Flashback February 22, 2002
The broadcasters, the newspapers, soothsayers, Feng Shui masters, Madame so and so, said that today 2-22-2002 is going to be an auspicious day. There’s something in the heavens that would just make everything on earth good and lucky. And at eight o’clock and twenty two minutes in the evening, would be the exact lucky time.
I waited for the moment, hoping that some good and happy luck would come by and smile upon us. Every now and then I would look at the dark evening sky from our bedroom window to see if the moon is there.
At about 8 pm, my daughter asked me “why mom? what’s going to happen?”
“It’s good luck daw”.
At 8:20 pm while I was watching television, our land line telephone rang. I picked up the phone and it was Dra. Adan’s secretary, then Dra. Adan said Hello Annie! Oh, kailan ka pupunta dito?
That was really strange because doctors don’t do pro-active calls. I knew something is wrong, WITH ME.
“bAKIT Doctora, may cancer ho ba ako?”
She didn’t answer, I remember repeating my question two more times.
Rewind:
A few weeks prior, I stayed in the hospital for a few days. I had severe bleeding and I underwent scans and ultrasounds, then DNC. The result of the biopsy would come a week or two later.
Doctora Adan received the biopsy report on this day, 2-22-2002 and at 8:22 pm, instead of the smiling luck, I received instead a bomb that would shatter and shake my whole being.
I wept after I put down the phone. My daughter cried. My husband just stood in front of me. My son, too young to even understand that instead of the shining moon, his mother received an atomic bomb that threatens her life and our lives, as a family.
Today, February 22, 2012 is the 10th year of that auspicious- day-to-be. Today is also Holy Wednesday. I don’t intend to hear mass but I do plan to drop by the adoration chapel to say a little prayer. A prayer of gratitude. A prayer of thanks that I survived that episode of tribulation, Extreme thanksgiving that I did not undergo any kind of treatment and suffer excruciating pain. That I have normally lived for another 10 years since that bad-news-day, happy to be alive still and healthy, and looking forward to 30 more years of happy times on earth.
This is me today, with some imperfections here and there, but otherwise, still fine.
God is good and merciful!