Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Honey, you made my life complete.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Finally, we brought Carl home!!!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Day 36: Still in the Hospital
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Day 6: Miracle Happened!
Motto: Never give up! After our visit to Tagaytay, I called up my medical friends, send them the Xray pictures. Hubby was helping me too. He sent some pictures to their resident doctor, Dr. Calado, told him that the doctors in Olongapo was planning to fuse Carl's leg. He told my hubby to advise the doctor not to fuse the leg/limb and also advised him to consider Ilisarov procedure.
Ilisarov procedure (Wikipedia) is used in surgiforcal procedures to lengten and reshape the limb bones; treat complex and/or open bone fractures; and in cases of infected non-unions of bones that are not amenable with other techniques."
Dr. Calado told hubby to tell my brother's Orthopedic doctor not to fuse the limb. He even told hubby that if they cannot do that in Olongapo then we have to send my brother here in Manila (PGH). He said that PGH has expertise in Ilisarov procedure. So when I heard about that, I googgled it and found 134,000 results. I gatheres some data and then called up carl's doctor and told him not to amputate the leg. Maybe he can consider that procedure. I kept on calling him and texting him from 0530H until he called me at 1430H the same day. Guess what? He talked so differently. He said he will not do bone fusion anymore, that there still hope that he can bend his legs and be functional again in the future. Whew!!! MIRACLES DO HAPPEN (?) or if you don't know anything about the procedure, just say YES to whatever the doctor tells you because you're staying at the ward??? But I do believe MIRACLES DO HAPPEN... Just pray...
Saturday, March 6, 2010
4th Day: One on one talk with God
We decided to go to Pink Sisters in Tagaytay to seek help (45 mins. away from our place). It has been tested, almost all my wishes/petition came true with the help of the sisters. I need miracles.
We attended the afternoon mass at 430pm. After the mass, I prayed the rosary and then had a little talk with our Lord. It was mixed emotions... I felt pity with my brother, I'm loosing hope, I missed my mom... I don't know what to do. I am the only family of Carl that can help him. I have a lot of questions running thru my mind but I never dared to question Him. Never dared to test my faith. The only thing that I told HIM was: "Whatever your plans may be, I will leave it all up to You."
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
3rd day at the Hospital: Very bad and sad news!
It was exactly 8 o'clock in the morning while my brother was having his breakfast, he was very excited in telling us that he had a chance to walk again normally when his surgeon arrived and talked to us (me and my hubby) privately. Because Carl was so positive about his operations, we were also excited to hear the good news from his doctor but unfortunately has a different side of the story. We first spoke to the him and he showed us the x-ray result of my brother. He even showed us the actual picture when my brother arrived at the emergency room. It was not only broken but crashed bones. The bones were scattered in the area where they met the accident. A lot of blood was lost and he said that was my brother's. Have you seen a leg without a knee? That's how it looks like or even worse. I can't exactly describe it but it was yulky! I almost fell and threw up.
The next part was when his Ortho came and talked to us too. He said, the good news is that they will not amputate the leg anymore because the nerves are still functional. He said there are 5 signs to consider before the decide to amputate the leg: the bone or the knee cap, veins (which was cut off too due to injury), the patella, the skin and the tissue that no longer has an adequate blood supply. But, the nerves are still functional so they decided to just fuse it (leg-knee fusion).
For those of us who are not familiar with that term, in lay man's term (as I understood) is that they are going to remove the knee joint by connecting the leg bones and thigh bones (?). The left leg will be smaller than the right leg and it is a permanent procedure. You could not bend it anymore...as long as you live. As you can see at the X-ray picture, you cannot detect where the knee joint anymore. At first, I was convinced that it was the best way instead of amputating it. So... it's only me who can tell that news to my brother.
Carl and I talked... It's hard for me to give advise because I myself was not convinced that I cannot anymore bend my legs... I even tried walking without bending my knees. It's hard... I prayed before I talked to him. I told him that we are still fortunate that the doctors have decided not to amputate the leg anymore but.... (silence) they will have to fuse it. He was in tears. I cannot hide anymore how sorry I was while talking to him, i burst into tears. I hugged him and told him that everything will be alright just pray. Prayer is the most powerful than anything else in the world. I told my brother that I will never leave him whatever happens. I will always be by his side. I will do anything for him... it was a long silence... I knew he was very depressed. He doesn't want to eat anymore but when I told him that God will never give us his cross that we can't carry...
First Operation
First operation. His orthopaedic doctor decided to do the first operation after the accident becauase they need to clean up the wound and try to save the leg and not to amputate it. It took 2 hours to put an implant called external fixator device. External fixation (from Wikipedia) is a surgical treatment used to set bone fractures in which a cast would not allow proper alignment of the fracture. In this kind of reduction, holes are drilled into uninjured areas of bones around the fracture and special bolts or wires are screwed into the holes.
We haven't had the chance to talk to the Orthopaedic Doctor after the surgery.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
2nd day at the hospital: Disaster!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
A Motorcycle Accident
Just as my hubby and I finished the Novena Mass at Baclaran Church when I noticed that I have a missed call and a text saying "Call me, immediately." Upon reading the text message, I hurriedly texted my brother if what is the concern of my father. After 5 minutes of waiting for the reply, i called my father. My brother, Carl, met a terrible motorcycle accident at the zigzag road near Kale Beach in Olongapo City. I was shattered... Didn't know what to do... I finished everything at work until night time.. That was my last day at work with my former Section, before transferring to my new Department (Feb. 14, 2010)
Monday, February 8, 2010
Oh noh! Our little Trishia got sick!!!
We stayed at the emergergency room for almost 2 hours waiting for a vacant room and not to mention my hubby is trying to delay the nurses from putting IV on Trishia's left hand (hehehe). I know deep inside that he also doesn't want Trishia to be confined but he's not talking about it. So when the doctor and the nurses came to give her the IV, he had nothing to do but to held Trishia tight and to divert her from the pain that might caused her. While me and her dad were nervous, we noticed that Trishia didn't have any reactions. She even talked to the nurse. My little Trishia made us stronger. Maybe she doesn't want to see mommy crying.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
HongKong Adventure Part 1
We checked in at the counter and there we spotted our travelmates/friends Lara and his husband, Jun and son Cuzz. We planned to have the same flight and same hotel. We encountered no problem at the check-in counter except that we have to turn around again after checking in the luggage to pay the Airport Fee and Travel Tax. So for all Cebu Pacific buyers, yes the ticket is all inclusive but at the airport you still must pay International Travel Tax and Airport Fee if your traveling outside of the coutry. Good thing we dont have to pay for Trisha as she is still free as a minor. However, it will be half for Peachy.
We are going through the process and inspection and we didnt realize that it is already time to board the plane. Well, before doing that, our stomach's are aching and shouting for "food" so we stop at a nearby food stall at the airport and as usual as all other airports, their prices is "airport price" that means it is expensive! imagine a bottle of water for 50 pesos where you can buy it at 10 pesos outside. Good thing we brought breads for the kids. After finishing up our food, we went straight to the plane. Since we have check-in our 2 strollers, we dont have a choice but to carry our heavy little princesses to the plane.
Peachy was seated at the window so she got the best seat in the plane with her view of Manila. She enjoyed it now more than the first plane flight she took when we went to Thailand in 2007. Trisha is seated alternately with us. We first heard Trisha singing with a familiar tune. Not too long that we realized that she is already singing the Manny Villar's campaign ad/song. We are all laughing when we realize that. Manny Villlar is flooding the TV and radio with his ad that even children can memorize his song. Lots of money(million) to spend and burn just for a commercial, just to be a President. Well, it's not surprising anymore.. he is one of the richest man in Asia. After two hours in the air, we finally arrive in HK. The main purpose of our trip is of course to bring the children to Disneynald and enjoy bonding moments. We arrived about 10 minutes earlier than expected so when we are done with immigration, we are all hungry for lunch. What a sight when we spotted a Burger King restaurant at the airport. I know you are asking why eat BK at HK when all the authentic chinese food will be there. I have a better answer for you 1. We love BK 2. It is safer to eat something that you already know and your tounge already knew. 3. This is the airport so fast food must come really fast. And it is already 12 noon and we still dont know how to get to the Hotel.
After consulting with our travelmate, we all decided to ride the Airport Shuttle Train or the Octopus Train to have a better view of the city and to have a safer ride which we had a little regret later on compared to riding in a taxi. So we purchased train card for each one of us. We thought that this Octopus pass can also be used in free train ride when we transfer but we found out too late that we can not. But don't get us wrong we enjoyed the hassle free ride at the train as it is not crowded and the view is great and the train is modern. We are in Kowloon in less than 30 minutes. Now how do we locate the hotel? We thought that from the station we can walk our way towards the hotel but we are wrong. We need to transfer station and pay again. We asked two HK nationals and we are asked to pay 60HK dollar each. We are getting suspicious to we walked away from them. After asking again we realized that there is a free shuttle bus from the train. Argh! we have to drag again our luggages and strollers to the bus at the end of the Station. They said that we have to go down at Park Hotel and from there we can already trace Guandong Hotel. It is really hard where nobody can speak straight English to you. We walked and walked until we saw somebody with a map who can help us. What a relief when we found out that we are just one block apart from the hotel where we will be staying. We are tired with the travel that we hurriedly went to the hotel. We immediately checked-in and zoom to our room where we lay in bed temporarily.