Imagine this. It’s the last day of school in March 2006. Two months of summer is right before you. Then, a fever that goes on and on and on. Then after missing the first week of that wonderful summer, BOOM!, a bomb called cancer explodes in your body. Pretty bad, right?
I thought so too. It was my summer.
The Bayogan family: Emma, Jonathan, and the author. Eunice has the love and support of her family, friends, and their community
A few days after that fever set in (and before we knew what was causing it), my parents decided to bring me to the hospital, thinking that it might be something serious. It was. It wasn’t long before we found out that it was acute myelogenous leukemia or AML.
Honestly, I don’t remember what I felt then (I was 10 years old). All I knew about cancer at that time was that it was something severe. And from what I had seen on television, people with leukemia lost their hair. Man, I wasn’t ready to lose my hair that time! No way!
Battling a beast
Anyway, after the unwelcome summer guest invited himself into our lives, we went on to step two. Behold, chemotherapy! This treatment makes you better and sick at the same time. You might not get it, but it’s easy. It makes you better because the medicine kills the bad cells. But it also kills the good cells since it can’t identify if the cell is good or bad.
Now, the drugs also make you even more sick. The drugs kill the good cells which causes your hair to fall, nail beds turn violet and your appetite backs off. And so we went to the hospital back and forth.
On my first chemotherapy session, everything was a bit new to my parents, my caregivers, and me. Soon, my family learned how to buy medicines with weird names, how to ask for donors for my blood transfusions, how to get in contact with other leukemia patients, and how to deal with my condition.
They also got used to seeing me just lying in the hospital bed either sleeping or doing nothing at all. After the first dose was administered to me, I began to feel nauseated but not exactly right after, maybe after several hours. Then, I began to vomit. Even if I liked the food, my appetite always fought with me and always won. This happened in the days following my first chemo session.
The beast strikes hard
A few days after my first chemotherapy session, I awoke from my sleep with my hair all messed up. My sister, whose favorite subject is me, offered to comb my hair. I accepted her offer since my right hand was connected to the IV feeding bottle and I couldn’t do it myself.
After a while, she fell silent. “Yam,” she said showing me a handful of black hair. That black hair was mine. The sight of my hair on the white sheets each day saddened me. All my mom and sister could do was save my fallen hair in a plastic bag. But I kidded them, “P’wede na ‘yan na ipagawa nang wig ni Daddy!”
Fighting back with an army
Well, I knew I had to keep fighting even though I was already semibald. So, after I was discharged from the hospital, we went on with the second and third session. After the second session, my doctor announced that I was already in remission.
Being in remission means that there are no more cancer cells in my bone marrow and that I was ready for a bone-marrow transplant (BMT). The transplant would increase my chances of not having a relapse. Now all we needed to do was find a compatible donor and raise funds for the procedure.
According to experts, it’s difficult to find a matched donor. We started off with my sister. We were subjected to HLA typing. HLA means human leukocyte antigen. Unluckily, she wasn’t a match. Next was my eldest brother. This time, we were compatible.
By then my school, the Philippine Women’s College of Davao, already knew about my condition. They held fund-raising events for my operation. On the second week of September 2006, my parents, a helper, and I went to Manila. Before I was admitted to the hospital, we went to the Philippine Charity and Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to claim our grant. They gave us a big amount of money for the transplant.
The Great Battle
September 25, 2006: Transplant Day. That morning, the stem cells were harvested from my brother through the apheresis machine. That machine separates the stem cells from the other blood components. The harvesting took place the whole morning and in the afternoon, it was ready to be transfused to me. The process was just like any other blood transfusion, except that it wasn’t completely blood going inside me. A couple of days later, I started to have fever, which was expected.
The fever came and went, then came again. It was the same process over and over again. As far as I could remember, I spent two whole weeks doing nothing except lie in my bed, watch TV, and breathe. Yup, my life there was pretty easy. Mom didn’t even need to buy me food. So, how did I manage to get my nourishment? Simple. Vamin, a yellow fluid transfused into me (together with all the numerous medicines).
After a few days of fever, lab tests, watching television, and just plain doing nothing, I was finally discharged. It was exactly 30 days after I was admitted. A couple of weeks before Christmas, I was finally given permission to go back home to Davao. I was so happy.
Victory and the post-transplant journey
My routine was still the same; weekly lab tests, consultations, medicine, you name it. In early January 2007, we went back to Manila to attend the BMT party that’s held yearly. Other leukemia survivors also attended. I also reached my 100th day post-transplantion in January. I forget how we celebrated that milestone, but I was happy.
Over the next months, I started taking my examinations from our school. Fortunately, they allowed me to have a home-study program because of my condition. A teacher from school came to our house every week to administer a test. During the summer, my friends from school kept calling me up, which was good because I missed them so much. Most calls were from Karla and Elaine, two of my closest friends. Later, we were informed that I somehow managed to pass all my tests, meaning if I planned to go to school the next opening, I would be a sixth grader.
June came, which meant school. I sort of looked different because of my hair. You see, before my hair was straight. Now, it’s curly. And so I’m known as “curly tops” now. I attended school from June up to August with some absences in between because of occasional fever. At the start of September, we went to nearby Panabo City to attend a Science Quiz Bee. I was one of three who represented our school. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the next round.
Survivor’s upside
As December approached I felt excited because I was going to join our class party. So a couple of days before the party, my mom and I went into major Christmas shopping mode. We spent two whole afternoons buying gifts. I was wearing a surgical mask the whole time, but we didn’t know that we were already overdoing it. Uh-huh. Just a few days before the party, I was, for the millionth time, rushed to the hospital because of the never-ending fever.
On Christmas day, the whole family was present. I mean the WHOLE, man! They were all home because of Christmas break, which helped me a lot. I was discharged after 10 days, meaning I missed the party and I celebrated Christmas in the hospital. No biggie. At least I’m still alive, right? Since I didn’t get to celebrate a proper Christmas, I planned to make up for it on New Year’s Eve. New Year was a blast. The usual family photo shoot and media noche (though we ate it after New Year). We had a lot of fun! The following day, my sister had to go back to Manila. Seriously, why the need to be back at school by January 3?
While writing this article, I remembered what my friend Karla always says to me. She always says that I’m unlucky yet I’m still lucky. I guess now I understand. It meant I was unlucky because I got this cancer, but still lucky because I also got friends and family who would never leave me. And that’s more powerful than the disease I got in my body, which made me hang on and fight and it also made me realize that I wasn’t alone.
With medicine, modern technology, tons of love from friends and family and all the help I could get from the whole universe (especially from up above the heavens), my illness and recovery have become an unforgettable chapter to write in my book of life.