Tag Archives: help

An Opportunity To Help

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32-year-old mom in the Philippines who got paralysed for FOUR years now

I am writing this blog with hope that this can find a way to help another mom who has been suffering with somewhat similar illness like mine for four years now. She’s now 32 years old with one daughter who’s almost 7 years old now. I met her only last night when she sent a message to me after reading my blog. She’s the wife of a grade school classmate of mine.

Screenshots of her messages telling me what happened to her

Her suffering started before dawn on 2nd of March 2013. She said that it all started with severe pain on the left part of her back and she couldn’t breathe easily. They waited for sunrise before they dropped their then 2-year-and-8-month-old daughter to their mom’s house on their way to hospital. While she was preparing, her left arm got numb. As they approached the hospital, she felt that she was losing her balance and when it was time to hop off from the jeepney, she couldn’t lift herself up anymore so her husband had to carry her already.

They spent the whole day in the emergency waiting for an available room. When she was finally in the room that night, she reached  the point of full paralysis. It was only her head that she could move. She was in the hospital for two weeks where several tests were done and every test result was normal. The doctor told her that what she got was “transverse myelitis”. (I don’t know what it is but by the sound of myelitis, it could be an inflammation of the myelin sheath…oh, I’m not a doctor!) She was told that there’s NO cure and therapies should be done so she can possibly recover.

Apparently, they have been financially incapable of paying for the therapies since her husband had to leave work as he’s the one looking after her. Her husband needs to carry her until now as she is still not able to stand up.

What a heartbreaking story!

I hate to say this but her story has made me feel how lucky I still have been despite my current condition. I feel sorry for her that her condition was that severe. I feel sorry for her because she lives in a place where medical benefits are not as good and enough as I’ve been receiving here. I believe that if only she was able to continue undergoing the necessary therapies, she might’ve recovered — if not fully, at least she might’ve been able to stand up or even walk.

If you’re reading this and if you think of any possible way that we could help her, please comment below. She said that her illness has made her and her family’s world to crumble down. So if there’s any way that we could be of help, let us help to rebuild their world.

With her very caring and loving husband who was my classmate in grade school

To you, my new friend, please hang in there and know that you’re not alone. Sending my prayers to you… and let us both hope for the best!

Why I Created A Give-A-Little Page

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Our “I Have Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Help Me Help My Husband.” Give-a-Little page

First of all, I would like to thank all of you who have helped and supported me and my family in so many different ways — your prayers above all, your time and effort that you’ve shared with us to make our lives less chaotic, all your blessings that you’ve shared with us. From the deepest part of my whole being, thank you very, very much!

Making a crowdfunding page like this was never easy for me. The truth is that asking for any kind of help has never been easy. And even accepting help that was voluntarily offered has not been easy as well because no matter how much we need help nowadays, we consider that the people around us have their own needs to look after. Most of the people who have offered help to us have their own children and families to look after too and many of them are also working.

It took me two weeks before I was able to make up my mind to make this give-a-little page. I honestly didn’t want to. I grew up believing that if I need to earn something, I have to work hard for it. I grew up believing that it is always better to give than to receive. I was worried that we might receive greater than how much we actually need; however, we don’t really know how much we actually need for the time being. Because no one knows when I can get back to my normal condition and this is the sadder part. The saddest part is that I don’t know when I will be fully capable again to look after my children the way I used to.

However, I had to do something — something to help my husband, something for my family.

To all the questioning minds, a social worker already came to us to figure out if we could get something from WINZ, etc. We even actually checked on that one even before a social worker came to us. Apparently, there’s a very, very little possibility that we can get any. It’s all about the thresholds and the ages of our little ones. And we’ve got the very urgent need at the moment. We need to put our children to a good and reliable childcare centre the soonest time possible so that my husband can already complete his 40 hours/week at work… so that we can bounce back up when it comes to our finances…moreso, so that my husband would not lose his job…and above all, so that my husband wouldn’t have to put his health at risk by working until three or four in the morning while he would have to wake up at around five or six in the morning once our baby wakes up.

It would have been so much easier if we were eligible to receive some benefits from WINZ. I would’ve not needed to expose our financial struggles during these days in public. My families, relatives and friends in the Philippines and US or wherever they are now would’ve not been too worried about us.

But there are more important and more urgent matters for me to look after than my ego and worrying about what other people believe and think of. And these are what matter to me the most: my husband, my children and my full recovery.