XYZ
After the stirring and emotional Closing Ceremonies of the Avon 3-day at Piedmont Park, Rahrah, (my 2 ½ year old granddaughter) rushed into my arms and right away noticed the smiley stickers on my walker ID tag and cheerily informed me that she gets those stickers too for going to the potty like a big girl. I said I got those for the same reasons, for stopping at every pit stop and using the porta-potties! I drank gallons of Gatorade and water as we were told over and over to hydrate and I swear I've never emptied my bladder as much as these 3 days!
The porta-johns lining the route on every pit stop every 2 miles or so is memorable in this event as much as the sea of blue tents, 3000 plus, lined up in alphabetical grids every night in our movable campsite. My tent address was H-81 and that was my gear and duffel number too and we bring these to the gear truck marked H every morning when we dismantle our camp and the crew transport them to the next site. Every campsite is a veritable city. Again there were hundreds of porta-johns everywhere. There was a huge dining tent where spicy chicken gumbo was served up the first night and pasta marinara the next. After dinner the mess tent was transformed into an entertainment center where local bands and acts were brought in for us to relax and groove. There was a concierge tent where every night a selection of complimentary Avon products were offered. There were the podiatry, chiropractic, medical, and massage tents. There were hot shower trucks and you can sign up for towel service for $4 so you don't have to pack wet towels the next day. It rained the first night at camp and some tents were in 2 inches of water so some had to move their tents in the night or slept in the dining tent. My tent was spared the flooding and I only had to put up with a slight surface dampness. I was profoundly exhausted the first night. We walked the longest the first day, 21.9 miles. I did not think to plan my pace and pit stops so I got into camp late and couldn't get into the massage list anymore. So I took 800 mg Ibuprofen and a long hot shower and zipped into my sleeping bag and I didn't even know that the camp was flooding until morning. The next day I was wiser. I was one of the first 300 to arrive at the campsite and I went to the massage tent right away and got the full treatment within the hour. Aahh! Sheer bliss! I had a blister, a pea-sized no account beginner but I took it to the podiatry tent anyway and they drained it with a syringe, put a band-aid and it was gone the next day. That night the temperature dipped to 40 degrees and when you have to go because you filtered gallons of Gatorade that's when you wish you were a man so you can urinate in a bottle right there in the warmth of your sleeping bag.
The final day was a glorious day and excitement has built up. There was this Harley riding volunteer crew of flamboyant characters in their sleeveless vests with names like WASSUP showing off biceps and wearing ponytails or the belly types showing off bald heads but shod in cowboy snakeskin boots nevertheless. They came roaring vroom vroom in their cycles first thing in the day. They opened the route and we couldn't start walking until they checked the road ahead and said go! They parked at intersections and held the cars, their radios blasting motivational songs like Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" or YMCA. Everybody loved them and of course they relished their role as support and protector. I heard they have been volunteering for the past 3 years and this group had a monopoly going, no one else can sign up unless one of them quits.
I did it! I walked 60 miles for 3 days on October 5-7 and raised $8413 for breast cancer from all of you dear friends who supported my effort. The Atlanta Avon 3-day, 2300 walkers all and at least another thousand crew and volunteers brought in $4.4 M to the Breast Cancer Fund. Sixty-three cents for every dollar is returned to the fund which supports medical research, education, and programs for early detection and treatment among medically underserved women. Last year The Winship Breast Cancer Institute of Emory University and Grady Memorial Hospital received $15.3M from the fund. THANKS to all of you DANKE, GRAZIE, MERCI, GRACIAS, ARIGATO, MAHALO, MARAMING SALAMAT PO!
It was great fun for me all the way. From dreaming up the Mad Hatter's
auction-fundraiser, to writing those corny (but effective!) poems and sending out my ABC, to camping out for 3 days and now I've come to XYZ. The whole effort was a super adventure and a grand party for me. But all good things must come to an end. So I'll start another one. On July 4th next year I'll run the 10K Peachtree Road Race. There will not be any fund-raising for this so no need to take out your checkbook, it's just the biggest road race in the world and I've got to do it!
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Embracing Life
We came home from the Filipino-American New Year’s Ball at 1:30 AM, January 1, 2004, exhilarated by the excitement of welcoming the new year in the company of dear friends we have known for 24 years. I was still revved up and wanted to watch the re-run of the Times Square celebration. He said he was going to bed. He felt very fatigued at the party, could hardly walk back to the car, but gallant as ever, he insisted on getting the car and picking me up at the curb. I climbed into bed half an hour later, and as I dozed I heard him gasp. I can’t believe what was happening. I dialed 911 and started CPR. I couldn’t do it properly on the yielding bed, so I rushed downstairs to wake up my live-in houseman so he can help me bring him down to the floor. But as I pumped his chest I was computing in my mind the elapsed time that he didn’t have a pulse. My trained persona as a doctor knew. But I was saying to myself, he couldn’t be dead. I knelt by his side, unbelieving, numb, I felt detached, like I was watching someone else. I screamed to rouse myself. I asked him is he dead, what the devil did he do that for? I scolded him and then I could cry. The EMS crew arrived and I was like a robot. I just followed what they told me to do. I called my daughter, and in an hour friends started coming, friends we just parted with 2 hours ago. When they took the body we sat around in silence, stunned, and then I remembered we were keeping a bottle of Dom Perignon chilled for special occasions. We popped the cork and drank to Johnny. It was the special occasion.
I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of grief, support and love from friends, family and colleagues. It was not enough to stop after the eulogies and then go deal with this loss privately. His golf buddies held a golf tournament in his memory in the dead of winter. Community organizations dedicated dinners and conferred honors. Many wanted to know if they can give money to a cause he supported, in his memory. People just sent money to me outright and I didn’t know what to do with it. My sister suggested funding a scholarship. His career was related to medical informatics. He was well known in my alumni circle as he was sought for his opinions when our class was evaluating our alumni project for our alma mater, which was computerization. It was an AHA! moment when the idea struck, and it proved to be a perfect fit. I knew exactly how I would do it. In the year when lupus reared its ugly head, in 2001 I walked 60 miles in the Avon 3-day Walk for Breast Cancer and raised $857I by throwing a party on my birthday. Instead of bringing gifts, friends brought treasures for auction, in a Mad Hatter’s party where everyone came in original hats to vie for fun prizes. I would recall my Mad Hatter’s team and throw a big auction fund-raiser party. And we did, and raised $20K to endow the Johnny B. Pellicer Professorial Chair in Medical Informatics in the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and we had a blast of a party!
I love life and always had fun as far back as I can remember. Growing up in the Philippines, I spent an idyllic childhood of romps on the beach digging for clams with friends and getting into mischief and receiving punishment as the ringleader. I was adventurous and curious, and even if I got into trouble, the experience always seemed worth it. I loved life before I met Johnny and I loved life when I was with him for 35 years, and I haven’t changed after I lost him. If anything his death taught me to even love every second of life as long as I live. When I saw him across the room for the first time, fireworks burst in air. He gave me an experience I will never forget. He had bad genes. I had a preview of what was going to happen through his identical twin brother’s life who died 3 years earlier, being older in the order of birth. Both had gout, diabetes, hypertension, and then late onset lupus that accelerated the worsening of all conditions leading to complications, in their case, coronary artery disease, kidney damage, and painful neuropathy. During the 3 years of Johnny’s illness I endured with him open- heart coronary bypass graft surgery, lithotripsy, gallbladder laparoscopy, and IV chemotherapy. He wanted to live, and he lived until he died. He succumbed to a second massive coronary when he went on that final sleep. My son wrote in his blog, “ My mother taught me how to live life, but my father showed me that life is worth living. ”
I have many lives. I have my work life practicing medicine, my family life, life with friends, community life, life of personal pursuits and solitude, and I had my life with Johnny. I’m surrounded by loving people with whom I enjoy indulging varied interests, such as golf, mahjong, the theater, dancing, dining, wine, tennis, travel, skiing, karaoke singing, solving world problems, and exchanging scatological and titillating jokes. I laugh loud, and sometimes find myself rolling on the floor.
I’m continuing my life as I lived it before Johnny died. On the year of his death I had the auction fund-raiser and was attending all the community functions held in honor of his memory. I went to Venice during Thanksgiving as that was planned with him before he died, and I discovered I needed respite. It provided me with solitude to find my bearings. On December 24 of that year my mother died. In the first year after his death I went to Antarctica , then I was a principal organizer of our Annual Medical Alumni Conference in South Beach, and after that I went for a retreat in a Zen monastery in Tassajara. This second year of his death, I had a New Years Day open house to gather friends to pray in his memory, then I went to East Africa for a safari, and now I’m chairing the committee to celebrate the centennial of Filipino-American migration with a cultural festival at Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta. My life is busy and fulfilling. I’m the Miman of 2 beautiful grandchildren. But there is that part that was my life with Johnny and it’s irreplaceable. I may have another relationship. That will be a new adventure. Life is exciting, it is worth living indeed.
I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of grief, support and love from friends, family and colleagues. It was not enough to stop after the eulogies and then go deal with this loss privately. His golf buddies held a golf tournament in his memory in the dead of winter. Community organizations dedicated dinners and conferred honors. Many wanted to know if they can give money to a cause he supported, in his memory. People just sent money to me outright and I didn’t know what to do with it. My sister suggested funding a scholarship. His career was related to medical informatics. He was well known in my alumni circle as he was sought for his opinions when our class was evaluating our alumni project for our alma mater, which was computerization. It was an AHA! moment when the idea struck, and it proved to be a perfect fit. I knew exactly how I would do it. In the year when lupus reared its ugly head, in 2001 I walked 60 miles in the Avon 3-day Walk for Breast Cancer and raised $857I by throwing a party on my birthday. Instead of bringing gifts, friends brought treasures for auction, in a Mad Hatter’s party where everyone came in original hats to vie for fun prizes. I would recall my Mad Hatter’s team and throw a big auction fund-raiser party. And we did, and raised $20K to endow the Johnny B. Pellicer Professorial Chair in Medical Informatics in the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and we had a blast of a party!
I love life and always had fun as far back as I can remember. Growing up in the Philippines, I spent an idyllic childhood of romps on the beach digging for clams with friends and getting into mischief and receiving punishment as the ringleader. I was adventurous and curious, and even if I got into trouble, the experience always seemed worth it. I loved life before I met Johnny and I loved life when I was with him for 35 years, and I haven’t changed after I lost him. If anything his death taught me to even love every second of life as long as I live. When I saw him across the room for the first time, fireworks burst in air. He gave me an experience I will never forget. He had bad genes. I had a preview of what was going to happen through his identical twin brother’s life who died 3 years earlier, being older in the order of birth. Both had gout, diabetes, hypertension, and then late onset lupus that accelerated the worsening of all conditions leading to complications, in their case, coronary artery disease, kidney damage, and painful neuropathy. During the 3 years of Johnny’s illness I endured with him open- heart coronary bypass graft surgery, lithotripsy, gallbladder laparoscopy, and IV chemotherapy. He wanted to live, and he lived until he died. He succumbed to a second massive coronary when he went on that final sleep. My son wrote in his blog, “ My mother taught me how to live life, but my father showed me that life is worth living. ”
I have many lives. I have my work life practicing medicine, my family life, life with friends, community life, life of personal pursuits and solitude, and I had my life with Johnny. I’m surrounded by loving people with whom I enjoy indulging varied interests, such as golf, mahjong, the theater, dancing, dining, wine, tennis, travel, skiing, karaoke singing, solving world problems, and exchanging scatological and titillating jokes. I laugh loud, and sometimes find myself rolling on the floor.
I’m continuing my life as I lived it before Johnny died. On the year of his death I had the auction fund-raiser and was attending all the community functions held in honor of his memory. I went to Venice during Thanksgiving as that was planned with him before he died, and I discovered I needed respite. It provided me with solitude to find my bearings. On December 24 of that year my mother died. In the first year after his death I went to Antarctica , then I was a principal organizer of our Annual Medical Alumni Conference in South Beach, and after that I went for a retreat in a Zen monastery in Tassajara. This second year of his death, I had a New Years Day open house to gather friends to pray in his memory, then I went to East Africa for a safari, and now I’m chairing the committee to celebrate the centennial of Filipino-American migration with a cultural festival at Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta. My life is busy and fulfilling. I’m the Miman of 2 beautiful grandchildren. But there is that part that was my life with Johnny and it’s irreplaceable. I may have another relationship. That will be a new adventure. Life is exciting, it is worth living indeed.
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