By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
(Note: The first part of this article was on how I collapsed due to “high blood” at 5:00 a.m. when Typhoon Maring was starting to batter Northern Luzon. I posted the experience on our clan’s FB page and here is my response to those relatives who commented.)
Thank you very much for all the good advices, comments and good wishes for me you posted the past few days.
For every dark cloud there is a silver lining. After I collapsed last Monday, something good came out of it. My maintenance meds started to work in lowering my blood pressure. Not as much as I would have wanted, but they were having an effect. Unlike in the two months after my Sinovac vaccine when nothing worked. Not even catapres could make a dent.
Anyway, yesterday, I went to try another doctor. He will be the fourth regarding my BP. His clinic appears to be the standard now of respectable clinics in Baguio as I learned from a client. Before, all a general practitioner needed was a table and a stethoscope. Now, as I reached the clinic, his assistants took my heart rate, blood pressure, weight, and ECG with many wires connected to my chest, back and legs.
I was supposed to report the next day for blood analysis but when he saw my lab test results a few months ago, he said, “no need.”
Then after we talked including about my relationship with doctor relatives on my father side (there is quite a number of them (as there are lawyers, I am the oldest), he started pressing his stethoscope on several points on my back and chest.
Thereafter, he wrote the prescription. While he was concerned about my high BP, he reduced my two meds into one (of the same drug family I was taking) to be taken in the morning and evening.
Boy, was I relieved. From all indications, he did not discover anything outstanding about my health.
By the way, as I heard, the doctor is a relative of the Pladios (our Pladios—Louisa, et al.), Dr. Jose Beswilan.
Anyway, I think, I just have to work on my deadly health sins which had been going on for decades. I had already reduced my intake of sweets and salty foods to almost zero. I have to come to love the foods like ampalaya that are good for blood pressure. As to water intake, I drink 8 to 10 glasses. Perhaps I should try to increase it a little bit more. I tried diuretics before, and the experience was a disappointment as I peed more without those. I try to sleep more, and to have more moderate exercise. Yoga is still the best to tone the glands so an effort has to be exerted to be more regular doing it. And, yes, am still overweight by 13 kilos. More work must be done in this respect.
The most important thing, I am already reducing my court cases to partly reduce the stress.
If all fails, well, so be it. You know, there are karmic debts to settle, and God or nature takes care of the process. Sometimes we blame everybody or everything but never looking at our own karmic load accumulated over many years. There is a reason for everything, a time for every purpose under heaven.
As to those who will be left behind, think about this. “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?……… O you of little faith.” (Mathew 6:26).
We can say that again? Yes, God comes as a friend or relative or stranger, or as circumstances and opportunities.**
