Mother of 10 wheeled into cancer ward anew

By Ramon Dacawi

Marjorie Cocoy Blas-Chacapna, a 42-year old mother of ten, was admitted to the V. Luna General Hospital in Quezon City early last Wednesday morning.  Hours before dawn, she and her husband George, an army staff sergeant, took the bus from Baguio for her confinement.

Soon, Marjorie, a native of Atok, Benguet, will be wheeled again into the operating room of the medical center of the Armed Forces of the Philippines – for her second surgery termed as “surgical debulking”.

Doctors will have to open up her skull again, to remove what remains of a mass growth they could not totally excise during the first surgery late last May. That was immediately after she was diagnosed for brain tumor medically termed as sphenoid wing meningioma.

Doctors removed only 30 percent of the tumor in that initial surgical procedure. They were wary of complications as she was then four months  pregnant with her 10^th child.

“The doctors wanted to make sure our baby was safe,” explained  Sgt.  Chacapna, formerly with the Philippine Military Academy and now on emergency leave from the 5^th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army.

Marjorie was released from V. Luna last September and brought back to Baguio by her husband for the delivery of her baby. She did so by caesarian section last October 12 at the 12 at the Baguio General hospital and Medical Center.

They christened the infant Kisaia. She came after siblings Shayne, 20 and a senior in accountancy at the University of Baguio; Sheena, 19 and in third year mechanical engineering student of St. Louis University; Shauniah, 15 and senior high at Fort del Pilar; Seth Wayne, 13, in third year high school and under the care of an uncle in Itogon, Benguet;  Isaac John, 12 and in first year at Atok, Benguet where he stays with his maternal grandparents; Sharimae, 10 and in the fifth grade, also in Atok; Sheila, 7 and in the first grade at Fort del Pilar; Isaiah, 6 and in kindergarten in Atok; and Christine, 4.

Bulk of the family members stay at the enlisted personnel’s quarters  (SAO Area) of Fort del Pilar. That’s where Sgt. Chacapna served for 10 years before his transfer to the 5^th Infantry Division based in Gamu, Isabela last April.

After his reassignment, Marjorie’s illness was diagnosed through a CAT-Scan at the Pines City Doctors Hospital. The procedure was prompted by her experiencing occasional, throbbing and pulsating headaches that were increasing in severity and frequency, aside from blurring of vision. The finding was further confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at the Jose Cardinal Santos Medical Center after she was admitted at the V. Luna.

While George’s status as a soldier allows free medical and hospitalization benefits for his wife at V. Luna, the family had and will still have to pay for procedures and diagnostics that are not available at the military health facility.

Among the costs the family had shouldered so far were P6,000 for the CAT-Scan; P9,000 for the instruments used in the first surgery; P5,000 for the screening of blood transfused; P13,000 for the MRI; and P4,000 for the biopsy.

George had piled up a total of P410,000 in loans from the Armed Forces of the Philippines Savings and Loans Association, Mutual Benefit Association, Inc., and Philippine Army Finance Cooperative for his children’s basic and educational needs and Marjorie’s continuing treatment.  

Before leaving for V. Luna, the couple appealed for help from whoever can out there, be they relatives, acquaintances, “kailians” or people they never met.

Years back, Marjorie’s elder sister Olivia succumbed to brain cancer, leaving behind three children. Olivia was the widow of the late Baguio policeman John Pistola who was killed by gunfire while responding, together with fellow officedrf Johnson Ayagen, to a hold-up case along Magsaysay Avenue.

George is one of two children of the late Crispin Chacapna, a native of Bontoc, Mt. Province who retired as security officer at the Lepanto Mines in Mankayan, Benguet. eorge’s only brother, Teodoro had also gone under the knife for brain ailment.      

Samaritans may ring up George’s cell phone number (09082619777). They may course their support through his Landbank ATM account number 0227-0175-54.

Hours before the couple boarded the bus for V. Luna, 21 other patients  or their relatives from Baguio, Benguet and the Cordillera also started off from Baguio  in two vans in time for he pre-dawn queue of hundreds of the poor and needy seeking fund support from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office at the Lung Center, also in Quezon City.

City social welfare and development officer Betty Fangasan dispatched one van while lawyer Libby Rillera-Fernandez, president of the Rotary Club of Baguio, hired another to accommodate the group, mostly kidney patients undergoing twice- or thrice-a-week hemodialysis treatment at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

Previous trips were supported by city mayor Mauricio Domogan, Benguet governor Nestor Fongwan and vice-governor Crescencio Pacalso, the Benguet Electric Cooperative and Shoshin, a traditional karate school in southern Germany headed by former world champion Julian Chees.

As he did for previous Cordillera batches lining up at the PCSO for help,  a Cordilleran managing a small eatery at the corner of EDSA and East Avenue cooked and served breakfast for last week’s group.  

One of the patients, 22-year old Robert Sakiwat Tomas of Mankayan and La Trinidad, Benguet, had used up his PCSO support last week and was scrounging for funds for his scheduled hemodialysis last Monday.

A Baguio businessman whose family is no stranger to propping up people in need, called up Robert’s mother Divina, for her to pick up P2,200, the cost of one treatment session.

Other donors may contact Divina at cellphone number  09207366153. – Ramon Dacawi.