We Got Your Back

Hi everyone! My name is Franliya, the eldest of 5 siblings. My sisters Joyce, Andrea, Ayra, Victoria, and I are raising money to help fund our mom’s upcoming operation.

This is our mom. Her name is Salve Ligaya Pablico Nocum. She’s a strong, outgoing, cheerful, and amazing single mom who raised us all on her own with the strength of a superwoman. She’s extremely hardworking, and despite the long hours at work, she still finds the time to spend the weekend to play with our cats, take us out for coffee, and drag us introverts out for vacation (thanks mom). She’s very supportive in everything we do, and we want to do the same for her during this difficult time.

Just two weeks shy of her 46th birthday, our mom was diagnosed with Pott’s disease, a rare infectious disease of the spine also known as spinal tuberculosis or tuberculous spondylitis.

It all started back in November 2019, when a simple sneeze caused her mild back pain. At first, the pain was somewhat tolerable and she could still move around and go to work, however, just two days later, the pain escalated and she had to go get it checked at a clinic. Initially, she did physical therapy but the pain only worsened so she was advised to seek an orthopedic doctor. After some tests, it was determined that she had a T9 compression fracture.

Mom was on bed rest for 3 months but thankfully, her condition improved and she was able to go back to work in March 2020, whilst doing physical therapy. Things took a bad turn when the covid pandemic started and she had no choice but to stop the therapy and stay at home.

At around the 10th of April 2020, mom’s back pain suddenly came back, worsening each day. It was painful for us to watch her lose her usual bubbly self. She began struggling again in everything because the pain in her back limited her movements. A lot of times, I wake up to her crying because she couldn’t take the pain much longer. We wanted to take her to the hospital but due to the enhanced community quarantine in our area, we were unable to.

On 18th April, with her doctor’s advice, we decided to take her to the hospital with the help of our barangay’s rescue service. She was given pain medications and had to go through a series of tests but there were no problems found in the results. We were sent home then and she was just given medications to help ease the pain while we wait for her scheduled MRI with contrast.

April 23, 2020, we took mom to the hospital again for the test and there, she was finally diagnosed with Pott’s disease. It has progressed to the point that her T9 (a part of her spine) has completely collapsed. She’s in too much pain and is not able to stand.

She needs surgery as soon as possible to clean out the pus and remove the source of bacteria, which is currently spreading to other levels of her vertebral column (from level T9, it has spread to T8 & T10). The surgical procedure is called thoracic decompression and spinal fusion. The growing infection is compressing her spinal cord (inside the vertebral column), which is causing her back pain. So, the doctor has to “decompress” her spinal cord through surgery. She will also be needing metal implants to stabilize her spine.

Please help our mom fight this disease. Her operation and medication will cost roughly 1 million pesos (PHP). All donations will be used to fund our mom’s operation and medications. We would be very grateful for any amount you can spare, great or small.

If you are unable to donate, sharing this to any social media sites will be of great help to my mom and to our family and most importantly we ask you to join us in praying for her upcoming surgery to be a success and for her full recovery.

We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for taking your time to read and share what we are going through.