my life with depression.com

i can’t believe it’s happening again. i am going to have another loss.

i just found out that my lola (gramma) just had a stroke. she’s unresponsive and will most likely die soon. my dad is flying out to the philippines. my mom who just arrived from there will follow him. my mom said that i shouldn’t follow since i’ve just gotten back from a long trip and i have a lot of things going on here. mom said that lola took a nap and never woke up. the mri showed a stroke. lola is 95 years old. she was born on june 12, 1912. she is an incredible woman. she raised 10 kids. she is the reason why our family has so much land in the philippines. in fact we used to have more, but lola and lolo sold some off to help send other family members to college/university. she had the friendliest face and she used to say ‘tank you tank you tank you!’ i last saw her when i went back for the first time for my cousin’s wedding. that was almost 5 years ago. she was strong woman at 90. she would still go to the market on her own with out a maid. she still oversaw the property. she recently just erected a 5 bedroom apartment so that when grandkids come over, there would be plenty of space.



at a young age, lola would lend people money and take land as a collateral. that’s how she grew the amount of land that our family owns there. my dad said that she used to be the prettiest one at the balls. i can imagine because when lola was young, she was a hot mamma! i saw the gowns too. i have pictures with me wearing them. these ball gowns were from the 1930’s and 40’s. so beautiful and i can only imagine how beautiful she was in them. lola lived a full life. she has seen her kids have kids and their kids have kids.



i always liked this story about her: during the occupation of the philippines by japan, she used to help the guerilla fighters (my lolo was one of them and worked with the u.s. government) by smuggling guns under her skirt! she was pregnant and the japanese never searched pregnant women they allowed her to pass through the check points. this is my lola. she’s awsome.







also, i just found out that one of my former clients, dr. c, is also going to die soon. a tumor was found in his head last year. they removed it, he got radiation and he went back and practiced medicine. just recently, another lesion was found very close to his brain stem. the surgeons said that it’s inoperable. so now he is quickly going to dye. see, the edemaor swelling creates intracranial pressure which will squeeze the brain stem. do you remember that all nerves that sends signals from the brain to body is located here. this swelling will cause everything in his head to hit up against his skull. as this happens, the brain stem is also squeezed. this doesn’t allow the brain to communicate with the body. for us to breath or to have a pulse or whatever, we need that signal coming in. this squeezing won’t allow the signal, so dr. c’s organs will cease to work and he will die.



dr. c has saved so many lives.