My Gift to Yam

July 17, 2006 (10:17pm)
by Ivy Rose Rufin and Jon Bayogan

Life is transient, hold on to it while you can.

Yet, how will you hold on to it when right before you is a hand slowly losing grip? How will you hold on to a dear one with life seems fleeting?

Life for Yam, Eunice Joy Bayogan, should have been her favorite endless reading and stuffed toys at ten years old. It shouldn’t be injections and tubes, and eerie blood transfusion, and excruciating chemotherapy. But for reasons yet to be known, her young life is faced with uncertainties. She is forced to see life in different perspective through battling with a foe that hides in the shadow –ACUTE MYELOGENOUS LEUKEMIA. It is a type of Leukemia that has poor prognosis and normally occurs to older people.

The enemy is within her, gradually grabbing her the opportunity to see life beyond childhood.Even if the family, especially the parents Jon and Emma, is honest to Yam about her conditions and she fairly understands it along other bits of life, there are still moments of sharp silence and moments of seeing thin line of hope.

Contemplating is the word, her daddy said. Twice the pain goes to the parents by simply looking at their daughter taking her battle daily. They cannot help but contemplate as well as to how will their daughter emerge from the battle? Victorious or defeated?

With constant prayers and encouragement form people who cared, the family is surviving each day. And their hearts are filled with joy during the days when Yam is on high spirits… like she always have been before her on and off fever last February to April… and the family have been as well before Yam was diagnosed with AML last May after consistent trips to the hospital.

And June 1 came, her first chemotherapy proved that indeed Yam is sick and is to be treated. That day the family might have surpassed the stage of denial.

After four days, her crowning glory began to fall but she still managed to joke that her hair should be saved for daddy’s wig. A manifestation of Yam’s crowning courage amidst difficult times.

As the family hold on to each other, Yam as well showed signs of hope as the doctor told them that their dear Yam is responding positively to treatments.

After difficult times dealing with chemo side effects from the first and the second session last June 23, daddy Jon’s dear one is still to undergo three courses of chemotherapy in the face of piling hospital bills and funds dipping low in short a time. It seems not fair for anybody to be robbed out of all the hopes left just because of a wanting financial resource. But as long as daddy Jon’s faith on helping hands still flicker on the dim light, RAISING 2-3 MILLION IN 2-3 MONTHS could not be entirely out of reach.

Walking on thin line, daddy Jon is trying every way he could think of to fund Yam’s BONE MARROW TRANSPLANTATION. With great hopes that he could somehow hold on still to his daughter’s hands and prolong her life if not to completely win it back.

Is there pain greater than for a father to see his daughter change from a healthy and bubbly newborn to a sickly hospital patient who does not know what comes next?

We could help ease the pain of the family; we could help Yam conquer the disease and win her battle; we could let her see life beyond childhood – go back to regular classes, read her favorite books again, play with her stuffed toys, acquire more than four medals next year, grow up and live a healthy life.

Yam would be eleven on October 18 this year, that is 3 months from now… is there greater gift than giving a helping hand that will push her to victory against AML?