Teacher in second bout against cancer

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- In-between making the rounds in search of Samaritans, public high school teacher Adonis Togana would look up, tossing to the sky questions he had asked a hundred times before.

               

They’re the same questions now and then asked by patients who, like him, are battling cancer or any other serious and debilitating illness. Like many of them, he hasn’t found the answers.

                He thought the answers were at hand last year, when his doctors,  after a series of radiation, chemotherapy and skin grafting sessions,  declared he was on remission from squamous cell carcinoma.

                In the social case study report she wrote, social worker RonalynPaleng said Togana was diagnosed for skin and tissue cancer in 2008. Adonis narrated that his left leg sustained burns in 1978 that perhaps triggered the growth of cancer cells.  

                Adonis lost his wife and fellow, during childbirth, together with her baby, in 2005. She left him their two elder kids – son Trojan, now 15 and to be in senior high school, and daughter Jezrelle, 13, and due for second year this coming June.

                He taught at the Benguet National High School from 1993 to 1999 and transferred to the  the Pines City National High School in 2000. Eight years, the cancer surfaced, forcing him to take a leave and make the rounds to complete his therapy.

                Knocking on doors does dent a teacher’s dignity. With two kids to raise, he had no choice. Samaritans among acquaintances and strangers responded and he made a list so he and his kids won’t forget their kindness.

                With the relapse, confirmed through a biopsy last month, he was back to square one.

                He admits it’s a more constricted, smaller square than the first one. Samaritans can only give so much  that it would be more difficult to make another round.

                As of last Thursday, Adonis’ donors had pooled P23,000. He needs to raise P40,000 as soon as possible so he could go back to the Philippine General Hospital in Manila to start his daily radio therapy sessions continuously for 24 days.

                Adonis,  who hails from Asin Road, Baguio and now resides at Tabangaoen, La Trinidad,

Benguet turned 45 last February 18.

Those who can help him find the answers may ring up Togana’s cellphone number: 09291577446.