Nurse battling cancer appeals for help

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY --  It’s a case of the shoe being on the other foot, this sudden plight of a Baguio couple in dire need of the compassion that they have been extending to patients over the years. 

Leonor Santos is a  43-year old nurse working at Benguet Laboratories. Mike, her  42-year old husband, is an  on-call driver who has been safely transporting seriously ill patients or their relatives to and from charitable institutions in Metro-Manila.  

Leonor, a native of Santiago, Isabela, serves patients coming in for check-up at the laboratory here in Baguio. For a few years now, Mike now and then drives a van of the Benguet Electric Cooperative, transporting the indigent, mostly hemodialysis patients setting off at night in time for their pre-dawn queue among the daily multitude at the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office at the Lung Center in Quezon City.

Last August 9, Leonor went for a check-up at the Pines City Doctors Hospital. She was immediately admitted. In no time, she underwent surgery for breast cancer. The doctors also advised her to undergo six sessions of chemotherapy.

She had her first chemo treatment last Sept. 18 . She’s gearing up for the second set on Oct. 18 at the PCDH, if they can raise P16,200, which is the cost of one session.

Leonor earns P12,000 as nurse while Mike gets P2,000 each time he drives for BENECO, the frequency of which is irregular. Whatever they’ve saved after the house rental and the daily needs was used up for the surgery (P52,000) and the first chemo.

The two met in Manila when they were students. They married in 1992 and are blessed with four children: Jonel, 18; Janelle, 17; Jocelle Angeline, 10; and John Michael, 2.

The other week, the couple was at the city social welfare office. “This is a case of a client who is in dire need of assistance for her medication,” noted social worker JorieSheeneLacwasan. “In spite of her illness, she has a positive outlook in life that she’ll get through her present predicament. She wants to live longer for her family, hence (she is) appealing for help from welfare agencies and kind individuals.”  

Last Thursday evening, Mike was on the road again, towards the now familiar route to the PCSO. This time, however, it was with a difference. For the first time, he joined the queue. Like those he transported, he lugged an envelope containing his wife’s social case study report, medical abstract and certification that his family is in dire financial need.

“Ngayon, ang pamilya ko rin ang nangangailangan ng tulong,” he muttered before the trip, when he delivered his wife’s documents, including her permission to have her story written, so Samaritans out there would know and help.

 Those who can help may ring up Leonor’s cellphone number (09082214030) or Mike’s (09205219502).They can  visit the family at 13-E Bakakeng Sur, Baguio City.  

Meanwhile, Samaritans responded to the earlier appeal of two kidney patients undergoing twice-a-week hemodialysis treatment at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

Dinton Basta, a 25-year old former carrot water at the La Trinidad Trading Post in Benguet, received P1,200 from Engr. Leonard Lecanio and P1,000 from RogelAtiwag. Earlier, Shoshin Foundation paid for one dialysis treatment at P2,200 while an anonymous donor had his secretary deliver P5,000 to the patient’s mother, Benita.

Annalyn Depayso, a Cordillera expatriate working in the United Kingdom, got wind of Dinton’s plight and reached out to him with a P5,000 support that her brother, Edgar Baclawan, handed to Benita last September 28. 

Things are also looking up, albeit temporarily,  forMarilouMatias, a 25-year old mother of a five-year old girl from Villasis, Pangasinan who’s on the Monday-Thursday dialysis treatment shift at the BGHMC.

The same anonymous donor of Basta also had his secretary give P5,000 to SimplicioPescador, Marilou’s common-law husband. The owner of a restaurant along Session Rd., whose family have been extending support to indigent patients for years now, added P1,500.

Beefing up its support, Shoshin, led by former world traditional karate champion Julian Chees, last week sent P10,000 from his base in southern Germany, good for two dialysis sessions for Basta and Matias.

The remaining P1,200 was spent for the medicines of Wilma Tomas, a 45-year old mother battling heart disease and complications of diabetes.

Earlier, Shoshin sent P10,000 for leukemia victim Cecilia CosapePatol of Holy Ghost Extension, Baguio who was confined at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute in Quezon City.

Also again knocking on doors is Adonis Togana, a 45-year old former public school teacher who has been on leave since 2008 to battle skin and tissue cancer. With support from friends, strangers and institutions, he underwent flap surgery, radiotherapy and skin grafting sessions in various hospitals in Metro-Manila, including the Philippine General Hospital.

           

“I’m back home for more skin grafting at the Baguio General Hospital,” he said last week, adding, he would have to continue with radiation therapy to prevent the cancer cells in his left leg from spreading.

           

It’s a tedious task, raising funds again, but he can’t give up. He lost his wife and fellow teacher during childbirth, together with her baby, in 2005, leaving him to raise their two other kids, Trojan and Jezrelle.

           

Those who can prop him up on his protracted battle may ring up  his cellphone (09291577446)