Dealing with life in general can be frustrating in itself. Dealing with someone else's life can be even more frustrating. I and my wife are extremely close, more so than the average couple in my opinion. Despite our language differences, and I won't get into that right now, we've had no serious relationship problems in almost 25 years (more than 23 of that as a married couple). Still, the events of the last few years have been taxing on both of us.

I'd like to give you a rundown of these events so that you can see where I'm coming from. This will probably end up being one of my longest posts.

Prior to moving from the United States to the Philippines in 2006.

My wife suffered from and was hospitalized when she was a pre-teen for bronchitis. She spent nearly 6 months in the hospital. Even though the bronchitis didn't bother her after that, she suffered from chest pains through adulthood and still does on occasion. After I had her examined thoroughly (and I don't remember when), we found out the pain was caused by inflammation of the sternum. Taking ibuprofen seemed to alleviate the pain and reduce the inflammation.

Sometime in 2003 or 2004, my wife started complaining of a numbing pain in various parts of the left side of her body. After numerous doctor visits, the cause of the pain was never discovered. At the same time, my wife was being seen for left breast pain. The doctors she saw told her it was due to fibrous tissue and had her taking ibuprofen as well as Evening Primrose oil to help alleviate the pain. I can't tell you how many mammograms and sonograms she endured during a period of at least 3 years. In hindsight, I'd say that most of the doctors she saw were either quacks or they just didn't care about anything except the money.

My wife loves fried fish, including the head, as do nearly all Filipinos (there are some rare exceptions). In 2005, she had small fish bone get stuck in her left tonsil. With my help, she managed to get it out and the tonsil only bothered her for a couple of days. Of course, that was the FIRST time.

Just prior to us leaving the United States, one of the doctors she saw was a neuro-something specialist and he told her that after all the tests she'd had, it was determined that she had arthritis in her neck. There was nothing she could do about it except to continue taking anti-inflammatory medicines and in extreme cases, surgery.

In the Philippines from April 2006 to May of 2007.

My wife continued to suffer the left breast pain and the numbing pain symptoms in the left part of her body. Sometime in 2006, she got another fish bone (a rather LARGE fish bone) stuck in her left tonsil and managed to get it out, or so she thought. There was a small hole visible in the flesh of the tonsil. In the early part of 2007, she went to see a local doctor about it. He prescribed antibiotics without even looking at the tonsil. She was justifiably upset about that and we talked about her heading back to the United States to have a better doctor take a look at it.

When I announced that my wife was leaving me in May of 2007, I purposely didn't mention her health problems. I considered things like that to be personal and not really something to publicize to the whole world. I had my own health ordeal to contend with the following month and I did publicize that because it affected my blog. That ordeal started with being sick for hours and still isn't completely resolved. I'll write about my ordeal in another post.

Anyway, my wife went back to work in the United States, primarily to pay for the doctor visits. Saving enough to buy the things we need over here in the Philippines was a secondary goal. A goal, I might add, we have been unable to achieve so far.

In the United States from May of 2007 to January of 2008.

I've written bits and pieces, here and there, about things my wife was doing in the United States, how we communicated, and things that affected me here in the Philippines in relation to it all. I didn't go into great detail about what she'd been doing because I didn't want to get too personal. In my opinion, people don't want to read about every little thing that happens in life.

My wife has chatted with me nearly every day via Yahoo Instant Messenger since she's been in the United States, except for the period when I was there with her, which I'll talk about in the next section. She let me know about every detail of every thing that happened every day and I told her about anything of importance on this side of the world. She continued to complain about her left breast pain, the numbing pain in various parts of the left side of her body, and throat irritation stemming from her left tonsil. I can't even tell you what else she complained about, though there was a lot.

She went to many doctors, and spent of lot of money on co-payments, over the course of time. She had so many chest x-rays, mammograms, sonograms, MRIs, and other tests that I couldn't keep up with them. She found out she still had part of a fish bone lodged in her left tonsil and was prescribed antibiotics to handle the infection that took place as a result. She found out she had a cyst in her left breast. She was treated for the arthritis in her neck with traction, which seemed to nearly eliminate the numbing pain in the left part of her body, at least until recently.

January 15, 2007

This is when it all came to a head. My wife called me to let me know she would be having dual-tonsillectomies sometime within the next 2 months. The surgery wasn't scheduled yet. I was justifiably distraught because of her age and other health problems and I wrote about a possible disappearing act that I might have to perform. I had very little money saved and probably had barely enough to buy a plane ticket, which turned out to be true as I later found out. I posted my story to BloggingZoom as a way to let people who don't visit my blog regularly know what was up and what I was contemplating doing.

That was the day when MY LIFE was turned upside down. Victor Franqui, one of two people behind BloggingZoom, read my story and reacted by writing "A Blogger In Need". He encouraged others to harass me into putting up a PayPal donation button and contacted a lot of prominent bloggers. Vic had a lot of readers (and has even more now). Darren Rowse wrote "Help a Blogger in Need" and he always had a lot of readers. It all snowballed from there.

I put up the PayPal donation button and removed it the very next day because putting it up was the hardest thing I've ever done, even to this day. I had collected $3004.00 in about 24 hours. You see, I believe in the circle of life, to never take more than you give. I still feel like an incredible schmuck for accepting donations, even though I know I've given much more than that amount to others over the course of the last 30 years (since entering military service).

February 18 to March 21, 2008.

While I was preparing for my trip to Phoenix (in the U.S), the only flight I could get was via Continental Airlines and the ticket ended up costing me $1198.00. I also ended up paying an additional amount of about $75.00 at the Manila (Philippines) airport for miscellaneous fees not included in the ticket price. I found out, just last month, that the workers at Philippines Airlines were on strike at the time and that's why I couldn't get a cheaper and more direct flight itinerary.

I arrived on February 18th, about an hour after my wife had the cyst in her left breast drained, but I was with her when she had her tonsils removed the next day. I wrote about it in "There's no place like home!" I wrote other details in "10 Days of Misery" and "My Wife's Health Update".

After my return to the Philippines.

Until the last few days, the only problem I and my wife had was paying off all the medical bills that had accumulated. We spent the $3004.00 and then some while I was with her and she still has at least $2000 more in expenses to deal with. Co-payments and deductibles really suck. Not only that, but she and her cousin's family have to find a new place to live really fast because the house they're renting is in foreclosure.

Josie has been complaining of the numbing pain in various parts of the left side of her body again. At least now we know the cause (her neck arthritis). Until she returns to the Philippines, she's going to treat it by taking anti-inflammatory medicine. Since ibuprofen doesn't do the trick for her anymore, I suggested she switch to naproxen to see if it helps.

She knows of a chiropractor here in the Philippines who can do the traction for her neck. That will take care of the continuous pain, although she'll have to make regular trips. Our plan is for her to return here in August, before her 47th birthday.

You know, I can handle almost any curve balls that life throws my way, but I can't handle it when my wife cries.