My Mom Is the Bravest, But She Needs Your Help

I never really understood what true bravery was until my mother was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease. It came out of the blue: one day, she collapsed on the floor from a feverish haze out of a busted ear drum. Her blood pressure was through the roof for weeks, we prayed and prayed her heart wouldn’t give up in the middle of the night. It would only be the beginning of a year of a life of struggles for her, physically, emotionally and mentally.

A life of a chronic kidney patient is like this: she is unable to go to work to teach--her lifelong passion-- because it leads to overexhaustion, which damages her kidney; her broken right ear drum, making her unable to follow conversations, does not help either.

She’s attacked by sudden bouts of vertigo, which causes her to be nauseous and unbalanced.

She needs to be injected weekly to help produce more red blood cells because her body, in its weakened state, isn’t able to anymore.

She’s unable to eat food with salt or with high amounts of potassium, withering away her will to eat, and thus her strength and body.

Her mental faculties have slowed down, her movements, when reaching for food or water to drink, feeble and clumsy.

And yet, she soldiers on.

It’s been a year of her mostly being bedridden. It’s been a hard life for us, a difficult life. But her will to sing God’s praises while only half-hearing her own voice, to battle through anxiety because of her dwindling health, is a source of strength in itself. See, bravery isn’t just the strength that kept her hanging on in that hospital bed a year ago; bravery is being vulnerable of of this disease and all the hardship and pain it has brought her and us, her family, AND STILL having hope to carry on. I have not know bravery until my mother showed it to me, and I hope you help her battle through her disease.

Currently, we lack approximately P200,000 (3,391 USD) for for her surgery, and we haven't raised enough for her post-transplant medicines which would cost approximately P60,000 (1,152 USD) per month for the duration of one year she has to take medication to make her body accept her new kidney.

Your aid would go a long way to ensure that her transplant operation will push through. I want to be able to tell her (in her good ear) that her strength, her bravery, her vulnerability are appreciated, and that despite everything that she’s going through, she still can make a life. I hope that we can all make it possible for her.