Yolanda and my kidney transplant

There are two major anniversaries to talk about today. The first major one is the fifth anniversary of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international code name “Haiyan”) which hit Tacloban City, Leyte, Southern Samar, northern Cebu and parts of Negros and Panay. The other is the second year anniversary of my kidney transplantation at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC).

Allow me to talk about my second year as a kidney transplant survivor. In April 2016, when my creatinine was hovering at 5.0, my nephew Jojo Avila, a nephrologist in Philadelphia, saw my medical records and told my family to prepare me for kidney transplant. Wow! I told my family that this was a drastic move and I still wasn’t even under dialysis. Since I needed to see a nephrologist, I went to Dr. Juliet Noel, only to learn that my kidneys were really failing. So I took certain meds to slow down the process.

What worried me was that my compadre, Mr. Jesus “Dodong” Tequillo, the father of my son-in-law Atty. Jennoh Tequillo, was a dialysis patient for four years. Observing him, I noticed that dialysis is quite a difficult procedure. To make things endurable, Dodong Tequillo created the Kidney Failure Club (KFC) where he brought all his friends having dialysis into some form of entertainment, hosting even a huge affair. The problem came when one of their members passed away. Then on June 26, 2012, my compadre Dodong Tequillo died.

Four years later, it was my turn to have kidney problems. It was difficult as I was not even born in a hospital and only spent a night in the hospital when my wife was having a baby. My daugther Dr. Frances Angelique Avila-Tequillo brought me to Dr. Noel’s clinic (no, she wasn’t the nephrologist of my compadre) as she knew more about the problems of patients having kidney problems through her father-in-law. Since I was not yet having a dialysis, I had other options to look for.

So I had an appointment with the famous kidney surgeon, Dr. Alvin Roxas, and he gave me a two-hour honest-to-goodness talk. He was the son of Boy Roxas of Roxas Construction who played pelota with me in the 70s. One of the questions I threw at him was about a Rogelio “Jing-jing” Osmeña who died four years after his transplant. Dr. Roxas told me that he most probably did not follow certain procedures that transplant patients should follow. But there are far more transplant patients who continue to live years after they were operated on.

Then Dr. Roxas said: “If I had 20 patients in dialysis waiting for a kidney transplant and since I had not yet tried a dialysis, I would give you priority.” My daughter Katrina, who is a non-practicing nurse but was assigned in Asian Renal Clinic during her studies, told me that she would not want to see me in dialysis because the needles they used in dialysis are bigger than the straws in McDonalds. That made me decide to take the offer anyway as I was already headed for a life of a dialysis patient.

So two years ago, I had my kidney transplant in VSMMC, which is a branch of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute of the Philippines (NKTI). Two years later, people would say that I look okay. But in truth, I’m 90 percent okay because I have not yet returned to playing golf. So when I do that, then I’ll be a hundred percent!

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Today is also the fifth anniversary of the onslaught of Yolanda. Well, five years later, the incompetence of Mar Roxas and President Benigno Aquino continue to haunt this nation. Firstly, millions of dollars were given by many foreign governments and so far, they have not given the Filipino people or the people of Tacloban an accounting of this financial donation clearly given for the typhoon victims.

Just a month ago, in the Port of Cebu, container vans with relief goods were dumped and thrown away because no one could claim them. The least they should have done was create a task force to record all donations, financial or in kind and submit it to the people. But they did not.

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