Of hospital confinements and typhoons....

I am writing this blog while sitting with Carmella through her chemotherapy. The treatment lasts for 4 days and our hospital room essentially becomes our temporary home.

Carmella is in what our oncologist terms as maintenance cycle. The doses are milder so lesser dizzy spells or vomiting for her. She is not bed ridden as most patients in for treatment who after the first dose gets so depleted. Carmella moves about, preferring to use the bathroom rather than a bed pan. She is quite mobile, limited only by her IV line.

I stay with her the whole time she is on treatment and it tends to get uncomfortable on the 2^nd day, getting quite claustrophobic. We have no internet access in our room so it adds to the helplessness. Essentially, when Carmella gets confined, I get confined, too.

But confinement can be a blessing. It is a time of pondering, of quiet reflection. Since I do not get distracted by housework, I get to notice how much my daughter has grown, how far we have gone with our journey and then document our experience hence this blog.

Here I have the chance to go over my life dreams and pray more. I get to read more of Seth Godin’s blog that I downloaded earlier for off-line reading. I also get the chance to practice my dialect by going over a Tagalog version of a book by a favorite empowerment mentor.

Due to the food errands for Carmella, I somehow become an accidental service critique of each fast food place I visit. The experience is always blog material.

Then if I get really lucky, my Obi Wan drops by and we have a feast. This cousin-mentor simply loves to eat. And then we discuss ideas which are much better than after dinner coffee and pastries. Way much better.

And now, just as I was about to end this entry, the heavens opened up and suddenly Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) is upon us. All roads leading to our hospital are now flooded, in some portion waist deep. We’re literally stranded, our hospital an island.

Tomorrow I may have to wade all the way to the bank before they ran out of cash. And most likely they will because pretty soon the electricity will be off. 

Yes, confinements can be a blessing for this amateur blogger. Just look at how much I had come up with just sitting here.

Of dialects and my national language

My father used to tell us this funny story on dialect. Though both he and my late mother came from the same province in the South and lived only some twenty minutes away from each other before they got married, they speak different versions of the same dialect.

My father who comes the city speaks Hiligaynon, while my mom who is from the suburbs speaks Kinaray-a, both of which are Illong-go. Most of the words remain common but some, specially the basics, remain quite different. Dog, for instance is “i-do” (pronounced ee-doh) in Papa’s vocabulary while some 20 minutes in my mom’s town it becomes “a-yam” (pronounced ah-yam).

It was no surprise then that the first month of their marriage was a bit confusing for both of them.

Being born and raised as a Manileño, I thought I have mastered the national language well enough. Though both parents hail from the Visayas, I grew up speaking Tagalog. I remember Filipino as one of my favorite subjects in high school.

But home schooling Carmella made me discover there is so much I do not know about the dialect I was born with. Much like my father during the early days of his wedded life, I still get confused.

What has made Tagalog, so with the other local dialects, fascinating are its words. Depending on where the stress is they take on different meanings.

Take word “BUHAY”; if the stress is on the first syllable, means life. If placed on the second syllable, however, it means alive. If you add the other local dialects, then it becomes even more interesting. Filipino is a language with interesting word play.

I may have a hundred or so in my vocabulary of Filipino words and in several dialects but there are still discoveries to be made. Indeed, there is so much to know.

I never knew, for instance, that “talampas” is the Tagalog word for plateau and that “lambak” is valley. “Daglat”, on the other hand is abbreviation so “dinaglat” is a verb meaning to abbreviate. A nephew thought “burol” is Tagalog for cliff but is in fact hill.

I just learned while teaching Carmella that the Tagalog for bay is “look” (pronounced lo-ok) so Manila Bay is “Look ng Maynila” in pure Tagalog translation.

Based on the sentence it was taken from, I am guessing that “pakli” means replied, “nausal” means said and “pigtal” is to remove or separate.

We are still in the middle of our text book but the two of us can’t wait for the next Tagalog tongue twister.

Ikaw ba ang may akda nito? Aba’y tigib sa mga katanungan, ano ga? (Were you the one who wrote this? It's full of questions, isn't it?)

View from the Back Seat....

Recently, my wife has been doing most of the driving and I have been relegated to the back seat of our van.

It is a very interactive experience whenever she takes the wheel. There will always be debate on how she tends to forget she is on high beam, her choice of gears and her penchant for honking the horn at almost anything on the road. It is because of these debates that we decided our next car will be an automatic. 

But I have to admit that Cecille is a good driver who is also the “brave and the quick”.  With the frustrating traffic and the gross lack of road courtesy, one has to be a brave when driving in and around Manila. She is “the quick”, which I believe is the offshoot of her being “the brave”, in instances like beating the rest of the world to that gap in traffic to get onto to the faster flowing lane. Carmella is very convinced Dad is the boring driver.

However, more than being scared, my new place in the car has opened for me a better perspective. From where I am I began to see more of the world. What used to be a blur now becomes a complete story.

I think this experience is akin to the pause one needs to take in life.

There is so much I have taken for granted and in the process, have also forgotten my gifts. Like the blur of the passing scenery, it took a move to the back for me to notice the events that I missed.  

I would have not started this blog if not for a cousin who decided to share her “pause” with me. Well, it was kind of an expensive break, really. It took place in one fancy Italian restaurant in a very upscale part of town. The treat was overwhelming but the talk that followed over coffee was life changing. This Jedi finally met his Obi Wan. 

I think I will stay back here for a while longer. The view is truly terrific!

“That’s an awesome looking building, love. It must be new. I never noticed it before”.

“No dear, it’s been there ages”.

There you go…..

Home Schooled

I was quite apprehensive. This is Carmella's future being placed on on my very unqualified hands. All the while I was sitting at the home schooling orientation seminar, the nagging question in my head was if I can really do it.
It was right in the middle of the school term when Carmella was diagnosed with her illness. By the time she recovered, it was already too late to go back to regular school. Since she will also need further treatment, Cecille and I agreed we will home school her instead and I will be her mentor.
I always believed mentors were endowed with special gifts since birth. Gifts like patience and perseverance both of which, sadly, I do not have.
Still, I have to prepare my daughter for the world. I have to believe I can work on my patience and also persevere. I can see the fight up ahead but have decided I will win.
We are now on our second year in home schooling. Her reading has improved, she loves science class and is quite good at math. We have our own unique methods and we try as much as we can to incorporate fun into our learning. I am not the perfect mentor but a work in progress.
I have to admit it was a struggle, and it continues to be. I can sometimes be mean and overbearing. She, on the other hand, can be a handful when in tantrums. But together, we learn so much from the whole exercise. It is a journey of discovery for both of us and the rewards are far more than I imagined. The hugs are now tighter and more frequent than ever.
A home schooling mom once told me that she was quite firm with her kids back when she was still mentoring them. She was then always afraid that her ways more than what she taught them is what they will bring up with them in later life.
If one asks her children today, most of whom have gone off to college, of what they remember most during their homeschooling years, it will always be the love their mom had devoted in teaching them. Not those long, tear-filled hours of going over the same subject until they grasp the concept they recall but a mother's patient perseverance. Love is hardly forgotten.

Apart from the books we read, the math problems we solved, I hope that later in life, it is in the little things that we did together that will make the most difference in Carmella as a person. I hope it is in my being a father and a friend that she will remember most.

Oooops!

I started a blog last night.

Though I thought I have covered all the bases, read and re read my piece maybe over a dozen times, chose the appropriate theme, I still ended up forgetting the reason why this blog was started on the first place: for people to read. And so the setting I need to do, which is to allow comments for my work, I overlooked.

This reminds me of an old story of a wife who in the middle of their night-out suddenly remembered that in her haste has forgotten to turn the iron off. Stricken with panic, she demanded they cut the dinner short and head home right away. In a rather cool demeanor, the husband assured the wife not to worry for he also failed to close the tub faucet.

Ancient (since newer flat irons shut themselves off automatically) and corny this story may be, it highlight's one important but quickly forgotten truth: in our hurry, we often miss out on what is essential. 

And often, we do. 

I did. Well, nearly.....

Not so long ago, marriage was not a part of the picture I was trying to paint. There was so much going on in the world and I wouldn't miss it. I was in deep reverie when my mother finally asked the defining question: "Who will take care of you, son, when I am gone? Without a wife, who will?" Scary...!

And so at 40, considered old to many, I finally settled down. Three years later, God gave me Carmella. And even with this journey we are currently going through with her, I will always consider my self blessed. I already have what is essential. 

Yes, in my hurry, I nearly missed the love of family. And so I will be forever thankful to Mama for her scare tactics.

Why the Title?

So much has been said about stay-in dads and I guess most figured our mascot to be the sloth. Special creatures, really, and nothing more special than my personal favorite Sid, that fumbling but enduring friend of both Diego and Manny the Mammoth.
Why the blog title when it may cause so many to pass judgment on this poor author?
I guess because there is so much to being a dad at home like simplicity, no rush and dash, no keeping ups, no pretenses. It is easier to define a purpose, easier to be one's self. The world may be fenced out by a 30-square-meter dwelling but in here I have the universe because this is HOME.
I am a dad at home for a very special reason: my daughter.
Two years ago she was diagnosed as having Acute Myelogenous Leukemia or AML. Since then, I made her my main agenda. My wife and I discussed the issues of having a child with a life threatening disease and have decided I will be the one to forgo plans and take care of Carmella. I have become a Stay at Home Dad, a 24-7 father and yes, full-time in every sense.
I made it my vocation to be there at every doctor's appointment, at every laboratory tests prior to chemotherapy, at every treatment, at each Bone Marrow Aspiration and lumbar puncture, to personally administer her home medicines, to be her cook, her personal carer, her home school teacher, her friend.
I will be my daughter's witness and she will be my victory.
Yes, there is so much to being a Stay at Home Dad and this blog hopes to capture and share the view from this spot.