[Editor’s note: You may read Elena’s article, ‘I Thought God didn’t care’, at www.misyononline.com by typing her name in the search box].
I told my oncologist honestly that I was running out of finances to continue treatment. I was supposed to have regular checkups for at least five years and go through a series of laboratory tests. Cancer is a wasting disease both to the patients’ health and their pockets. It drains money by the thousands and even millions for the rich.
By Elena Ang
Since my childhood days I’d always dreamed of acquiring a college degree when I grew up and being a successful professional one day. By a twist of fate, I failed to realize it due to financial constraints. Mother left us for her final resting place when I was barely six years old. At the age of thirteen, I took the yoke of caring for my sick father and three siblings. Though financially drained, I insisted on finishing high school without my father’s approval. Painfully, I recall those times I was driven out of the classroom for failure to settle school financial obligations. I reported to class on an on-and-off basis. I used to leave the classroom with a heavy heart, tears rolling down my cheeks.
Playing the triple role of father, mother and big sister to three small boys wasn’t an easy game. Herding them to bed at night like motherless lambs, not knowing where to get their next meal the following day, shattered me into pieces deep inside. “If I could only provide them with better things in life,” I always told myself.
