Heartbreaking...

... was the only word I could use to describe how I felt when I left UP Diliman last night. Amidst all the revelries brought about by being with friends at the UP Fair and listening to Parokya ni Edgar and Kamikazee, I still couldn't help but feel that pang deep within me.

Karen May Abu, a high school schoolmate, a year my senior, met me last night at the Faculty Center. She looked great  -  hard to believe she endured seven years of End Stage Renal Failure, something my dad still continues to fight. She had her successful kidney transplant two years ago and is now back in school, facing life as though she's taking the bull by the horn. But with grace.

She told me of how it felt to be a dialysis patient. She said everyday's a struggle. She spoke of daily confrontations with herself  -  if she wanted to still fight the fight or to succumb.

According to Karen, it's really of no joke to undergo everything that comes with having renal failure. She went through it all  -  hyponatremia (low sodium), really high creatinine, hypoglycemia, etc. She had had moments of confusion, irritability, depression and disorientation to the point that she would already beg that God take her. If only someone could read my thought bubble that time, that person would see nothing but pure horrified astonishment  -  as though someone pulled my heart and put a dagger in it.

Somehow, part of my point of view is full of bile. I can't help it. Sure what Karen went through and what dad goes through is not a joke. The suffering he faces everyday is apparently that enormous that it's unfair to even speak of what we, his kin, experience. His last cataract operation was postponed indefinitely. There's still indecision over whether dad can have a transplant which is primarily brought about by his complications and partly by how expensive it is (Karen told me that post-transplant, she spends P1-3K/day for medicine which puts to shame dad's P15-17K/monthly medication expense). It's not a joke. Really. It's life's sarcasm.

I know that with the paragraph above I'd encounter advice after advice on how I should not see life in that manner; that I should count this experience as a blessing, etc. But please tell me, how can I? How can I not feel bitter each time I see what renal failure has taken away from my dad? Never mind its effects on my life (why each "Precious's Day/Night Out" is full of guilt that Precious would rather not go out at all).

As I write this, dad's currently insisting he's not at home. He's complaining of lack of food when, just minutes ago, I gave him shrimp siomai. Thirty minutes ago, he bemoaned his lack of money (when I give him money  -  for psychological purposes).

Heartbreaking... and I'm running out of patience. Please Father God, another delivery of mercy is what I need to help dad endure it all.