18.

18. It feels boring. I think it is an age where you often get bored. It is also an age where you question the fidelity and infidelity of love. This might be the start of a turbulent life in the future, I don’t know, so I had created a compact with myself. First I will never get married, whatever I have and what ever I decided to do, I will dedicate this to my parents. Second, if that time comes that I am going to be bitchy to live- I will kill myself, but neither I think to reach an old age. I know my condition but I am not impelled by it. Therefore I always tends to ask the purpose of being a human. What we are here for? If we are all going to die, what is the purpose of life?

Last October I collapsed at the bathroom. There were nobody home. I was soaked with water and for the next 2 minutes- I was paralyzed. I thought it was the last time to see the world as my vision beams into a tunnel of darkness then I loss control to myself and immediately bitten off the floor. As I was able to regain my consciousness, I kept on saying the name Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! While holding on the gallows of silent gallons of water around me. I saw our house revolving. I cannot even see in clear view what’s around me but I kept on saying the word Jesus Christ. Spitting it in the dead air until I reached my bed. There was nobody home. It was the most punishing silence I ever heard. I cannot even shout because I feel that my throat was gauged. I felt I was like a sparrow shut into a dark cage. I was all alone that time and it was the most lonely afternoon of my life. When my parents came they saw me lying vulnerable, soaked in cold water. That was the first time when I feels that there is something wrong with me. I don’t know what it was.

I felt dumped when we had to sent thousand of pesos when we do not have enough just for those medical tests- it was the most painful moment I guess. I never worried of what will happen. I’am just worried because I saw my parents as they were worrying for me. They have to check my blood, my urine, the electrocardiography of my heart, my cholesterol and everything. When the result came the doctor said in clod blood that at the young age of 17, I have a hypertension and I have to take medication for the rest of my life. That was the start of my romance with Olmezar.

That was the first one.

This May I was writing my first novel, I suddenly saw tiny spots of black dots together with swirling white thread-like floating in my eye. It hinders my vision of letters and of everything around me. They goes after the movement of my eye creating a hallow everywhere I see. Even though they are not there every time, they only appear on day and white lights. I worried. I thought that I will going to be blind because I am aware of the complications of my hypertension.

So I checked the internet and found out that it was indeed floaters. It was the first time to see it and I was upset because those are symptoms of further damage in the retina which will eventually cause blindness if undetected overtime. Here I worried very much. I don’t want to be blind. But sometimes, fear pushes you to do everything. So it has a positive effect in the progress of what I am doing. Fear is the only way to fight back against the lethargy of the moment. Fear is also the only way that pushes human to do the impossible.

Last Monday we went into an ophthalmologist and he was more worried because he saw my blood pressure and it was as high as the ceiling. While we, together with my mama painfully listening as the doctor laid the worst scenario that maybe the floaters are effects of a hypertensive retinopathy brought out because of my hypertension and it might lead, eventually to blindness if not treated immediately.

At the very young age of 17 I had my worst.

So the ophthalmologist suggests that he had to check my retina and it will cost P5000.00. He said it in cold blood and we have no choice. That is the only way to decipher the problem if I will going to be blind. They have to drop 8 times anesthesia on my eyes. It was so painful that I cannot even see for the next 2 minutes every time they put those drops on me. The last one was so traumatic.
Then I was assisted to this machine which will help the doctor to see my retina as it flashes on a computer screen so everyone in the room can see it- my mother and Dr. Pineda and his assistant.

The Machine spits a very dazzling bright light. It was the most dazzling thing that I ever seen- oxymoron on what I saw last October. White all over my senses- and they all saw my retina. It was a magic that a machine can able to see what is beyond human can saw. It was first time humans saw my retina and I felt that my privacy was abridged. Then the doctor inserted a medical device akin to a stick on the surface of my eye to measure the pressure significantly to know wither I have a glaucoma which is a leading cause of blindness. It just took me 5 minutes of that intense suffering. After that, I cannot barely see for an hour and dazzled for the rest of the day. It was the effect of medication they say. When the result was out, my eyes are both safe though some nerve endings are starting to pop but it can be cured by medication. But the doctor warns me of a potent danger since I have a forever romance with my ever changing blood pressure.

It is not that the good days are over. My novel is waiting. The world is just there. The opportunities are waiting for me to seek them. The age is turning older and older every year. The yearnings and learnings. The badass friends stays where they are. 18 years.

I think The purpose of life is the experiences- that every experience presupposes the existence. I have my personal share of suffering and defeat in all those years. Even though I question God sometimes, Jesus is always been an answered prayer.

I just turned 18 today.