By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
Please bear with me especially if I sound repetitive as this is a one-size-fits-all message for friends, relatives and you, our readers.
I was rushed to the hospital at dawn of Dec. 1, 2022. I could not breathe. As diagnosed, I suffered a heart and kidney failure. Three days after, I was able to walk out of the hospital with my wife. Luckily, even with wobbly legs, at least I did not have to lean on her as we walked out the door of Baguio General Hospital to the taxi stand.
The hospital bill including doctors’ fees was reasonable, just a little under P20K, after all the deductions from being a senior and as a Philhealth beneficiary. Then we had to pass by the drugstore to buy the prescribed medicines. I almost got floored. The total was P23k for a volume good for 22 days. A budget of P1,000 pesos per day was required for me to go on living. Add to that the cost of periodic medical lab tests and doctors’ fees and these all added up to a tidy sum.
The miracle for me was I did not have to go for dialysis. It meant the damage to my kidneys was not terminal. They are now recovering pretty well including my heart. With medicines, now at a reduced cost of about P350 per day, things are manageable.
Another miracle was we, my family, did not have to borrow money just for me to survive. I have to profusely thank though relatives and friends, including a college of law classmate who, without solicitation, donated sums for my requirements. Thanks also to a fellow Ananda Marga yoga practitioner, an alternative medicine doctor who was always welcoming whenever I showed up for his acupuncture services. He never charged me anything.
Now, I can easily walk a 2-kilometer distance of flat terrain. I am now doing small work as a lawyer. No more fear of the possibility of not making it back from the bathroom in the middle of the night. Well, my slipping there and bumping my head on the cement floor or wall, then breathing my last, could still happen as experienced even by perfectly healthy individuals. But the chances of that occurring is now very much reduced.
As to the ZigZag Weekly, we never missed a beat or an issue, even when we were at the hospital. Of course, the writing and editing were compromised, reflecting my condition then.
I consider my having gotten back and be able to do things almost normally as my new life. Time to do more as a way of giving back. As I repeatedly said of late, circulated through the social media, there should be more to life than just doing business or practicing a profession, or otherwise earning a living. There has to be some advocacy for the common good. I love how a friend put it, “we take some, we give some.” Yes, that is what makes the world go ‘round.
Another thing I am now into is to crank up on what I used to do before as a student in UP Baguio, lecturing to groups and individuals but forgotten the last decade or two, to get others to practice yoga meditation and yoga exercises. For me, these were a game changer. They can enable people to do better at what they are doing and to have contentment. And, perhaps, can make some, as I did, come back from a heart and kidney failure.
In pursuance, me and some friends are going around holding lectures on introductory yoga meditation and exercises. Somebody in the audience in one of the lectures was inspired to arrange similar lectures in other venues including a hospital, particularly, for doctors and nurses. For students, I would throw in a short talk on how to write better. For that is indispensable in improving chances of passing exams (e.g. board exams) and being promoted or advancing in one’s career.
For the same purpose, I started writing a book in installments. After some tweaking this might become a part of it. Hopefully, it will somehow get finished. Most of all, hopefully, it will not be boring like a classroom text book.
As to how and why I got here, that would be another long story. Some other time. I finally nailed the why. **
