Giving to storm victims / Daughter on dialysis learns dad has cancer

BENCHWARMER

Ramon Dacawi

When you donate used clothing in support of relief operations for the typhoon-ravaged areas in Central Philippines, please have the decency to see to it that these are clean and ready to wear.

In fact, receiving centers of relief goods have their  hands full sorting out sacks upon sacks of used clothing coming  in every day, with some already asking donors to hold on to their sacks until previous stocks have been shipped out to the calamity areas.

“We have to sort out each and every carton, bag or sack as we now and then come across  dirty or tattered clothes and therefore unfit for use, giving  the impression that the sources just wanted to get rid of their rags,” a volunteer at the operations base of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (CDRRMC) said.

Last week, the CDRRMC piled up  300 sacks of used clothing  at its operation base at city hall despite earlier shipments coursed through the Philippine Military Academy and other relief missions with ready transport services  bound for the calamity areas.

“The local Red Cross is also swamped with sacks of clothes and other relief goods as many people continue to respond to the typhoon victims’ plea for help through the mass media,” the volunteer said.

Addressing the need for more outlets for donations, members of the Baguio media re-launched last week “Operation Sayote”, the relief mission launched in 1991 while Mt. Pinatubo, the active volcano in Central Luzon was blowing its top and wreaking having to areas in Tarlac and Zambales.

As in previous editions of the mission, “Operation Sayote” will be based at the regional office of the Philippine Information Agency at the side of the Wright Park Lake fronting The (Presidential) Mansion.

First launched on  June 12, 1991, “Sayote” delivered some 250 tons of relief items, mostly sayote and other highland vegetables contributed by various sectors of the Baguio-Cordillera community.

This time, donors are advised not to contribute perishable items until these can be transported to the calamity areas and when the intended beneficiaries have replaced their kitchen utensils and are in a position to cook food.

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It was heart-rending enough for Amor Orpilla, then 29, to hear doctors say both her kidneys had totally failed.

The diagnosis came in 2009, five years after she lost her mother to cancer.

Somehow, she and her father. Moreno,  now 73, tried to sustain her thrice- or twice-a-week hemodialysis treatment she  has  to undergo continuously  for life . Moreno’s earnings and savings  as a mechanical  engineer had practically gone to his wife’s struggle against the big C.

After his wife died, he suffered a heart attack, forcing him to quit his job.

The seizure had left him partially paralyzed and with a limp that made walking quite difficult, like when he had to work out hospital papers each time his daughter was admitted for complications  of kidney failure.

Somehow, father and daughter found refuge in the house of Moreno’s mother at 5 DPS Compound here in Baguio. Somehow, the two survived on his P3,000 monthly SSS pension, but had to spend  most of their days spent seeking  support from welfare agencies to sustain Amor’s hemodialysis sessions and his own maintenance medicines for his heart condition.

Early this month, their fortune turned for the worse. Moreno was hospitalized after he complained of abdominal pain. The principal diagnosis was “intestinal obstruction secondary to cecal mass probably malignant stage IV”.

As Amor put it, the diagnosis simply meant her dad has cancer in a very advance stage.   

She admitted  she was at a loss on whether he should undergo colostomy to provide alternative channel for body waste in view of the cancer mass obstructing the intestines, or to have him go under the knife up despite the late detection of his illness.

And there’s the cost of either procedure being added to the continuous pressure of her having to scrounge for funds to raise the P2,200 she needs for her twice-a-week hemodialysis treatment . That’s aside from the need to maintain her father’s own medication.

“Paano ka na kung wala na ang tatay mo? (How would you be when your father has gone?),” Amor was asked last year, after she was hospitalized for difficulty breathing after she skipped a dialysis session due to fund lack.

“Hindi ho problema ‘yon,” she replied with nonchalance. “Mauuna naman ako sa tatay ko.”

Whatever  it would be, she asked last Tuesday that her father’s condition be written about, so Samaritans out there could reach out to him.

Like  they did last year, when her own distress as a kidney patient was carried in the weekly papers.

Donors may ring Amor’s number – 09214193776.

As this was being written, a  woman working at city hall handed an envelope containing two P1,000 bills. It’s for whoever needed help, she said.

Just then Jimena Valdez-Dalida, a 63-year old mother, dropped by, unsure of where to go for support in raising P2,200 that  Sharon, her 27-year old daughter, needed for her hemodialysis session that afternoon.  

Pure relief was etched on her face  when told  her worry had been reduced to P200 with the city hall employee’s donation.