NO.. Not Now.. Please Help Me Not Lose My Mama and Papa From Covid.

I'm AJ (Abner Jr.), and I’m creating this GoGetFunding campaign for my parents, from Cebu City, Philippines.

A blessed day to everyone! I’m praying that you’re all healthy and well upon reading this...

We’ve all read and seen so much deaths from this new Covid variant. Seeing how it didn’t spare even the rich and powerful scared me all the more – I mean, our family is not well off. So, we made it a point to always be careful. Sadly, what we dreaded so much happened still.

My papa Abner Mabunga, Sr. (59 y.o.), was the one to first show symptoms. We tried to manage those with OTCs, but it got to a point when he can no longer sleep from breathlessness. We had him swabbed, the test returned positive, so we had him admitted at Chong Hua Hospital just this August 29, 2021.

Then my mama Maxima Mabunga (69 y.o.) showed even worse symptoms after papa. She too, tested positive, so we also had her admitted just this September 2, 2021. We knew we had no money, but we had them hospitalized anyway. We were more scared at how they looked, than of the hospital bills that will soon come flooding in. You know, that look, like anytime soon they could - - - “depart”.

They’ve always been the family’s source of strength and inspiration. All 3 of us siblings somehow managed to finish our studies from one of the best universities in the city because of all their sacrifices. Mama, having only finished 5^th grade in elementary, and papa, 2^nd year in highschool – they had done everything possible just to finance our education; mama, from being a house maid, and laundry maid, and school canteen helper; papa, from being the neighborhood’s gardener, and handyman, and driver. I can’t even recall a time when they ever spent money on decent clothing for themselves. We siblings still have so much plans to pay them back for all of their sacrifices. THAT, and the thought of possibly losing them to this virus, made it all the more challenging for us to stay sane now that we see them in this condition. We understood what others meant about this Covid experience as being not only physically draining, MENTALLY especially. AND financially.

Papa started coughing up blood, turns out it’s Tuberculosis on top of his Covid infection. He also still got that bullet from when he was shot about 24years ago, lodged really close to his lungs, so we’re really hoping that isn’t going to cause problems now. The doctors had to inject blood thinners into Mama because her blood pressure was starting to become erratic. We’re even more worried for her, because even before this infection, she’s already been battling against her hypertension, the plaque in her heart, “sleeping liver”, and anxiety disorder.

During their first week with COVID (at home, prior to admission), the family already spent over 50k pesos on top of their usual medical expenditure for their existing illnesses. As of this moment, Papa's HMO coverage has already maxed out and the family needs additional cash funding to sustain his medication. Mama needs even more delicate care. Aside from the fact that she already has limited food choices due to her illnesses, she has to be regularly fed with soft blended food since she has only a few teeth remaining to chew with. In fact, she mostly just feeds on Cerelac these days because all her usual food seems to be extra difficult to swallow because of the virus’ effect. And so, she needs a lot of it since she constantly feels hungry due to her medicines’ side effect.

Since all this started, we came up of a system to make all this work out: I assumed the role of “errand boy” for when there are stuff needed to be taken care of at the hospital, coordinated to the LGU monitoring our case, sending items to mama and papa at the hospital, etc. My older sister accompanied mama in her hospital room, to make sure she’s eating, that she’s safe when going to the bathroom, to callout to nurses whenever mama has reactions to the treatments, etc. My older brother helps cook the porridge that gets sent daily to my mama, creating and double-checking checklists of items that needed to be sent to the hospital, calling everyday to check in with mama and papa to keep their morale high, for psychological support (given this is also a critical for Covid patients), helps the 3 of us be objective of things, prioritize and arrive at the best possible decisions. But like rubbing salt to our wounds, since we are the once taking care of them, we also got infected. Probably because we are younger, that’s why we’ve been able to hold out this far. But given what we read about Delta, we can really only pray for the best. My sister’s swab already came back positive, and she’s also got rheumatic heart. So again, we can only lift this up to God. It may not be the smartest idea, I know, but we decided to prioritize our parents’ hospitalization given our current resources.

It’s already been tough for the family before this infection got them, and it just got a lot more “challenging”. As of our last checking with the Billing Section, each of their respective hospital bills are already at about 150,000 pesos.. And is still expected to increase as their treatments continue. Prior to finally deciding of putting up a fundraising campaign, we’ve already tried reaching out to local charity institutions... But they can only help so much these days, which is very understandable. So for our 2 heroes, we humble ourselves, and knock on your kind hearts for help. Your assistance would greatly impact the amount of care that the family could have delivered for these wonderful people. It would mean hope for us, their children, that we would still have that fighting chance to pay them back for all their love... A taste of even just a little comfort for the first time, since they decided to pour out their all in raising us.

Humbly yours,

Abner D. Mabunga, Jr.

Note: 100% of the money donated will be used for my parents’ hospital bills, lab tests, doctors’ fee, PPE, in-hospital medicine, and possible take home medicine for continued medication for when they’d already be discharged. Or perhaps, a small portion of this might even be used to buy OTC’s for ourselves, their children – depending on the development of our own symptoms.