help to me”.

Among those who could support her lifetime hemodialysis – if only they would know – are alumni of the University of Baguio Science High where he mother graduated as member of Class ’68, the second batch.

                

Jimena met her husband when she was a working student at the Philippine Normal University. They later transferred to Baguio when Jaime found work as electrician at the city engineering office. She bore him three boys and three girls, four of whom are now married.

                

The couple, together with daughter Sharon and son Victoriano, 23, now rent an apartment at SitioPaltingan in Ambiong, at the border of the city and La Trinidad, Benguet.

People who can help may ring up Sharon’s cellphone number (09267429237) and Rolando’s (09081778563).

                

With nowhere else to turn to, the two patients would have to wait for the kindness of people they hardly knew before they could report to the dialysis room. Sharon made it to her shift last Monday, thanks to an emergency fund from Shoshin, a small foundation in southern Germany which has been supporting gravely ill patients here since 2004.

                

“I join Sharon and Rolando in their appeal as Shoshin can only extend limited help,” said foundation chair Julian Chees, an Igorot martial arts teacher and former world traditional karate champion.

                

Meanwhile, two Ibaloi women – LinbethLestino and Madeline Ranille -  whose own plight as dialysis patients was earlier featured in the weeklies, reported having received additional support from two Samaritans.

                

Garet Vicente handed Linbeth P2,000 at the La Trnidad Trading post last October 5 and then handed Madeline an equal amount while she was on treatment at the Benguet Renal Center last Oct. 9. Donor Vivian Lucas also wrote two checks at P2,400 each for the patients, aside from P2400 cash for Madeline.

                

Those who would like to follow suit may ring up Linbeth (09198575207)  and Madeline (09109781449).