Be that as it may, it was still a blessed year…mainly because our faith in God kept buoying us up. And truth be told, the alternative - thinking that God is deaf and blind to our trials - is unthinkable and unacceptable. God is. The problem is in our lack of trust sometimes, heh.
Despite the many trials and frustrations and disappointments, there were many to be grateful for:
1. My father's successful bypass operation.
If there's one thing I constantly, constantly worry about, it's my 60something parents in the Philippines. I'm the eldest and like most Pinoy panganays, set apart at birth to take care and provide for the elders in their old age. Until I left Manila to be with Hubby C in the US, I fulfilled that role nicely and satisfactorily.Coming to America…I had to relinquish that role temporarily to my younger brother who's also in Dubai. But I never forget to pray for Dad and Mum's health every single day. My prayers always focused on me seeing them again hale & hearty.
Well, in late February last year, Mom called to tell me Dad was at the Heart Center all grayish and gasping for breath. To say that I was sobbing, gasping for breath and battling a full on panic attack is saying it lightly. I was terrified I'd lose my father.
Both Mum and Dad had hypertension and heart problems. Hearing the infinitely-less-than-stellar news got me panicking, mumbling prayers and calling on all the saints to intercede every now and then throughout the days that followed.
And we needed 350,000 pesos for the bypass! We - or rather, Mum and Brother J - scrambled to raise the money. Some family drama - courtesy of paternal aunts - depressed me a bit but the long and short of it is that God sent doctors and people and circumstances to help and by the second week of March, Dad has emerged from a successful procedure.
What I failed to share is that Mom, acting on instinct, brought Dad along with her to Manila when she visited Sis-in-Law R. She was worried about the gray cast to his skin and his recurring chest pain. When she brought him to the Heart Center for a check up, their doctor didn't allow Dad to leave the hospital anymore scheduling an angiogram immediately. The doctor said a few days more and Dad would've had a massive heart attack that could've been fatal. Thank God He gave Dad more years to his life.
2. Full time employment for Hubby C in a work he likes.
Perhaps the worse thing that's ever happened to hubby and me here in America is him getting laid off - sneakily, I might add - in April of 2010. He was a restaurant manager in a chicken place in Daytona Beach. The owner found an assistant manager and without any warning, gave hubby the boot a week after my father-in-law's burial.It was a stressful time and for the first time in our adult life, we had to accept welfare from the government (unemployment checks) just to have something for our needs. It wasn't much but we scraped by. Then hubby got the brilliant idea of going back to school. Hubby lost his work at the height of the US recession so jobs were hard to come by. Returning to school might give him new skills he can monetize better.
He spent all of 2010 and 2011 in school but even after he graduated - cum laude, no less! - it was difficult to find work. Thankfully, by February of last year, he found a job as a resident assistant in one of the assisted living facilities of the Central Florida Catholic Charities. He started as a part-timer but now, he's been upgraded to full time status. Thank God the job came at the time it did!
3. Hubby C quit smoking…finally!
I've been after C to stop smoking for years! Since we started dating in 1997, to be exact. But you know what they say about the smoker and his cigarettes: they're never ever quickly parted.When I couldn't persuade, bribe, blackmail and scare him into chucking his smokey treats, I turned to God. I remember I stopped praying sometime in 2004 and let him be. I figured if he didn't quit on his own and God was okay with him choking down those toxin-laden drags, there was nothing I could do about it.
Then at the start of 2012, for some reason, some gnat bit me and I started praying again for him to quit his ciggies. At the same time, I tried to do some maths for C showing him how expensive his habit was getting on our budget (which was busted, btw).
Out of the blue, on May 22nd to be exact, I received a call from hubby that he was in the emergency room of a Central Florida hospital for - of all things - chest pain. When I talked with him on the phone, he said he was hyperventilating, his blood pressure kept climbing, and his heart kept galloping. He was brought there from work…which was funny, if you think about it. He was supposed to be there to take care of recuperating people and they were worried about him, HA!
Hospital protocol dictated they search out and annihilate each and every reason for his chest pain so he went through a gamut of tests. Ultrasound, EKG, CAT scan, blood tests, stress tests, and more blood tests. The findings? Lowered potassium. That was it? Yep. And oh, potentially gastroesophageal reflux disease. Well, hello there, GERD. Fancy seeing you in my hubby, too.
The wonderful consequence to this visit to the emergency room is that he's stopped smoking cold turkey...on May 22 itself. And no more coffee, soda, and alcohol. Talk about God taking over the persuading for me, heh.
4. Hubby getting a handle on his anxiety attacks.
Turned out hubby's chest pains were due to anxiety attack - yes, that none-so-subtle terrorist of the mind - because of GERD. We couldn't understand where the stress came from but it was certain he had acid reflux. And once we got the diagnosis, hubby's courage dovetailed from there.At work, he started getting shoulder, upper arms and back pains every single blessed day! Not having experienced GERD and its heart-attack-like symptoms, he'd spin into anxiety mode. I remember having to coach him out of his panic funk many times throughout the day. I was starting to get impatient and frustrated at his inability to control his mind.
My constant refrain? "It's all in the mind, darn it! Buck up!" Thanks to very expensive doctors' visits and tests, his heart, chest, stomach and everything else was A-OK, the picture of health so I found no reason for his anxiety attacks.
Well, he couldn't buck up quite well so we went down on our knees again. Thank God, by the end of 2012, hubby was handling his anxiety better. He knows the triggers now and does things to address them proactively. He's still fighting, but the important thing is he's not just calmly lying down on the asphalt and letting anxiety step all over him. Yay for answered prayers and personal victories!
5. Good paying projects.
I don't know if I've said this before but I'm a work-at-home warrior, earning my living writing for money online. Writing is my life and I can't picture myself back on the 9-to-5 rat race, dealing with commute, traffic and office politics. Online freelancing gives me the flexibility of working on my own time, getting to know lots of people from across the globe, and learning stuff.I started working on oDesk as a virtual assistant 3 years ago. From $1 for a 300-word article (I know, highway robbery!), I've graduated to a $15/hour pay rate. I just don't work as a writer anymore, I'm now a full blown internet marketing assistant. The hours are varied depending on how motivated and disciplined I was on a given day. For the most part, I'm a slacker (heh) but I always deliver…well, sometimes beyond the deadline, but I finish what I start.
I had lots of good paying clients in 2012 and I'm praying this will continue this 2013. (So help me, God. Thanks!)
These are just some of the major, major things that made 2012 simply wonderful. There are more but I'm pretty sure I'll never be finished if I list down all the big and small things that God blessed me with last year.
Here's to more and abundant blessings this 2013!
Blessed be!
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